Starship Troopers

Robert Heinlein’s most important military science fiction work deserves all the praise people heap upon it. It’s not just a book about Earth’s military trying to defeat giant alien bugs; it’s a look at the moral, ethical, and philosophical implications of war, life, duty, and perhaps most of all, how young people should progress. It’s a complicated series of concepts, and a rather intense novel as well, and one which is by-far the most readable of all Heinlein’s work. Of course, it is not just the story, but the way that it ties in with the Cold War, which was just a about as hot as it would get in 1959. Heinlein is taking shots at a post-World War II America that he argues is losing its way by forgetting what discipline is required to serve the American moral identity, and that the ‘softening’ of America, as demonstrated by the beginnings of the abandonment of corporal and capital punishment. This is an incredibly political novel, one which you will never mistake for anything other than what it is, but also one that is thrilling and incredibly intelligent. Why it’s on the list It’s the prototype for modern military science fiction.