SM Book Club- Starship Trooper- DISCUSSION

@DKR i agree with you on many point in the above post, my differences have to do with what I think 'man' as a species is capable of. Basically we have a tribal mentality that we try to apply to a larger society. And by tribal I mean we get along better in smaller groups because when you know the person you are arguing with, and one day your life may depend on them, you are much better behaved. Most ppl cant or wont think in terms of a larger context or cause.

What Starship Trooper did was create an outside enemy, bugs, that the protagonists could focus on. In American politics we are focused on each other and not a 'survival of the species' scenario. The book gave a larger goal for the characters to focus on and let them deal with their differences inside of saving mankind. Its a brilliant piece of writing.

I still think Heinlein did a good job of showing all those divergent view points, via Juan Rico's parents, Rico himself, a boy becoming a man and trying to figure out what he believed in. He also included unrequited love, a small snapshot of gender equality, and the one woman who went into Federal service because she wanted babies. Heinlein did a good job of showing alot of different thinking in a very short novel.

 

At 263 pages, SSt is a mid-sized book. Originally cast as a YA book, it is a bit shorter than some of his later work . (My own books of 100K+ words are listed on Amazon as 282 pages.)

RAH's shorter works were found in magazines. His longest book - Time Enough for Love, is 598 pages and was published in 1973. It really shows its age due to more recent advancements in genetics..

 

The authors take on juvenile criminals vs. training a puppy was extremely interesting. I had never thought of it in this light. But then the author started talking about morals. His stance was very different from what I
believe or have always thought. I have always believed that not matter where you are, how you were raised, that one would have a sense born into them of knowing right from wrong. I have always thought that even if you wee born into a world, a family etc.. with "ghetto values" that one could still raise themselves up. I guess that would be the ~ hard sweat of the mind. I do believe that that is the hardest one of the three. I do believe that mental is harder then physical.

 

I am not done with the book yet but one thing I keep thinking of is the resurrection of flogging. When Hendrick was sentenced to a flogging it took me a bit. I kept thinking over and over why. Why would a sci-fy book, set in the future revert back to flogging. The book gets into public floggings and flogging being a punishment. I could have assumed that with the rise of technology that a more sophisticated form of punishment would have been developed vs. using an old style punishment. I wonder if it really is an effective way to deter misbehavior. I know I hated getting the wooden spoon.

I wonder if they started using public flogging on the gangsters now if it would work. I think not because they would step up their attacks on the officials so there would have to be a huge break down in order to make the public floggings be a deterrent. Something I need to ponder on more. Did anyone else find the reverting back in punishment interesting? We always think with will continue forward but could this be one old way that worked?

 

@Motomom34
The two (Morals are learned behavior and the flogging) are part of a whole meme.
This goes back to the "You don't cut the head off of a puppy - you use a rolled newspaper" passage. And don't forget the puppy must be swatted almost instantly after they puddle the floor, for example, or they won't make the connection.

Flogging is done both publicly and as soon after the conviction as possible. In some cases the parents are flogged as well - again, as part of a very public humiliation. It is almost always non-lethal. And it shows society disproves of how the child/parent acted. Fantasy, even then.

I think you can see where Mr. Dubois (and Heinlein) are coming from. Nevertheless, it seems they are making the mistake of conflating the severity of punishment with the certainty of punishment. In Japan, for example, the criminal expects to get caught.

Why this mattered to RAH. In modern jurisprudence (this even back in the 50s) the times between crime-arrest-punishment could literally take years. The "Juvenal court system" was just a big a mess back then (don't ask how I know). The flogging was intended to be both very painful and very public. The human social equivalent of smacking a puppy with the newspaper. "Justice" in the book was portrayed as swift, but the sure was open for discovery for the reader.

As for flogging gang-bangers today. No. The punishment would have little positive effect - as the recipient is almost certainly beyond recovery at that point. The offender certainly lacks the role models and support needed to stay on the straight and narrow. In this I agree with RAH - the situation is, in at least part, a failure of the greater society or at least the society that the offender lives within.
Perhaps old age and more life experience might make a difference, but sadly the (young) offender has no moral compass the realign.

