Classic Sci-Fi: Should You Read It? is a self-imposed project in which I read pre-1990 science fiction novels and categorize them as “classis sci-fi you should read,” “classic sci-fi you should read if you’re all hardcore about it,” or “classic sci-fi you don’t have to read.” For background on my project, please see the introduction to my review of 1984.
One appealing thing about sci-fi is that some novels really must be discussed within the context of others. Today (and many other days, I suspect) I am doubling up on book reviews with Starship Troopers and The Forever War. In my opinion, you can’t talk about one in absence of the other, so here we go.
Starship Troopers
Starship Troopers was written in 1959 by Robert Heinlein and features human soldiers against bug-like aliens on an interstellar battlefield. I knew going in that the 1997 film Starship Troopers is a critique on authoritarianism and militarism and I thought the novel would be the same, but, um, it very much isn’t. Starship Troops is pro-militarism, pro-imperialism, pro-capital and corporal punishment, and speaks positively about the global military-controlled government which rose to power after democracies failed to control crime. Seriously. Y’all, it’s fascist. I guess some folks want to explain that away as a neat thought experiment, but 1.) please, and 2.) how an author frames his so-called thought experiments is telling.
Starship Troopers is guilty of the aliens-as-communists trope (this comes up again and again—I suppose it’s a predictable hazard of classic sci-fi). It’s also xenophobic, othering the aliens with slur-like nicknames, and stating that war is the only possible response to them. It’s pretty sexist—only women are pilots because of some gender thing, and there’s a whole part about hearing the pilot’s voice before a space drop and women being the inspiration for men to fight in wars. It’s hypermasculine. It equates militarism, patriotism, and imperialism. Only veterans are full members of society. The end of the novel reveals that the protagonist, Rico, is Filipino, which is expected to shock the reader because 1.) you probably didn’t picture him as a person of color (unless you were paying attention to any of the names or places he’s from) did you, racist, and 2.) he has been kicking ass and hasn’t been treated poorly this whole time! It’s like Heinlein could only trick you into identifying with a person of color if you didn’t know they weren’t white, and it’s a huge self-congratulations that the future will be post-racial. (Well done, us!) Still, I suppose the attempt was admirable at the time? Race is at least considered and there’s an attempt to treat it well?
Despite all that, Starship Troopers is inarguably influential and popularized the concepts of forever wars, powered armor, space drops, and interstellar empires. Without Starship Troopers, there’s definitely no Forever War, and there’s probably no Aliens (apparently all the actors playing space marines were given Starship Troopers as context homework), Battlestar Galactica, Edge of Tomorrow, and you could make an argument for many others, including Star Wars and Ender’s Game (though Ender’s Game has more in common with the philosophy and time dilation of The Forever War). Also I have to say that the conversation surrounding the fascism of the novel, the influence on military sci-fi, and the irony of the film (or lack thereof, since a lot of folks didn’t think the satire was obvious enough) is fascinating. “Have you read Starship Troopers?” was my go-to conversation opener for about two weeks. My friends are very patient.
The Forever War
The Forever War was written in 1974 by Joe Haldeman and is kind of the Vietnam answer to the Cold War-era Starship Troopers. The setting is just about identical—humans in powered armor vs. aliens in an interstellar war—but the tone is different. The Forever War still contains detailed battle scenes, but emphasizes the manipulative and dehumanizing aspects of the war instead of glorifying it. Because of the time dilation (more on that below), it’s basically impossible for the soldiers to return to an Earth they recognize, and they are seen as outsiders. The longer the war goes on, the more they are alienated. (Context: Haldeman was a combat soldier wounded in Vietnam.) It is anti-capital punishment and arguably anti-war—the end of the novel reveals that the entire war started because of a simple misunderstanding.
The Forever War has an edge on Starship Troopers in two major areas—the philosophical and moral framing of the war, and the time dilation. The narrative of Starship Troopers relies on faster-than-light travel (a.k.a. MAGIC), but Haldeman doesn’t mess around with that. Time dilation means that his soldiers’ first two-year trip costs them 27 years of Earth time, and the dilations increase from there. After a few tours, they very literally can’t go home because everything they are used to has changed. It’s fascinating, and the battle adaptations to dilation are super interesting. The further you go into enemy territory, the more advanced their weapons, and the more familiar they are with your tactics. Depending on the location, you might be battling enemies with hundreds of years more knowledge on the state of the war than you have.
Unlike Starship Troopers, men and women are part of a fully-integrated army. William Mandella, the protagonist, treats his female colleagues and his girlfriend well, and seems to trust and respect them… but now we have to get into this cringy part of the novel: Haldeman uses homosexuality as a marker for how much the times have changed. The marker for change is not that homosexuality is more accepted, it’s that homosexuality is more common: in the deep future, everyone is gay because the governments encourage it to curb overpopulation. It implies homosexuality is both a choice and a capitalistic manipulation, which is not great. (Also, I listened to Forever War on audiobook, and the actor who reads it does a little bit of an effeminate voice for the gay male characters and a deeper one for the gay female characters; yikes.) I can kind of see where Haldeman is going here: the majority group becomes the minority group to show how much times have changed and to spotlight prejudice (there’s a fun part where a gay colleague goes out of his way to insist to Mandella that he has no problem working with straight people). And even though Mandella is uncomfortable around gay folks, the text portrays them well, just like the women: they are competent, brave, and respected by the protagonist. About half of the folks in leadership are women, and increasingly gay as the book goes on. I’m willing to give Haldeman the benefit of the doubt, especially considering the year.
Verdicts
Starship Troopers is startling and gross and full of red flags. That said, it is also super interesting and undoubtedly influential. I think one critic’s description as “the ancestral text of US sci-fi militarism” is pretty accurate. It’s the standard by which a lot of other works are compared. I needed to read this in my project, if for no other reason than to understand how deep Starship Troopers runs in the genre. I think this puts it firmly in the read if you’re all hardcore about it category.
The Forever War is classic sci-fi you should read. It’s a brilliant response to Starship Troopers, a fascinating text on the changing attitude towards war across time, and the time dilation is cool as hell. Slight CW for the weird attitude toward gay folks, especially in the audiobook.