Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site reed.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!reed!wab
From: wab@reed.UUCP (William Baker)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Starship Troopers
Message-ID: <1520@reed.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 12-May-85 00:50:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: reed.1520
Posted: Sun May 12 00:50:49 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 13-May-85 03:17:53 EDT
References: <147@yetti.UUCP> <1331@reed.UUCP> <168@hyper.UUCP> <701@ncoast.UUCP>
Organization: Reed College, Portland, Oregon
Lines: 68

> Expires:
> 
> Quoted from <168@hyper.UUCP> ["Re: NofTheBeast - True STINKER"], by brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust)...
> +---------------
> | > reader.  I have read just about everything he has written.  Some of
> | > his books have offended me (Starship Troopers, Farnham's Freehold)
> | > 
> | > 						Bill Baker
> | 
> | Yes.  To paraphrase one notable SF writer (Pamela Dean), "Starship
> | Troopers is infuriating and you can't stay away from it."  This
> | 
> | 				-- SKZB
> 
> What is it everyone sees wrong with STARSHIP TROOPERS?
> 
> --bsa
> -- 



	The main problem with Starship Troopers is that it
glorifies war.  John Rico, the main character, spends most of the
book watching his buddies get blown away, all the while moralizing
to himself on the necessity of war.  In the future of Starship
Troopers, the planetary government consists exclusively of veterans
and only veterans can vote.  The overall theme is that people who
do not wish to serve in the military are social parasites.
	Heinlein reasons his arguments well, though.  The
government of veterans does not survive because it is morally
superior to other forms; it continues to govern because it works.
Also, it is made perfectly clear that the Bugs are determined to
exterminate humans.  There is no possibility for a negotiated
peace, so the moral argument is not applicable.
	However, even this premise can be turned on its head.  The
most obvious example of this is Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War".
Haldeman takes Heinlein's premise and some of his plot and turns
the values around.  It is exactly what one would expect from
someone who read Heinlein avidly but also served in Vietnam
(Haldeman).  Great stuff.
	Dean's comment is apt.  I have read my copy of Starhip
troopers so many times that the pages are falling out.  On the
whole, it is not nearly as biased and jingoistic as Farnham's
Freehold.  In that novel he starts out with a nuclear war in which
the main character, a thin, balding contractor/engineer (sound like
someone familiar?), is determined to survive the war by hiding in
his bomb shelter so that he can go out and "kill those pigs who
killed my country!...I may die, but I'll have eight russian
sideboys to carry my coffin!" or something like that.  He and his
gang are blown into the future where Negros are the dominant race
and whites are slaves, making the point, in Heinlein's mind, that
if there were more blacks than whites in modern times then they
would enslave the whites, etc.
	I'm not accusing Heinlein of racism.  If it is there, it is
latent.  Really, though, he has written some things that are
shameful.  Sometimes I wish he would listen to himself as much as
others listen to him.  He contradicts himself a great deal.  On the
other hand, the discussions recently that have denigrated his last
few books and suggested that he is past his prime are off the mark.
Heinlein is self-indulgent, hackneyed, and opinionated, but he is
still writing with the insight and sensitivity has made him one of
the three great s.f. writers.  Hopefully, he will do as he has
always done:  Tell everyone to go to hell and write what he wants
to write.


						Bill Baker
						tektronix!reed!wab