The book lays it out thus:
There is a description on how parks were horribly dangerous back then... (I suspect Central Park was on the author's mind)

"Law-abiding people hardly dared go into a public park at night. To do so was to risk attack by wolf packs of children, armed with chains, knives, homemade guns, bludgeons . . . to be hurt at least, robbed most certainly, injured for life probably or even killed. This went on for years, right up to the war between the Russo-Anglo-American Alliance and the Chinese Hegemony. Murder, drug addiction, larceny, assault, and vandalism were commonplace. Nor were parks the only places these things happened also on the streets in daylight, on school grounds, even inside school buildings. But parks were so notoriously unsafe that honest people stayed clear of them after dark." Sounds familiar even today - only it is far worse in many areas.

In a lecture (one of many found in the book and criticized by many) Mr. Dubois (his high school 'teacher') goes on to explain how and why this 'state of nature' came to be. Western society quit punishing children. Young offenders were classified as "juvenile delinquents," held ultimately irresponsible for the consequences of their actions, until they reached the arbitrary age of maturity, at which point, still untrained in morality, they became "responsible".

This was because parents abdicated their responsibility to instill moral values in children, aided and abetted by the society at large. This error was further exacerbated by the undue emphasis placed on "rights" and the equal and opposite denial of the concept of "duty".

Even today, this seems to be a valid argument. However the society found today in North America is vastly different that the one in the late 50s. Single parents were - if not rare - certainly scarce. The Welfare State we know today really got started in 1963/64 with the so-called Great Society and has grown apace ever since. (An utter failure in too many area to list) Thus the feral children of today are far more common than RAH postulated as existing in the large urban areas of the time.

I've often wondered, if after one of these high-speed chases that seem to dot the "TeeeVee News" if the driver - most certainly the guilty party, got TAZED a few times - on camera, that the number of these might drop. I doubt it - but the cause-effect cycle would be vastly shorter.

Don't forget, Johnny gets flogged for a screw-up that got another Trooper killed. He took his licks and was accepted back into the 'community' or military society.

Hendricks later deserts and while gone rapes and kills a young woman - a girl really. The M.I. takes care of their own. He is given a swift trial and then publicly executed (hanged). In his crime, however, the entire Unit is shamed. This points out the peculiarity of Heinlein's viewpoints.

Finally, about a "society".
The military of his time (even up into the 50s) was, in essence, a separate society. One with it's own rules (the UCMJ); it own language and it's own norms. Those norms were of high levels of discipline and following the rules.
Today, not so much - in part owing to military bases being located next to or even inside of major urban areas. Here, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson lies within the muni. The folks at Mountain Home AFB, however, are still miles and miles from any 'town'. The physical separation of military and Civilian society is far less than n the past - but the societies still remain apart in many other ways.

Two non-fiction books that are related and may be of interest:
Robert A. Heinlein: A Reader's Companion by James Giffard

The Unheavenly City - The Nature and Future of Our Urban Crisis - By Edward C. Banfied (1970)
and the related tome published later -
The Unheavenly City Revisited - 1990.

Edward Christie Banfield (Edward C. Banfield - Wikipedia)

 

I loved it, am all for it and have said so for years.
Public punishment would solve many of this country's ills. As for the gangstas rising up against it?
Kill them.
Shoot them down in the streets. After 72 hrs of that their shit would stop-one way or the other.
That may be harsh, but I tire of criminals ruling inner cities simply because its not PC or it's deemed "inhumane" to kill them. It's a lot swifter and one could argue kinder, placing a bullet behind the ear than what many of these criminals put their victims through.
Yesterday I had to put down one of our cats, my wife's cat Bitchy Girl, who she's had for 15 years. She would've never made the trip to the vet, so I did what had to be done. A shitty job, and I didn't enjoy it to be sure, but it had to be done. The same can be said for the above.

 

In Chapter 5, the basic training section, Ted Hendrick questions the purpose of knife-throwing.

The answer given by Sergeant Charles Zim is somewhat lengthy - but boiled down - the training was to make the Cap Trooper into a weapon - no matter if in powered armor or just armed with a stick...they would prevail or die trying Famously the quote most often seen is:
There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men. We see the results in the bar fight where Johnny and his pals, while outnumbered, stomp the brawlers.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I purchased this book (SST) for my youngest son on the occasion of his leaving for US Marine Corps basic training as a Grunt (0311). The above passage was one of the few I highlighted.

The other was
"If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off? Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy city with an H-bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an axe.
War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose.
The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him...but to make him do what you want to do. Not killing...but controlled and purposeful violence. But it's not your business or mine to decide the purpose of the control. It's never a soldier's business to decide when or where or how—or why—he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and tell us where and when and how. We supply the violence; other people—'older and wiser heads,' as they say—supply the control. Which is as it should be."

