Starship Troopers...

Oh absolutely. In my opinion it was absolute pooh! I didn't care for anything he wrote after Time Enough for Love . . . which in itself was very ponderous and sometimes made the reader feel as if he needed to 'get out and push' the plot -- such as it was -- along.

 

A friend of mine who was in the business claimed that the biggest issue was Heinlein's contracts agreed not have any editing done to the manuscripts.

 

Yes, that is correct; which just goes to show that even top rated authors still need some editorial input. Perhaps in the Science Fiction genre only Issac Asimov didn't (perhaps) and he was a certified genius.

 

Asimov would be one of the few who could pull it off. He always used a very minimalist style that usually does not take much editing. Though John Campbell did say Asimov used commas the way most people use decorations on a Christmas tree

 

He was in fact a socialist when younger.

The book For Us, The Living, was released after his death and was a paean to Social Credit theory. And in 1934 he worked on the California Governor’s race for Socialist Upton Sinclair.

 

I never read the books but I actually got the impression he was ripping on the military somewhat in the movie for not looking at alternatives and simply rushing to war immediately.

 

Yeah I am going to have find that novel. Thanks for the call out

 

Well the book is operating in a different frame work to the film. The producer is said to have claimed he'd never read the book. One of the major differences in the film is its attempts to lampoon war propaganda. In the book the huge failed attack is more of a plot device to put Johnny Rico and the Roughnecks in the position Heinlein needed to try and tell a more personal story

 

No; aside from similar character names the book (there was only one book) and the movies have almost nothing to do with one another. The book was essentially about a young man growing up during warfare while also learning what his duties and responsibilities were as a citizen. It was more or less a sober coming of age story and a treatise on citizenship. The movies were strictly for entertainment.

 

Heinlein's influence is shown in Roddenberry's Star Trek.
My thoughts on Starship Troopers...well, playing the devil's advocate, it tends to simplify war into a literal dehumanization of the enemy...bugs.
I liken it to a book length recruiting poster. Yes, it's on the reading list of many influential military leaders, both past and present...I won't deny it's popularity in military culture. I thought it lacked a deeper introspection into the realities of war...the fog of war...the aftermath with issues like PTSD..civilian casualties, collateral damage. If the book had a score, it would be the Star Spangled Banner. I think the reality is more complex than the almost fetishist worship of the military presented in the book. It could just as easily be written from the perspective of a futuristic Wehrmacht (Terran Federation)..and the "bugs" replaced by a disenfranchised peoples.

Yes, I'm going there...the book to me was overtly fascist...perhaps this is just in the genetics of the war loving Prussians.. Frederick the Great limited the freedom of citizens of his country and introduced harsh compulsory military service...which to me Starship Troopers sets a similar tone...although fictionalized of course.

My personal beliefs are that it is highly immoral for a state...to extort compulsory military service from it's citizenry..forcing them, if you will...to kill on behalf of the state. Granted in the book, service was all-volunteer...but the rights of full citizenship could not be attained without military service. It is at least a step up from an actual draft.

 

Yes and here's another fun fact. In 1992 his widow (second marriage) published a manuscript of travel notes created when he and she toured the world in 1953 and 1954 and in that memoir he points out that the Joseph McCarthy shenanigans were really not all that serious when you got right down to it . . . and so by then he no longer had strong socialistic leanings as such. Another interesting thing was that he more or less predicted the problem with Muslim worshipers and the West at one point. Oh it was very broad indeed, but he did indicate the there would eventually be serious cultural and religious clashes. Oh . . . and the book was titled Tramp Royale.

 

Visually I thought the film was very good. I am sure there was a plot in there, but I think it was obscured by bug guts. And you have to admit the bugs ground to air defense was pretty special

 

And it is interesting the same year produced the first Darassi novel, another outstanding military novel by Gordon R Dickson, must have been something in the water back then lol

 

I liked that co-ed shower scene in the first film. Aside from that, however, I preferred the book.

 

Except for Grumbles From The Grave, I have never paid much attention to his non fiction. I suffer the same thing with Asimov actually. But I guess I have to put this on the reading list as well

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah definitely no ugly chicks in the future lol

 

Ugh, Asimov's non-fiction! The man was a bloody expert on everything. He produced a summation of general science in the 1990s I think. It was a huge book and dry as dust . . . but for a variety of reasons I made myself wade through it anyway. It was a great reference text. Oh and he also was a fan of dirty limericks. I think I have one of his books on that somewhere. Really funny and filthy stuff!

 

There is a great interview with him in the book Dream Makers, only a couple of years before he died. And you think he liked a limerick....he was an absolute sucker for a good pun

 

Hah! I have Dream Makers! Yeah Asimov was something else.

 

I'm surprised it took this long in the thread for the fascism word to show up. "Fascist" was frequently used in the (bad) reviews of the movie. I think because the uniforms were vaguely Nazi like and the enemy was treated like... an enemy; and an existential threat at that. But that's just costuming and tone. Although I disagree that even the movie could be described that way, I do understand why the word would come up.

But I don't see that at all for the book. The government was pretty clearly a Republic. The war didn't seem to even have much impact on the civilian population. Like our recent wars, unless you were in or knew someone who was in the service, it wasn't a day to day part of the average person on Earth. A little different for the colonies but people who were not voters/citizens weren't that interested in those sort of matters anyway. Otherwise they would have been veterans and therefore "citizens."

Although I generally agree with you about the draft, there was none in the book. So I don't see it as relevant. Meanwhile the US has had a draft for almost every war up until we retired the draft in the 70's. A republic that doesn't have a draft? That's not fascism in my book.

 

There is supposed to be a second volume but I have not heard of anybody who knows anyone who owns a copy

 

Ahem! (Raises hand) I own volume II as well. Truth to tell though I think that Volume I was a little better. It seemed to me that in the first volume of interviews Platt let more of the unique character of each author shine through whereas in the second volume he seemed to have a bit different agenda. That may just be my imagination though.

 

Okay so the volume with the Asimov interview, is that volume 1 or 2 - And what is the name of the other volume?

 

Issac Asimov is on page One of the first volume of the Dream Makers books. The title page designation for Dream Makers II is . . . Dream Makers Volume II: The Uncommon Men and Women Who Write Science Fiction . . . Interviews by Charles Platt. The ISBN number is 0-425-05880-8

The first author interviewed in Volume Two is Jerry Pournelle. Though I haven't conducted a search for it you might be able to find it through abebooks.com Yes, I just checked with them. Here's a link that should take you to precisely the correct page:

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Sea...ommon+Men+and+Women+Who+Write+Science+Fiction

 

Awesome thread guys! I'll play ketchup tommorow/today...

 

Book? It's an interesting juxtaposition reading "ST" and then reading "Stranger in a Strange Land". Heinlein talking "civic virtue" and "guts and glory"....and then talking free love and "Thou art God", at once embracing and pointing out the flaws in modern Christianity.



Movie? Aside from laughing at Neil Patrick Harris in Nazi regalia mind-melding with a giant Larva.....and seeing Dina Meyer naked? Not much worthwhile in it.