Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein

Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition

First published: 1959

Type of work: Novel

The Work

In addition to winning for Heinlein his first Hugo award, Starship Troopers put an end to the Scribner’s juvenile series. Heinlein wrote it for the series, but Scribner’s rejected it. That rejection was the beginning of years of controversy over Starship Troopers.

Many readers, and a majority of academic critics, objected to the overt militarism of the book. Despite the Hugo, science-fiction fans at conventions in 1960 distanced themselves from the book’s philosophy; a youth-oriented radio talk show on WMCA in New York even devoted its October 23, 1960, broadcast to a critique of Starship Troopers and its philosophy. There had been military settings in the juvenile series before: Space Cadet describes an interplanetary military; the protagonist of Between Planets joins a militia on Venus; Citizen of the Galaxy ends with its hero enlisting in the Exotic Corps. What is different about Starship Troopers is that it describes a society in which government service of some sort (though not always infantry) is an absolute requirement for full citizenship.

This system, often distorted by critics into a fascist nightmare, is what caused the controversy—and guaranteed sales. It is described through the experiences of the narrator, Juan (“Johnny”) Rico, who enlists in the Mobile Infantry and tells of his training. Much of the story is interrupted by his flashbacks to a high school civics course on history and moral philosophy. Mandatory for all high school students in the society Heinlein depicts, this course teaches the moral imperative of citizenship: placing society’s welfare before one’s own. The course must be taught by a veteran of government service who has by that service proved this moral imperative.

The flashbacks do not interrupt the flow of the narrative, for the points discussed in the classes are always germane to what is happening to Johnny in boot camp. Furthermore, Johnny’s instructor of the class, Jean V. Dubois, is very much like his drill instructor, Ship’s Sergeant Charles Zim. Indeed, it turns out that Dubois, whom Johnny is shocked to discover was a lieutenant colonel in the Mobile Infantry, was a battle comrade of Sergeant Zim.

Both Dubois and Zim are mentor characters, a familiar type in Heinlein’s fiction-—especially in the juvenile series for which Starship Troopers was originally written. They are distanced from Johnny a bit more than in the juveniles by the institutional respect necessary in high school and in the military. Nevertheless, these characters give Johnny the moral and intellectual guidance that he cannot get from his parents.

Following the pattern of the coming-of-age story in the other juveniles, this book depicts Johnny Rico’s maturing process as a function of his independent decision making. His first independent choice is the enlistment itself. Johnny’s father, a successful businessman, scorns the military and denounces the history and moral philosophy course as a shameless recruiting device for government service. His mother, a domineering, overly protective woman, weeps at the news of his enlistment and refuses to see him off.

Johnny’s breach with his parents is healed, paradoxically, by the completion of his “breaking away.” Halfway through the novel he receives a letter of reconciliation from his mother, though she reveals that his father will still not allow Johnny’s name to be mentioned. When his mother is killed by an alien attack on Earth, however, Johnny’s father sees the wisdom of Johnny’s decision to enlist and joins the Mobile Infantry himself. In the final chapter, the reader sees Johnny’s father as a platoon sergeant in “Rico’s Roughnecks,” Johnny’s first command as an officer. Father and son fight side by side.

It may be argued that the powered suit described in Starship Troopers is the true hero of the book. It is perhaps the best example of Heinlein’s skill at scientific explanation, and of his “engineering” approach to science fiction. There are tidbits of description and explanation throughout the book, but chapter 7 is virtually all a treatise on the “p-suit.” The science behind it is the principle of negative feedback, which Johnny describes as a nontechnical expert. Any muscular movement of a soldier wearing a p-suit is picked up by sensors in the suit and amplified by its hardware, turning every p-suited soldier into a superman.

The delivery system for p-suited Moblie Infantry is described in almost as much detail in the opening chapter. The Moblie Infantry are also known as “cap troopers.” The “cap” is short for “capsule,” the metal egg in which the Mobile Infantry soldier is dropped from a spaceship onto the surface of a planet. The metal skin burns off in the atmosphere, and the cap trooper lands by parachute and suit jets—an interplanetary version of today’s paratrooper.

In Expanded Universe, Heinlein categorized the four most common criticisms of Starship Troopers and the society it depicts and defended his novel against each of them. The first, an objection to a requirement that only veterans could vote, is based on a popular misunderstanding of the word “veteran.” In Starship Troopers, as in common usage, the word does not necessarily mean military veteran. The book makes clear that most veterans are what could be called former civil servants.

To the second objection, that the system traps people in government service indefinitely, Heinlein specifies that any enlistee can resign at any time, except soldiers in combat. The third objection, especially pointed during the Vietnam War, is a repugnance for conscription. There is no conscription in the novel, however, and Heinlein also objected to the draft. The final criticism, that the novel and its society are militaristic, is somewhat imprecise. As no member of the military is allowed to vote, the government is not a military one. Starship Troopers does glorify the military, however, and that fact delighted Heinlein.

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