Lucas's Reviews > Starship Troopers

Where do I even begin? For starters, I should let the reader know that I'm not basing my score on the politics of the book (as laughable as I think they are) but on the plot of the book, or rather the complete lack of a plot in the book. While things do happen, some of them pretty big, Mr. Heinlein has seen fit that we should not be party to any of those things. Instead, he saves the most loving descriptions for daily life at boot camp. Seventy, yes seventy, pages of a two hundred-odd page book are dedicated to boot camp. Within those pages we learn the importance of food, and being able to sleep in any condition. Thrill to the excitment of marching into the middle of nowhere! You will weep and wail along with the officers when you hear them lament the fact that they are compelled, nay forced, to flog their men when they misbehave. Honestly, you could watch the beginning of Full Metal Jacket and skip reading that whole part and save yourself some time, and be more entertained in the meantime.

Next you're treated to an extended flashback where a teacher (who is quite obviously channelling the author) lectures his students (representing the reader) about the major reason for the downfall of society in the past (today!). What one overarching reason is responsible for the collapse of society? Massive energy crisis? Economic collapse? Political anarchy? WRONG!!! It's because people listened to psychiatrists and didn't spank their children enough! The secret to an orderly society is corporal punishment, and lots of it! It does make me wonder about the particular proclivities of the author, but that's neither here nor there.

So now that our main character, Johnny Rico, is a full-fledged soldier we can finally get to some action after half the book is already finished, right? No. No, no, no, a thousand times no. You will not see action in this book that is advertised to be about killing gigantic outer space bugs. Instead, you will be treated to the doldrums of a soldier that isn't busy killing things. Guard duty! Sleeping! Maintaining weapons and space armor! Dinner and its various protocols! Even his time off gets more detail than all the fighting Rico participates in combined! The typical description for a battle will go like this: "We dropped on this planet to smash things up. Boy, what a mess that was. This guy died. These ones got hurt."

Then Rico goes to officer training school where we get more detail about learning things! And another lecture from another teacher to his students about why soldiers should be the only ones to handle government affairs! Then we get told how battallions are broken down into platoons and squads and such forth! Finally we get to the end which turns into one of the biggest anticlimaxes I've ever had the misfortune of reading. You'll get what feels like five hours of blabbing about setting up patrol and coordinates streamed endlessly at you, some thrilling detail on hypnotically suggested sleep, and then a blessed five seconds of actual confrontation with something! Then it's over before you even know it started. The end.

I realize that the life of a soldier is probably pretty accurately portrayed in the book, days upon days of boring drudgery with a few moments of life-and-death craziness, but that doesn't necessarily make for a particularly interesting book. At least not the way it's depicted here.

Don't be fooled by the first ten pages of the book, which actually contain more action than the other hundred and ninety. What you're getting when you get this book is only one step away from a military training manual, only with some references to outer space and aliens tossed in along with a couple crazy rightwing ravings as the chocolatey syrup to go on top of the whole crappy sundae. Don't fall for the hype, pass on this book.

And yes, the movie is better. It's stupid and fun. The book is just stupid.