Starship Troopers

“Starship Troopers” is less of a space-fairing action novel and more of a futuristic military procedural manual. It won a Hugo in the 1960s, was cheered for its take on a future military, and garnered many positive reviews at the time.

So, what is it about? Well, this is where it gets kind of murky. On the surface, we follow a young man named Juan “Johnny” Rico as he joins the military, particularly the mobile infantry. A war is raging between humans and a bug-like alien species.

Let me curb your enthusiasm a bit. If you were thinking about going to grab the butter-flavored popcorn to sit down to a book of action, this is not going to do it for you. Your popcorn will become stale long before you reach the end. It does have a few combat sequences, but for the most part, it is an ideological dive into fairly narrow political viewpoints.

First and foremost, this book was not for me. I am not all that interested in talking about the controversial aspects of the book, such as its pro-war symbolism, voting rights, dehumanizing, or human moral psychology. All one has to do is pick up a history book for a lesson in these matters. If dreamy political idealism is your thing, this might do it for you.

The structure has quite a bit of exposition, and the info dumps are quite rampant. For me, these sections really stuck out. You have to make up your own mind if you feel these ideals are preachy or have enough introspection to garner a more worldly conversation. I'm just pointing it out.

A positive: I sort of liked the descriptions of the spaceships, the suits, the weapons, and the powered armor specifically, which seems to be a staple in most modern military books, movies, and games.