Recommendations from our site
“I love Starship Troopers. Maybe not so much for Starship Troopers as it exists, but because of the conversations that we keep having around it in 2025, even though the book was written in 1959. We talk about the book, and we talk about the 1997 movie as well, because that movie gave us so many classic memes, like ‘I’m doing my part.’ For those who don’t know Starship Troopers… It’s about a war that Earth is having with a bunch of aliens who are a bug-like species. The movie is a satire of military propaganda. It is one of those movies that, by today’s metrics, is so bad that it’s good. The book is very contentious, because I think a lot of times folks watch the movie, then go to read the book, and they’re expecting the same level of critique and very obvious satire – and then they get to Heinlein’s writing, and it’s not that. In fact, it reads like Heinlein was pro-military – like he supported a militarised state, felt it was good for the citizens and taught them civic responsibility, and that basic training was a way to make really soft men into functional members of society. The more you read it, the more you begin to think that it’s so heavy-handed that he couldn’t possibly mean it in earnest. But at the same time, it’s not like Heinlein’s other works were completely unproblematic, even by the standards of the 60s. So maybe he did mean that” Read more...
The Best Military Sci Fi Books
A.D. Sui, Novelist
“What really is great about this book to me is that all the science fiction just dissipates in the face of absolute veracity. And that’s something that I think if you’re writing this kind of stuff, you should aspire to. You shouldn’t focus on the gizmos. In this, the power armour is a suit of armour that powers your joints and makes you a lot stronger. These are commonly known as exoskeletons, and I’ve actually worn one of those at Berkeley Bionics. It’s really exhilarating to see that that is something that is already 100 per cent true, but here it just becomes part of the background and the flesh of this story, without ever becoming a huge focus of it. The story ends up being about the characters and a story about war and soldiers suffering, and that’s an amazing accomplishment, I think.” Read more...
Daniel H Wilson, Scientist
