I like to participate in some of the forum discussions at Amazon.com. Recently I got involved in a discussion about which Science Fiction (SF) book had influenced readers the most. The one that seems to come up most is Starship Troopers. Since I mention that book in my own, I find this highly interesting. I've attached one of the participant's comments from the forum I thought was particularly good. Like him, I would say that if you only watched the movie, then you're missing something. You need to read the book. Starship Troopers, like Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm series, was hijacked in order to have a vehicle to make movies from and the movies were disappointing.

Here's the quote from the Amazon entry. One of the keys to understanding this is that in the world envisioned by the book, if you did not serve in some fashion, then you could not vote and you could not hold office.

Hezekiah Smith
I read this book once a year, every February to be exact, and the answer is, in a nutshell, no. I think that we would be much better off if we had this sort of government because it is (in my opinion) impossible for someone that has no vested interest in the affairs of his government (i.e. has not either bled or been willing to bleed for society as a whole).

This is the whole point of "Starship Troopers" and it is bewildering to me to see that a lot of people don't actually get this concept, especially in the world that we live in today, where people go on and on about entitlement and their "rights". The plain and simple truth is that your government (wherever you are) gives you everything from the moment that you take your first breath until the the second that you take your last, food, clothing, education, healthcare, moral values and even your "freedoms", the so-called "inalienable rights" of our Constitution. We have everything from and indeed exist to serve society, not our own individualistic wants and desires, and the supreme symbol of the collective is that of our government and our government, supported by the will of the people has the right to end that life at any moment should it jeopardize the security of either the nation or any of it's citizens.

That all sounds pretty gloomy now and I'm probably getting a a lot of angry thoughts and possibly messages about how I am all wrong and that we have innate "rights", but with rights come responsibilities, I think that the Greeks and Romans would agree, since, if it not the duty of the people to defend the collective, then why did they all go to war to protect their families and the state from invasion or oppression, and we are not so different than they, are we, we have more and "better" technology, but we are still the same people indistinguishable from those that were around two thousand or five thousand years ago, we are not more civilized (in some ways I think we are less) or better.

Sorry for the slight digression there, but I think that it is important to understand the thought process behind Heinlein's vision for the future whether or not you agree with it is up to you, but you do need to at least understand it. Anyway, this book, if it isn't already evident, is my pick for the one that has influenced me most. Hands down "Starship Troopers" is the novel that has caused me to think about the nature of our society and the duty that we have to preserve it for future generations.

If you have only seen the movie, it is impossible to comment on the story. While I like the movie in it's own right, besides having the same main character, and a few of the "same" supporting characters, it is completely different than the movie and the storyline is only vaguely reminiscent of the book. Read this book (more than once if you can) and ask questions of it, but enjoy it.