Starship Troopers
Introduction and Study Guide
This is a manly book. Allow me to clarify what I mean by this. This book is about what it means to be a man. This book is about how one becomes a man. This book connects with men on an instinctual level. It’s hard for me to imagine a young man reading this book and not being deeply moved towards the desire to serve something greater, to protect the vulnerable, and to belong to a band of brothers who have his “six” no matter what. In other words, it’s hard to imagine a boy reading this book and not feeling the call of God to be who he was made to be.
Now, perhaps you are a member of the female sex and you just read the above paragraph and thought, “Well, I guess there is no point in my reading this book.” Let me tell you, that is not at all what I want to communicate to you. You should absolutely read this book. I am inclined to think that you will probably appreciate this book, as a woman, in ways which are inaccessible to me. Regardless, you should read this book for one of the reasons I have told many a young man (and some older ones too) that they need to read Jane Austen.
I think it is fair to consider Pride and Prejudice and Emma, etc., to be very feminine books. That is neither good nor bad, in itself, it’s just a fact. Jane Austen’s works were not only written by a woman (obviously) but they are about the experience of being a woman and seeing the world from a woman’s point of view. Her books are excellently written. Austen is a master of character study, her writings are full of wit and charm, stellar examples of virtue and vice abound in them, and they will connect with anyone (male or female) who has the good and God-given desire to love and be loved.
I have told many young men that they should read Jane Austen, if for no other reason, because it will help them understand women better. They should of course read it for many other reasons, but this is certainly one good reason. There are certain things as men and women that are simply closed off to us. We are not able to fully understand certain things simply because we are men and not women (or vice-versa). I simply don’t know what it is like to be a woman, but I can get a better idea about the feminine perspective by reading great literature written by women about women. Whether it’s Jane Austen or Lucy Maud Montgomery or Willa Cather, etc., I am helped as a man by reading the best books ever written by women. I love my wife better because I read those great books and I think I understand my daughters better for the same reason. I am thankful for that perspective.
Ladies, you will be helped to understand something more about men and what makes us tick by reading Starship Troopers. You won’t be the only ones to learn this, however. In our day many men need to learn this themselves. We live in a time where men have been feminized and told that to be masculine is to be “toxic.” Many men have simply failed to learn some of the basic lessons of being a man which are taught in this book, lessons about service, responsibility, fortitude, pushing your limits physically, and the willingness to risk it all in the service of something greater. Too many boys have been prolonging boyhood or, even worse, have questioned their own identity as males because it doesn’t seem okay to be a man.
Starship Troopers will challenge a lot of the modern narrative about what is good versus what is “toxic.” It’s not a perfect book, of course. It has some ideas in it that are fundamentally unChristian and those will need to be considered carefully under the light of Scripture. Nevertheless, it tells us a true story (even if in a fictional setting) about a boy named Rico growing up to become a man. His experience is in many ways the experience every boy needs. Not that every boy must join the military to be a man, but every boy must embrace responsibility, duty, service, and die to his own personal wants and desires to become the man that God has designed him to be. The great thing about this book is that it will, in fact, make boys want to be men and desire is always the initial catalyst towards action.
There is an absolutely abominable movie by the same name as this book. Don’t watch it. It’s first rate garbage. The producers of that movie intentionally inverted the good message found within this great book. That movie would give you the wrong impression in nearly every way as to what this book is really about. Oh, it’s true there is an interstellar war against a race of highly intelligent bugs (and yeah, that’s kind of cool), but that is a relatively minor feature of this book. The Bug War is dwarfed by stories of the men and the moments which helped to make one boy a man. That’s what this book is about. That is its primary value.
If you are male, prepare to have the deepest chords of your being struck. God made you to be a man and that means something, objectively. He’s calling you to grow up. If you are a female, prepare to understand your neighbor, brother, boyfriend, husband, or son better than ever before. Either way, you need to read this book.
Below you will find links to each section of the study guide for Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers as they become available. If you would like to pick up a copy of the book to join in the study you may do so by clicking HERE. To see a list of other Great Books study guides already available, in development, or planned for the future you can click HERE.
More Coming Soon…
I will join you in defending this book. Heinlein, first and foremost, was a science fiction writer. I don't know that he thought very hard about whether the politics in Starship Troopers were workable in the real world, I think he just wanted to build a great story on a thought-provoking theme. Plus too many of his critics just get the details of the novel flat-out wrong.
It’s an excellent book and I would go so far as to defend the politics of the world as the author thoroughly explains how their system came about. The military service based government came about because of the failures of the democratic system. Heinlein dives into the flaws of democracy as people vote for wars they will never fight, the starship trooper right to vote is determined by those who serve their country and become citizens. Rico could have taken the easy route and joined his wealthy father in business, instead he joins the military because he was inspired by his teacher and the pride that comes with military leadership. The book also has an interesting take on capital punishment and its favorability to prison sentences. Overall the book is badass and insightful. Agreed that this should be required reading for young men.