Carl von Clausewitz had many aphorisms, of which the most famous is "War is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse, with a mixture of other means". So in this, RAH's view is echoed (before and after) by history and historians. RAH is clearly in this camp.

Conversely Sun Tzu’s conception of warfare is much broader. It is primarily concerned with "the conduct of war on the highest strategic level.” Sun Tzu’s seamless link between diplomacy and war allows him to advocate a method of full spectrum warfare, what he calls “total war”. Total war, in the eyes of Sun Tzu, allows one to defeat their enemy in a bloodless manner, focusing strategy on the economic, social and political defeat of the enemy. If the enemy is defeated before the violence begins...there is no 'war'. Given that today we (the world) is moving from Fifth Generation warfare to Sixth Generation warfare, this concept becomes more than important, it becomes critical - not just for victory, but for the survival of an existing society. I doubt that Heinlein would espouse this, but it could go a long way to explain the 150+ year "war" with the Chinese Hegemony.

Remember, one the iterated goals in the Victory in WWII was to utterly destroy the culture and society of both Japan and Germany that led up to the conflict. This so the World would not face another major conflict in just a few years. The lesson of the implementation of the Victory of WWI had been, at least, partially learned.


.

 

thinkin here the key is the public punishment... that is delivered without any real passion or anger... just an earned reward...

kind of a ya worked for this... so here it is? and I think also the now it's over part is pretty important...

perhaps a flogging in public is the answer?

as things stand right now within our society nearly any punishment of children but a time out seems to be considered grounds for CPS intervention, court trial, loss of said children, and possible jail time...

it was pointed out that without some sort of real punishment there is no real learning...

suggesting the violator never learns there is a real world reaction to their actions... until...

that they see no real reason to change their actions... kind of a ya... so what?... oh really?

give the phrase "spare the rod spoil the child" some meaning?

or as the twig is bent so grows the tree... ?

so they grow up and keep doing the same kinda stuff... and then bang...

it also suggest that we as a society are to blame... that letting em slide when young then smackin em hard when they reach a certain age is a sort of betrayal, by we the people, of their trust?

I also noted that certain crimes were settled with the death penalty... the reasoning seemed to be if they did it once the only way to insure the safety of society is to insure they are never capable of doing it again...revenge did not seem a part of that formula?

I find myself looking at the violence never solved anything argument... and thinkin some of the most significant example such as those mentioned in the story... put the lie to that... ask the Carthaginian... that is if you can find any... etc...

violence happens every second of every day all over the universe... it is a part of life... things are killing other things in order to survive... it is actually... natural...

but it is done with a purpose... and that purpose is to survive... violence for the sake of violence is a problem though...

just some thoughts... not all would agree...

 

well... thinkin on what you expressed suggests we have been at war and are still at war with people that want to destroy us...

just not necessarily a shooting war... this one has been and is being waged in our class rooms and entertainment and news industries... ?

 

The OP has requested that we eschew current politics in the discussion set. I agree and will not go there.

OTOH, That the Chinese have been engaged in so-called Sixth Generation warfare against the West for years is an openly accepted 'fact' - at least within the greater military community of the West. . Just one not recognized by the public at large.

One reason I find this book a wonderful example for these kinds of discussions is that, planned or not, RAH has hit upon many of the issues facing the West today. He even identified a current, real-world enemy of Western society - the Chinese.

It is no mistake that SST is on the reading list of every branch of the US military and is required reading, IIRC, in all US military academies.

 

Took me a bit to find the quote

“Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms”
and
"My mother said violence never solves anything."
"So?"
Mr. Dubois looked at her bleakly. "I'm sure the city fathers of Carthage would be glad to know that."

 

About that "generations of warfare" thing... (See Fourth-generation warfare - Wikipedia for background)

Fifth Generation Warfare?

2/03/04
By William S. Lind

Despite the fact that the framework of the Four Generations of Modern War is relatively new, first appearing in print in 1989, some observers are now talking about a Fifth Generation. Some see the Fifth Generation as a product of new technologies, such as nanotechnology. Others define it as the state’s struggle to maintain its monopoly on war and social organization in the face of Fourth Generation challengers. One correspondent defined it as terrorist acts done by one group in such a manner that they are blamed on another, something traditionally known as “pseudo-operations.”

