Politics and Starship Troopers

Here's some food for thought while we're having our GE 2011.

Science fiction and politics - I think 1984 straight away. Yet, I was pleasantly surprised to find another gem a few days back. I was browsing through my collection of ebooks, and decided to read Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein, whom I've admired ever since I read Stranger in a Strange Land. Yet, I didn't think of it as Sci-Fi at that time, having watched the movie.

To my amazement, it was totally unlike the movie. The movie, while enjoyable, was clearly an action flick. One that I watched once, enjoyed it, and never looked back. Yet the novel was clearly something different. The base premise of the story, the same, yet true to its Sci-Fi classification, it's main bulk was exploratory, examining moral, philosophical values and necessity of militarism, war, capital punishment, politics and franchise (the power to vote).

While extreme in its exploration, the novel does provide a lot of food for thought, bringing analogies like juvenile delinquency and war efforts in Heinlein's prose.

All in all, a great book to read for any avid science fiction fan, or anyone who wants his world, mind and thoughts challenged.