About this title: In a world of the future, a young man undergoes brutal military training after graduating from high school. Then an alien fleet invades Earth, and the young trooper must put his training to the test in a galactic-scale war.
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Description: Very Good. 0425037878 Clean copy with some shelf wear on edges of cover, slight creasing on cover corners (everything lays flat). Pages sharp. Unread condition. No marks or highlighting in text. No remainder mark from publisher. Accurate Descriptions with Fast Shipping & Robust Packaging. GRN104M. read more
Description: Good. 0425049965 A Good copy. Softcover. Pages sharp and clean. No marks or highlighting in text. Pages have ambered with age. Wear to the cover corner tips. Creasing on the spine and cover, lays flat. This book has NOT been marked as a remainder by the publisher. Accurate Descriptions with Fast Shipping and Robust Packaging. BRN117M. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: PB, A Berkley Medallion Book, #S1560, 1968, 2nd printing. Covers are well worn at the extremities, light edge wear, contents browning but tight and clean. Fair. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Ace
Date Published: 1987-05-15
ISBN-13:9780441783588ISBN:0441783589
Description: Very Good. Light wear on cover. Pages clean. Reliable seller. Fast shipping from central Texas. All international orders ship by airmail. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Ace Books
Date Published: 1987
ISBN-13:9780441783588ISBN:0441783589
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Light edge and corner wear. Birthday wishes taped neatly inside. Tight, square book. Tanning pages. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 263 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Ace Books
Date Published: 1987
ISBN-13:9780441783588ISBN:0441783589
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 263 p. Audience: General/trade. Book is in very good condition. Cover has some light edge wear. Pages are clean, binding is tight. We ship daily, Satisfaction Guaranteed. read more
Edition: Later Printing
Binding: Paper
Publisher: Berkley Books, New York
Date Published: 1968
ISBN-13:9780425032183ISBN:0425032183
Description: Very Good+ in Paperback. No Dustjacket. 4 x 7" A solid copy; ----------SATISFACTION GUARANTEED---------FAST, COURTEOUS SERVICE------ read more
Description: Good. 0441014100 Fast Shipping. Cover is torn, wrinkled, missing or book is otherwise damaged. Customer Service is our #1 priority. read more
Edition: 24th printing.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group
Date Published: 1981
ISBN-13:9780425049969ISBN:0425049965
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Clean solid book. Some light shelf wear and fading to cover. Pages toned due to age. Owner bookplate on FFEP. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. Audience: General/trade. read more
"I avoided this novel for the longest time because of the movie. I worship the movie released in 1997, Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop, Total Recall, Showgirls!). I was afraid the book would be verbatim of the movie and I hate knowing the ending of a novel before reading it. But this is one of those extremely rare cases where the movie and the novel and completely different works of art and enhance each other.
This is hardcore military science fiction. The book has three running landscapes. (1) The boot camp details of cadets training to become Mobile Infantry and then Officers. (2) On the ground fighting with high tech weaponry / alien landscape details. (3) Didactic discussions of politics and society in Boot Camp and the H.S. "History and Moral Philosophy" course.
I really got into this book, not a fast reader but I dived in and finished this in about a week. What surprised me was that I'm not an advocate for military service, armed conflict, the design and implementation of armed forces hierarchy. But I couldn't help but be inspired by the rigorous training, discipline, And yes this is militaristic glorification; I bought it hook line and sinker. This book motivated me to try my own boot camp which I am in the midst of now: stopped drinking, work out everyday, watch my diet carefully, cut back on smoking, get into politic podcasts.
Remarkably timeless. This was written in 1958-59? You couldn't tell it. Surprisingly predictive; the Chinese-Hegemony. The technology is inspired. A real departure from The Forever War (1974) which I found dated.
Smart, thought provoking, controversial. I jonesing to have a debate with someone who has read this novel. The main political conceit is that you can only vote, be hired to elected office if you complete 2 years of volunteer Federal Service. And anyone can volunteer and even if you are handicappd they will find something for you to do... Voting is not open to anyone: "...who is 18 years old and has a body temperature near 37°C (Heinlein, pg 93). The idea is that only those who have paid for the right to vote through act of selflessness "sweat, hard work, suffering etc,,," have the right to contribute to the shape of the civic landscape. There is not much more nuance to it that that and the book deals with other side issues like the questions of our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness... I won't go into it here but its worth a read through the viewpoints espoused. Facists? sure, unrealistic ? maybe. but it's a politic theory that will certainly get you thinking."
