Starship Troopers

Review ebook Starship Troopers

My first impulse is to dismiss it as an appalling piece of militaristic propaganda, whose one saving grace is that it’s at least much better than the movie. But that wouldn’t be doing the book justice. With all its faults, I simply loved it as a 14 year old, and I’m in no way alone there. Why is it so fascinating?

Let me start by dismissing a couple of possible theories. One reviewer wonders if it’s deadpan satire. I suppose, when you see some of Heinlein’s later books (Stranger in a Strange Land My first impulse is to dismiss it as an appalling piece of militaristic propaganda, whose one saving grace is that it’s at least much better than the movie. But that wouldn’t be doing the book justice. With all its faults, I simply loved it as a 14 year old, and I’m in no way alone there. Why is it so fascinating?

Let me start by dismissing a couple of possible theories. One reviewer wonders if it’s deadpan satire. I suppose, when you see some of Heinlein’s later books (Stranger in a Strange Land, 1961; I Will Fear No Evil, 1970), you may get the idea that he’s some kind of hippy New Age prophet, and that Starship Troopers is poking fun at the militaristic right. I don’t think that idea stands up to serious examination. Many of Heinlein’s early books extol militaristic right-wing/libertarian virtues; Sixth Column (1949) is a particularly flagrant example. From what I’ve heard, the “satire” theory is in fact the reverse of the truth. Stranger in a Strange Land was originally conceived as a satire; Heinlein was surprised to see that people liked it and read it straight, and, more flexible than he’s often made out, he rewrote it that way and followed it up with a couple of similar books.

Many more people are taking Starship Troopers at face value, and appreciate how it presents the military in a positive light. Well, there’s clearly something to that. But why does this book, as opposed to many others, do such a fantastic job of selling this particular point of view? If you’re a soldier yourself, I can see that Heinlein, also a soldier, can make you proud of what you’re doing. But my parents were strict believers in non-violence, and I’ve never had any contact with that world at all. I still thought it was great.

So, on mature consideration, here’s another theory, which I claim relates better to Heinlein’s oeuvre as a whole. (By the way, I’m only saying “oeuvre” because I know it would annoy him). One theme that he keeps returning to over and over again, in different forms, is the relationship between the self and the rest of the universe. Heinlein’s metaphysics were distinctly odd: he wasn’t sure that he liked the rest of the universe much, or even if it existed in the first place. You can occasionally see this idea presented in a straightforward way. In his short story They (1941), it turns out that the paranoid main character is completely right about what’s going on. He’s the most important person in the world; everyone else, for reasons never revealed, is involved in a gigantic conspiracy against him, whose main purpose is to prevent him from discovering who he really is. In The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag (1942), we find, again, that things truly aren’t as they seem, and that all existence is illusory. The world, we learn at the end, is a work of art, and can be changed at any moment. Hoag is in fact an art critic, sent to judge us on aesthetic grounds. And in the classic time-travel story All You Zombies (1959), the hero discovers that he’s his own father and mother. As he says, he knows where he came from; but where did all you zombies come from? The final paragraph gives us to understand that other people may not exist at all.

As we see, Heinlein rather likes solipsism, which, when you come down to it, isn’t as ridiculous a philosophical position as you might think. (Wittgenstein: the solipsist is saying something sensible, but chooses an odd way to express it). Heinlein has a strong sense of self, and wants to erect a barrier, as tangible as possible, between him and the rest of the world. A powerful metaphor for this barrier, which he used many times, is the space suit. Have Space Suit, Will Travel (1958) is not one of his best books, but the descriptions of what it’s like to walk around in a space suit are quite good. I remember them clearly, when most of the rest of the story has faded. Similarly, Space Cadet (1948), which I read at primary school, is hastily written and uninspired; but again, the only scene I can recall clearly is the one where the teenage hero throws up in his space suit after inadvisedly drinking a mint julep. I was so impressed by this that I didn’t dare try a mint julep myself until I was in my mid-40s.

I hope you see where I’m going. What makes Starship Troopers so effective, I claim, is the space suit theme, which here is taken to its logical conclusion. The Mobile Infantry Suit simultaneously cuts off its wearer from the rest of the world, and makes him almost invincible. It’s no coincidence that the stunning opening scene highlights the suit’s amazing capabilities. The hero is dropped directly from space onto a hostile planet, and spreads mayhem with his high-tech weapons while jumping a mile at a time in his jet-propelled boots – all without needing to touch anything directly, or feel involved in the fates of the humanoid creatures he’s killing by the hundred. Fans of the book uniformly hated the movie: for budget reasons, Verhoeven took out the suits, which were too complicated to render effectively. After that, everything felt wrong. The most important part of the imagery was missing.

As already noted, Heinlein wasn’t writing a satire – he appeared to believe in this stuff – but I think he found a good way to dramatize what it means to be a member of the American military-industrial complex. The Suit gives its wearer superhuman technological powers, while excluding the rest of the world to the point where it barely exists at all. And the power the Suit confers isn’t just military, but also political and moral. In Heinlein’s world, one only becomes a full citizen after serving in the military. I don’t agree that this is a desirable way to organize a society, but Heinlein was describing what he saw: in 1959, Eisenhower, a former general, was nearing the end of his second term, and would be succeeded by Kennedy, a decorated war hero. Both were very popular.

Now, of course, things have changed, and the military-industrial complex is usually cast as the villain. In Avatar, I couldn’t help thinking that the robotic exoskeleton worn by the evil Colonel Quaritch in the final scene was rather like the Mobile Infantry Suit; the Colonel’s defeat, as many people have pointed out, can be read as predicting the impending defeat of American Imperialism at the hands of a resurgent Third World. I do wonder what Heinlein would have made of that.
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