These ideas are all valuable, and if people try to think beyond or outside the framework of the Four Generations, that is probably a good thing. An intellectual framework must remain open or it descends into an ideology, something poisonous per se (as Russell Kirk wrote, conservatism is the negation of ideology). At the same time, I have to say that these attempts to announce a Fifth Generation seem to go a generation too far.

One reason for the confusion may be a misapprehension of what “generation” means. In the context of the Four Generations of Modern War, “generation” is shorthand for a dialectically qualitative shift. As the originator of the framework, I adopted the word “generation” because I was speaking to and writing for Marines, and “dialectically qualitative shift” has more syllables than the Marine mind can readily grasp (think of the Emperor Joseph II’s response when he first heard Mozart’s music: “Too many notes.”). Most Marines vaguely remember that Hegel pitched for the Yankees in the late 1940’s.

As that old German would be quick to tell us, dialectically qualitative shifts occur very seldom. In my view, there were only three in the field of warfare since the modern era began with the Peace of Westphalia; the Fourth marks the end of the modern period.

One simple test for whether or not something constitutes a generational shift is that, absent a vast disparity in size, an army from a previous generation cannot beat a force from the new generation. The Second Generation French Army of 1940 could not defeat the Third Generation Wehrmacht, even thought the French had more tanks and better tanks than the Germans. The reason I do not think the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon mark a generational shift is that Wellington consistently beat the French, and the British Army he led remained very much an 18th century army.

While attempts to think beyond the Four Generations should generally be welcomed, there are some shoals to avoid. One is technological determinism, the false notion that war’s outcome is usually determined by superiority in equipment. Martin van Creveld’s book Technology and War makes a strong case that technology is seldom the determining factor.

A related danger is technological hucksterism: coming up with Madison Avenue slogans to sell new weapons programs by claiming that they fundamentally change warfare. This kind of carnival sideshow act lies at the heart of the so-called “Revolution in Military Affairs,” and it dominates all discussions of national defense in Washington. Every contractor who hopes to get his snout in the trough claims that his widget “revolutionizes” war. As the framework of the Four Generations spreads, you can be sure that the Merchants of Death will claim that whatever they are trying to sell is an absolute necessity for Fourth (or Fifth) Generation war. It will all be poppycock.

From what I have seen thus far, honest attempts to discover a Fifth Generation suggest that their authors have not fully grasped the vast change embodied in the Fourth Generation. The loss of the state’s monopoly, not only on war but also on social organization and first loyalties, alters everything. We are only in the earliest stages of trying to understand what the Fourth Generation means in full and how it will alter – or, in too many cases, end – our lives.

Attempting to visualize a Fifth Generation from where we are now is like trying to see the outlines of the Middle Ages from the vantage point of the late Roman Empire. There is no telescope that can reach so far. We can see the barbarians on the march. In America and in Europe, we already find them inside the limes and within the legions. But what follows the chaos they bring in their wake, only the gods on Mount Olympus can see. It may be worth remembering that the last time this happened, the gods themselves died.

William S. Lind is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism
Free Congress Foundation

Despite Mr. Lind's protestations, Fifth Generation warfare is not only here, but being surpassed by Sixth Generation warfare - this is Corporate on Corporate 'warfare' and we have already seen the casualties littering the landscape.

We are seeing Fifth Generation warfare as the modus operandi for politics in the West right now.... Fake News and Russian hacking anyone?

 

Might be a bit early to suggest this but if ya can find it an excellent book for preppers would be

"Lucifer's Hammer"

good read! BUT far as I know there is no FREE version so... we may not get around to it...


Lucifer's Hammer: Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle: 9780449208137: Amazon.com: Books

 

To say the book was not critically accepted then (or now) is an understatement.

As background, the SciFi writers community is largely Libertarian or outright Leftist and becoming more so in modern times. Much of that tightly held personal belief system leaks into the stories published. I mention this to point out that the award of a Hugo (voting is done my members of the Guild and one must have been commercially published to be a member) for the book is a testament to just how powerful parts of the story are.

Not everyone saw it that way:
For the unfortunate fact is that this is not a novel at all, but an irate sermon with a few fictional trappings . . . Many of [the author's] points are highly debatable (especially his restriction of the franchise to veterans and his insistence upon the virtues of war as man's "noblest fate") and usually very well debated; but the author is so intent on his arguments that he has forgotten to insert a story or any recognizable characters.

