Robert Heinlein: Starship Troopers

[Ursa major]

Only because it was on a national TV channel here in the UK last night and bobbo happened to mention it.

(More people will have seen the film than read the book and so it's a public service to mention that the two are unlikely to resemble each other.)

[Connavar]

Originally Posted by Ursa major

Only because it was on a national TV channel here in the UK last night and bobbo happened to mention it.

(More people will have seen the film than read the book and so it's a public service to mention that the two are unlikely to resemble each other.)

No i didnt mean Bobbo, i meant we rather not go into another talk about movie vs book about this work.

I did help out bobbo by saying they were totally different beasts.

[ghost8772]

In other words, yay, saw the movie, now go hunt down the book and enjoy it for its controversies, its thought provocation about WHAT kind of government? and oh yeah, I'm a thirty second bomb, I'm a thirty second bomb, twenty-nine.... twenty-eight...

The book was a quick read, it did read similar to his have spacesuit will travel that I've read. mainly geared towards the mindset of superficial, not really deep thought kids, who barely note surface impressions of what's going on around them. as an adult we see more of the possibilities of his life than he does.

read the book, then note that yes, the book appealed to one audience, the movie another. both got what they really liked in their media... though sex, guns, and curtains of blood fifteen feet high aren't really my preference in a movie.

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by ghost8772

The book was a quick read[....]

Eh? I'd call it anything but that; or, rather, if you treat it as a "quick read", you're missing the heart of the thing entirely. Something like looking at The Red Badge of Courage as a quick read. It is one of those books meant to cause one to pause and consider; to debate and deconstruct its ideas (and it is about a great deal more than simply a particular type of government). It's a book that has a lot more to it than that, as evinced by the fact it still causes controversy and serious, thoughtful debate some half-century after it was first published... not something you tend to get with a genuine "quick read"....

[ghost8772]

Actually I called it a quick read, because its reading level was not professorial level. the thoughts, and pondering of the story I did once I read the story. the story itself I found interesting in the technology used, and having been in the military, I thought the world he devised built around military service was unique. The concepts in the story were easy to understand, and didn't require additional education to piece together context. that his world was rather revolutionary is a given, considering most of his works deal with a government that was not in actual existence at the time, and his views are seldom if ever conservative.

[steve12553]

I started reading Heinlein books in the 60s and have reread many of them in the 80s and 90s and I found that as an older person I discovered a completely different take on the stories. They appeared to be a quick read when I first read them but the subtleties come out when I read them again. Starship Troopers was anything but simple the second time around. The book, like many of his others, requires a bit of thought to understand what he's saying. And maybe that's exactly what he waas after.

[Urlik]

I think that like many of the great SF writers, RAH wanted to make his readers question every aspect of the world they live in, politics, religion, war, love and relationships.
RAH does a fantastic job of this and manages to raise so many topics in one book that it is no wonder that so many are controversial and critics still can't agree on which side of the fence he is sitting (although they do agree that he doesn't sit on the fence)

[AE35Unit]

I enjoyed the movie apart from the info dump sections,like a recruiting tape thing,didn't get that. But the scene where they fight the aliens was superbly nasty,and thats where film as a media has its strength. Am looking forward to reading the book tho and forgetting the film is related to it.

[ghost8772]

Originally Posted by AE35Unit

I enjoyed the movie apart from the info dump sections,like a recruiting tape thing,didn't get that. But the scene where they fight the aliens was superbly nasty,and thats where film as a media has its strength. Am looking forward to reading the book tho and forgetting the film is related to it.

would work hard to forget the movie related to the book before you even pick the book up. watch it about fifty times but put a card in front of the screen wit ha completely different name..... uhhhh...... Jester's team or something. train your mind to think of the movie by that name. maybe you won't feel so insulted when you see Heinlein's world and Mobile infantry.