Rating: 
Summary: It is good
Review: very goo
Rating:
Summary: it is a very good and entertaining book+the price is good
Review: It's grea
Rating: 
Summary: It makes one think ... life today is not that bad.
Review: This book is getting outdated. Read it now. It will make you think. However, it is not as classic as some would make it out to be. The dialogues are poorly written. The enemy illdefined, and the characters are ... poorly conceived. Otherwise, the book offers some potent and fascist answers to world problems today. The author obviously had some gripes against society at large, but at the same time, he destroys his rebellious and radical stature by composing a dialogue that gets no more realistically vulgar than "Gosh". No Action. Just politics. Most of it bad. Still, it was a great read!
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Summary: It will make you think, if you give it a chance.
Review: Enough people have retold the tale in brief so I don't have to. The real meat of the book concerns rights versus responsibilities. I came away regretting not having served my country in the armed forces, and committed myself to using my voting franchise in as responsible a manner as I can. (end of soapbox) One thing that did come home to me in a big way is the report in the book's "history" of the juvenile gangs: I look at the gang scene around the country nowadays and wonder how, forty years ago, he could know us so well. Did he have the "right" solution to the problem? I daresay, with proper responsible handling of the lesson of choices and consequences, it would serve us better than our present system. But, would we be brave enough to try it? Definitely read with your kids. I have.
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Summary: A superb book.
Review: I first heard of ST when I was a little Air Force brat, playing in the base library. I finally read the book after seeing the movie. (Okay movie, glad I saw it first, the book is light-centuries better.) The book made me think, HARD. When I went off to college, this book came with me. (Heck, this book may have influenced my college choice...Army ROTC and bucking for a BS in Aerospace Engineering.) A word for the detractors of this book...it's not "overly militaristic", it's accurate. (They do call you "Mister", and you usually don't like it.) As for RAH's politics, I happen to find them perhaps a bit flawed, but far from fascist or communist. All in all, one of RAH's best works, and a book I suggest every young person should at least thumb through. -Andrew Miller, Cadet Private, Eagle Battalion, Army ROTC
Rating:
Summary: The book is much better than the movie!!!
Review: The cool thing about the book is that at the beginning, unlike the movie, is that the troopers had realistic suits that would amplify the movements of the troopers. They could jump really high, use cool rocket launchers, and really squash some MAJOR BUGS!!! We are talking about some crispy bug juice.
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Summary: Shame on you, Robert Heinlein! See the movie
Review: I was sucked into this book because of the movie and Heinlein's reputation. Let's just say that "suck" is the operative word here. It starts out promising enough in an exciting battle scene, which is always a good starting place. But then the trouble starts. Johnny Rico is a high school kid in Buenos Aires (which from heinlein's depiction might as well Seattle or Atlanta) and joins the Federal Service (a glorified, very glorified version of the military) in order to gain his citizenship. OK, fair enough. Zoom! Suddenly Johnny's bitter, one-armed teacher begins a lesson on history that sounds rather like a riot inciting speech. This goes on a little too long as Heinlein makes it abundantly clear what he's trying to communicate. It goes on like this. There are no more exciting battle scenes, too bad. This book ends up being a thinly-veiled attempt by the "author" to get up on his soap box and preach. After reading the terrible-beyond-words Time Enough for Love, I found this is quite typical of him. His message is simple: there are no intrinsic human rights, rule by brutality, go start a war. Fun guy. Enough about the preaching. The book's story is just as bad. Characters are unbelievable in that they're perfect and the dialogue sounds like it was taken out of a 50's sitcom. I found myself muttering "gee Wally!" to myself several times. We learn little about the book's bad guys, the Bugs, except that they're evil and MUST be destroyed. And there is little conflict beyond that. We never see Johnny wrestling with his thoughts or even any kind of idealogical debate. Heinlein says "this is it, you will believe." Ahh, I feel better. If you want a good book about the ethics of war and fighting bugs try Ender's Game. And watch the movie, you'll be pleasantly surprised.
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Summary: Widely misunderstood by modern "minds", but a true classic
Review: It distresses me when people misread this in Starship Troopers. It does not advocate beating children. Rather, it advocates disiplining them, no matter how unfashionable that is. It does not back facism. It supports the theories that power and responsability are a package deal, and that those who lead should first serve. If that is facism, the meaning of the word has changed a lot in the last few decades. <<Getting off soapbox>> Read it. Read it to your kids. This book is about duty, loyalty and responsability. It isn't about acting, but rather it explores why to act. And who knows. Maybe RAH was right.
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Summary: Not One of His Best
Review: Really, the book's an excuse to rag on about the passing of military values from one generation of soldier to the next. How tiresome and predictable. How obvious and inartistic the writing is. How little action there is (though much is promised). The book also spends an inordinate number of pages musing about the reintroduction of the use of corporal punishment into our society in the future, the problem with "juvenile delinquents," and the problem with prohibiting "cruel and unusual punishment." Well, if you thought the military shtick was boring...! And then there's Dad... Honestly, if you like this kind of stuff in your science fiction, okay, but don't say you haven't been warned.
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Summary: Not so hot, but started me off as a fan
Review: Starship Troopers was the first RAH book I read. In this case I'm sometimes ashamed to say that this is the only movie I've liked better than the book. In the book, the Bugs were much more advanced, carrying guns and flying spaceships. However I believe they were portrayed better in the film--they were truely a collective insect mind, no guns or spaceships, just mindless and ruthless killers. Throughout Heinlein's earlier work, there is the contrast between the individual and the collective, much a result of his views on the American way of life versus Communism. In the noevl the Arachnids are intelligent and beligerent. The film however raises the idea of the Bugs just being mindless soldiers of the higher brain, and fighting the humans only because it was them who were first aggressive. In a way, Hollywood has displayed the individual/collective struggle more aptly than Heinlein did. Plus the resounding sappiness of the book. Heinlein ment it to be another juvenile novel, something depicting a hero that adolecent boys could take a good example from. Toward the end, one of the silliest endings I've ever read, our hero's dad joins up and starts killing bugs at his ripe old age. ? This I found really unnecessary and quite undramatic. Yet I gave the book three stars. Heinlein's writing style I feel is consistantly one of the best. It flows, it's perfectly understandable all the time, and it uses all the right words. I don't think I could justly rate any Heinlein books below 3 stars, no matter how ridiculous the plot or stroy development. He creates good characters, describes clearly, and simply writes very well. Pick up Starship Troopers if you're a beginning Heinlein fan, but don't make the mistake I made and start out with it. It leads to a great many misgivings about Heinlein's outstanding body of work.
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