Book 28: Starship Troopers

Oh, Heinlein, what a mystery you are to me.

Well, unfortunately I’ve had to put down another Heinlein novel. I was really looking forward to reading Starship Troopers even though I’ve had to put down other Heinlein novels. The reason being that I knew it was a really popular book when it first came out and continues to be a popular sci-fi story today, as well as one of Heinlein’s best-known works.

But the same thing happened as with his other novels. Eventually the exposition and pace of the story became so slow that it was a drag to read. So I stopped.

Starship Troopers is about a high school graduate who enslists in the military, getting placed in the Mobile Infantry unit. This unit is on the front lines of the war against an alien species. This is a pretty cool premise, and as I said, I was excited to read it. But most of the story was about Johnny’s time in boot camp/military training. More than a hundred pages in and we were still in boot camp. (The book is 290 pages in print.)

While I can certainly appreciate Heinlein’s influence and place in the genre of science fiction. His style of writing just isn’t for me. For that reason, I’m going to skip Stranger in a Strange Land (which I did previously try to read and got about halfway through before putting it down) and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, which are the remaining Heinlein stories on my list. These are both really famous Heinlein works as well, and maybe one day I’ll get around to them. But for now, I’ll move on to the next works on my list.