John C. Wright's Journal

STARSHIP TROOPERS
On more step down memory lane, rereading Heinlein’s juveniles. I am not sure if STARSHIP TROOPERS counts as his last juvenile or his first grown-up book, but it is included in the SFBC bound edition called OUTWARD BOUND, which includes two other RAH novels between its covers.

STARSHIP TROOPERS is a coming of age story where a young and somewhat feckless Juan Rico goes through boot camp, finds out that the infantry turns boys into men. He is at first opposed in his ambition by his wealthy father, but in the final scene we see, in a very brief but delightful reversal of fortune, that the father now serves as Rico’s NCO in a platoon he has risen through the ranks to command. My grade: Heinlein’s best juvenile.

But let me qualify that grade. As a reader, this is one Heinlein’s best work for kids. As a writer, I see evidence of the same slap-dash, first-draft carelessness of craftsmanship which marred PODKAYNE of MARS. The plot here is that there is no plot.
( more here, including one rude noise )
STARSHIP TROOPERS is a book about coming of age. It is a book about the rights and obligations of citizenship: the weight of duty. Rico makes a feckless decision to join the Service. Later, he is wilting in boot camp, and ready to quit: a letter from an old teacher puts the heart back in him, and he realizes he’s grown into his boots. Rico secretly overhears the hated Sergeant express concern about the trainees under his command: a moment of maturity. An evening of R&R shows him how powerful and dangerous he and his buddies are compared to civilians. Rico is growing.

Best of all, since Rico is in the service, there are no female characters of note, and so we weary readers are not exposed to Heinlein’s famous sexual liberation theology. There is no Jill Boardman or Star the Sexy Space Empress telling us sex is fun and prostitution is an honorable profession and monogamy is merely a foolish local earth-custom.

Instead we get to hear lectures on how harsh life is, and how soldier must kill the enemy in combat to prevent the enemy from killing him. This is a perfectly noble and sensible philosophy for any marine to have, or policeman, or anyone who must do harm to the guilty in order that the innocent might be spared. It is not, of course, a Christian philosophy, but then again Heinlein was not writing STARSHIP CHAPLAINS, which would be an interesting book in its own right.

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