"An excellent sci-fi classic that not only made commonplace the concept of powered armor, but also in many ways does the best job of describing such armor. Heinlein's sci-fi universe is fascinating, enthralling, and surprisingly plausible. Although Heinlein said that people usually only mentioned the book to criticize him, I find myself wishing he'd turned this book into a series.
Originally written with a juvenile audience in mind, Starship Troopers is not extremely violent (although perhaps too violent for juveniles), and Heinlein is not an expert when it comes to action scenes. In fact, most of the book is slow-paced and at times tortuous. The key focus is not the violent conflict, but the philosophical and political strands underlying it.
I read somewhere that people criticize this book as racist because of the brutal intergalactic conflict between men and giant alien bugs, but this is far from the truth. Rather, Heinlein's anti-Marxian political philosophy is coldly scientific, to the extent that this war is no more than the ongoing evolutionary struggle of species. If it were racist, the book would simply assume that humans are the better race, destined to overcome the bugs. In truth, the book assumes nothing. Humans must prove themselves the better race by overcoming their adversaries, and until the war us over, all bets are off.
Consequently, although I bitterly oppose Heinlein's utilitarian understanding of humanity, whereby morality is solely an extension of the natural instinct for self-preservation, I love reading it nevertheless. It provides an interesting perspective that even if ultimately untrue, deserves to be heard."
"So this week my book club read "Starship Troopers." I of course read it when I was 12 and a few times since, none since I was in 9th grade or so. I loved it as a pre-teen. Going back to it, though, kinda ruined it. What I--and most of the book club--realized was that the society depicted within the book is basically fascist, and that there's a lot of Heinlein philosophizing scattered throughout, in which he makes absurd claims like that the juvenile delinquent scare of the 50s was caused by parents not spanking their children enough. The parts that are a space adventure/war story are still pretty good, but they are hugely overshadowed by all the ersatz philosophy. I didn't remember this at all, but nearly a quarter of the book is devoted to lectures in which Heinlein "proves" various theories based on an imagined future history that doesn't even remotely resemble what has happened in the 50 years since this book came out. And thank god, because this would be a military-run fascist society by now if it had."
"I first read this book when I was 12, in 1962, and have read it again many times, and have also read most of the books dedicated to figuring out what Heinlein really meant. Heinlein, you see, is like Bob Dylan, he writes a good story as he thinks about it, then moves on while the rest of us stagger along trying to fathom it's mysteries. It was the sixth Heinlein book I had read, and it was definitely more "adult" then the adolescent themed stories he was known for. Heinlein's books all follow a futuristic timeline, what he called a "future history", and this book occurs about 100 years after the "times of troubles". This "future history" was unprecedented in 1959, it meant Heinlein had to stick to the technology and culture of each era. Later books and stories would build on some of the ideas first introduced here, there would be failures and successes, but mankind moved on. . Juan Rico was part American and part Brazilian, a very rare combination in 1959! Heinlein had already written a book with a young girl as the heroine, and later he would include a bi-sexual hero as well. Juan's father is the same father in the song "Cat's in the Cradle", look it up and give it a listen. Juan is mystified by women, well, most young men were in those days, and based on what I've seen lately, still are. Juan has to grow up, from a spoiled boy, to a responsible adult, in just 200 pages! Heinlein's writing has been compared to Earnest Hemingway, sparse, yet descriptive, sometimes slow, but never trivial. . Starship Troopers has one important theme missed by many, on the original cover, Heinlein wrote : "Starships tick away the light years, but the act of dying remains the same". Heinlein hated war, he thought it immoral as well as a complete waste of time and energy. He feared dying because he wanted to experience the future, and see if any of his ideas worked out. (Waldoes certainly did!) He predicted lots of "brush wars", a tyrannical theocracy, (I hope not!) and the eventual colonization by humankind of space. (I hope so!) . Heinlein's basic questions for the reader of Troopers were simple: When we finally meet an alien civilization, will it be war, or will it be peace? Will the human race survive without destroying itself? Can the individual survive as a free and independent person, or will we become just another warm body on the assembly line? . Heinlein was not an action writer, he was an "idea man". He wrote about the big picture, the forest, and of humankind in general. That so many people still read this book today and have so many different opinions of it, is a great tribute to a great mind. ."
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