H. H. Holmes, N. Y. Herald-Tribune Book Review, November 8, 1959, p. 15

Unknown to many is the posthumous publication of Robert's Take Back Your Government (1992). (Take Back Your Government - Wikipedia)
It is clear that Heinlein was both capable of and able at writing nonfiction devoted to a political end. Had he written, instead of SST, a nonfiction book expounding on the theses of his "Patrick Henry League", his views might have been more clearly understood. The operative word here is "might".
The response to the book (Take Back...) ended up validating, for him, many of the things he had done and said.
I would note the book received editorial 'help' (polishing) from Jerry Pournelle.
FWIW, Jerry's political views are often described as "somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan". So it was a good fit to have him edit the RAH work.

 

Back to the book and the related memes. And the crappy movie that bears the name of the novel....

On page 7 of the book,. Sgt Jelal lectures the troops (prior to a drop) and then permits the men to seek reassurance. The chaplain will be going on the mission, and our narrator, who Jelal tells us now is named "Johnnie", reveals a basic tenant of this military life: "In any case, in the Mobile Infantry, everybody drops and everybody fights - chaplain and cook and the Old Man's writer."

Sadly (for many who never read the book) , the horrible movie bastardizes this and so much else in the book. The director, Paul Verhoeven, never even finished reading the book - so offended and repulsed by the text - he vowed to make the movie an anti...version of the story. The film isn't a satire, as many have said in reviews, but rather a complete repudiation of the original story. That the film is a broad-based swipe at the military in general is obvious. Very Hollywood.

Trouble is, the movie was so badly done as to be nearly a worthless endeavor by itself.
Rendering of Power Armor was deemed too expensive, so battle scenes take place where the Troops are, quite literately, eaten alive. It makes no sense in either view.
With no power armor, troops must be delivered by shuttle. Retrieved, yes. Dropped - no.

In the first chapter we are given a very detailed description of a "drop".
The drop includes a number of decoys, objects intended to confuse and distract the enemy's defenses. In the middle of this, Johnnie and his men are being deployed by a complex multi-layered landing system which is described in detail. In essence, Robert describes what we call today HALO (High Altitude - Low Opening) parachute operations.

The landing brings into play other features of the trooper's equipment, with references to jump jets, internal navigation displayed on a HUD, gyroscopic stabilization and of course, small atomic bombs. We still don't have jetpacks, but personal HUDs and GPS are now common is both military and civilian transport. I'm not so sure about portable atomic weapons still being in the current US inventory....

The fighting methods presented here in the book are an advanced level of fighting, requiring high levels of initiative on the part of the individual soldier. This is correlated with the high firepower and mobility available to that soldier. As the firepower available to the individual soldier has increased, as the mobility has expanded, so has the required initiative and individual action increased. The tactics and methodology demonstrated here are an extrapolation of these trends. That the natives might be less than enthusiastic about this demonstration is a given - or rather, the whole point

The combat described in Chapter One described a new kind of war, one fought with advanced technologies, demanding a high standard of soldiers to use this equipment. Such people could consider themselves, with justification, to be an elite. Robert mentions fighter pilots, not that those suffer from any lack of self-esteem - but that it is a singular form of individual combat - performed as a group. Fewer than 15% graduate from boot camp to become Cap Troopers.

It is interesting to note that Robert also put this in the narrative -
“Let's skip [Mobile Infantry] tradition for a moment. Can you think of anything sillier than being fired out of a spaceship with nothing but mayhem and sudden death at the other end? However, if someone must do this idiotic stunt, do you know a surer way to keep a man keyed up to the point where he is willing than by keeping him constantly reminded that the only good reason why men fight is a living, breathing reality?
"In a mixed ship [men and women] the last thing a trooper hears before a drop (maybe the last word he ever hears) is a woman's voice, wishing him luck. If you don't think this is important you've probably resigned from the human race.”

So, if a person is interested in the book, please tell them to forget about the movie. Sadly - many of the so-called book 'reviews' found on line conflate the two and make no sense for either.

This will be my last post on the book. I may comment on other folks posts as part of the discussion.

 

After erasing before posting 3 different posts because I cannot seem to say anything I find worthwhile to post without comparing to our politics, which leads me trampling off in the forbidden wilderness of current politics. I admire your ability to merely brush the edge without violating the limitation.

I have decided that my input here must be limited to commentary on the posts of others...fortunately, you have posted much of the base of what I would say if I could resist wandering off into the comparisons.

