Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site topaz.ARPA
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!columbia!topaz!DP0N@CMU-CS-A.ARPA
From: DP0N@CMU-CS-A.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Starship Troopers
Message-ID: <2067@topaz.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 22-May-85 12:36:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.2067
Posted: Wed May 22 12:36:18 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 24-May-85 20:58:48 EDT
Sender: daemon@topaz.ARPA
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 24

From: Don.Provan@CMU-CS-A

Gee, I had a completely different view of Starship Troopers.  Admittedly,
I was young at the time, and I've never heard what Heilein thought of it,
but I thought it was almost anti-military.  The first attack scene comes
to mind where the entire idea was to terrorize a relatively peaceful
people.  I can't remember if they were actually helping the bugs or
were just aligned with them or just sympathetic with them, but the idea
of sending down an overwhelmingly superior force to kill, destroy, and
frighten indiscriminately seems like a typically military reaction and
not a very pleasant nor effective one.

I also saw the "bugs" as just your typical enemy.  Did the government just
work the soldiers (and the civilians, too, of course) into the typical
military frenzy, like the view of Germans as baby eaters?  Were they
really bugs, or just humanoids with some buglike features?  Were they
really all that aggressive?  What I'm saying was that they were painted
so ugly by the protagonist's views that you had to say "this *must* be
an exageration."

Maybe it was just because this was when I thought Heinlein was a god,
before I read so many old-man-getting-lots-of-sex-teaches-youngster-how-
to-view-life stories.
							provan@lll-mfe.arpa