 

It is really out there. I just posted a hand book today from 1959 on Civil and Defense Mobilization. It gave me an extra into the time in which this book was written. I think his writing rather than being called controversial should have been more visionary. Looking at the late 50's then into the 60's you have the flower children. those were the pesky youth. I do wonder what the author would have thought of today's youth. You mentioned how this was read in schools, I do think that is common practice. Kids read these books that they could never really 100% grasp because they have not experienced life. There is a story on different levels. My children all read the Giver in 6th grade. They thought it was an okay book but I will never forget that book. (good book club book)

I think that is one of the reasons I am so slow in reading this book. He leaks details or explanations chapter after he introduced the action or whatever. I had to read the first chapter twice because I kept thinking, he's bouncing??? Then reading about his early basic training a the story kept saying bounce over there or bounce to the office, I assumed it was some made up military term. Finally, half way through the book we get the story of the suit. So I went back and read chapter one again, LOL! Now it made sense. I never watched Star trek or any of those space shows so I am slower in getting a mental image while reading.

Hope to add more to the conversation tomorrow.

 

To expand just a bit - I made the statement
"a failure of the greater society or at least the society that the offender lives within."

I should have made that point stronger. It is also the reason I put i the links to the book Unheavenly City

The book is common fodder for Sociology degree (guilty as charged) classwork and for many "Social Services" elated degrees.
It is interesting that the author released a second book (Unheavenly City Revisited) in 1990.

An abstract for the book shows this:
The author contends that the conditions of life in urban America have improved dramatically in recent years. What has not improved is our capacity to keep pace with the accelerating expectations of city dwellers--expectations legitimate in origin, but often divisive and self-defeating in expression.

The author further maintains that crime, like poverty, depends primarily upon two sets of variables. One set relates mainly to class culture and personality (but also to sex and age) and determines an individual's propensity to crime. The other relates to situational factors (such as the number of policemen on the scene and the size of the payroll) and determines his inducement. The probability that he will commit crimes--his proneness to crime--depends upon propensity and inducement.

A city's potential for crime may be thought of as the average proneness of persons in various 'sex-age-culture-personality' groups times their number.
**********
I would add that if the culture (society) that the person resides in openly accepts crime, rampart illegitimacy and drug dealing, for example, as a normal way of living, then that culture is past broken or dysfunctional. That society is, in fact, engaged in constant, low order warfare against the larger, rule based participative society from which it is subtended. In this context, riots are just a spike in the ongoing and constant warfare with the larger whole.

In this context then, we can see SST 'future' society staring right back at us in the mirror. Unlike the book, there are no easy answers.

 

From my own experience, I would say that this book can be read and (mostly) understood by the average high school student - one that has at least studied some of (WWII, Korea, Vietnam or the Gulf War I or II) and is conversant with the idea that the military is a different culture or society.

There is the simple coming of age story of Juan Rico and strange society he lives within - and then there is the deeper story of how that society evolved. Deeper still is how a society wages war when it is 'winner take all' in the truest sense of the word.

This is not to say it is an easy book. It is filled with nuance - for example - a war with China that runs 150 years. The overt militarism that many reviews decry - is something they read into the story. Some reviewers (after the fact) admitted that they had never read the story, but made their comments based on other reviews. Heinlein was not amused.

To be fair, RAH did a poor job on characters, the plot is really thin in too many places and much is left unexplained/under-explained. For example, the suit armor maintenance and Johnnie's problems with the situation on board ship. It may well be that not everyone did jump or fight.....but it makes a crackerjack sound bite.

 

Pax please comment on the book. My statement about the politics was more of the..... I do not want to read about Hillary and just a general swipe at liberals. I think there are some very interesting statements that could be made about the authors vision of the country/world and where we are today. Since you are very smart with the constitution, military and etc... I know your posts won't amount to the snowflakes ruined the country. Does that make sense? It is a really good book that shows the reader that in the late 50's, early 60's that we were headed down a path. Probably a path that could not have been avoided. How did the author know we would be were we are now?

@DKR mentioned the drops that the drops are much like what we have today. I am so glad that DKR pointed this out. I have heard of HALO drops but really had no clue. I know they are not as they are in the book but I like that they are similar. It shows advancement in our military.

****** There are no limitations in this thread. Discuss away, this is our book club, lets discuss and wander all over the discussion field. I welcome all to join in******** Please