Books Heinlein Discussion Thread

FriedCFour

FriedCFour

PunishedCFour
Founder
Of the Big Three, Heinlein is my personal favorite. In particular, Starship Troopers and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress are my favorite works. Starship Troopers was a great read and I have applied many of his ideas on my own leadership in the military, particularly on recruitment and how it is best to give it straight to people on what to expect rather than to play up the good while ignore the bad.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a very interesting take on what it would be like to have a lawless prison Colony and how it would evolve, revolutions, the purpose and necessity of government, and of course the value of holding the high ground and how moonrocks can win a battle.
 
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is probably one of the best and more realistic takes of libertarian philosophy, and I must say, is a little bit instructive for what we are doing here. Not perfect free speech, but guided by the principle, while expecting people to be responsible for themselves. TANSTAAFL.
 
I'm still endlessly bemused by the ability of Starship Troopers to drive the left wing nuts when it's a short book, 95% of it might as well be apolitical unless your Quaker and think a military shouldn't exist at all even if it means pirates burn your home down, and in general even the political stuff was on the basis that the cold war went so bad it blewup the modern world.

Great author though honestly most of his books do nothing for me.
 
Sea Skimmer said:
I'm still endlessly bemused by the ability of Starship Troopers to drive the left wing nuts when it's a short book, 95% of it might as well be apolitical unless your Quaker and think a military shouldn't exist at all even if it means pirates burn your home down, and in general even the political stuff was on the basis that the cold war went so bad it blewup the modern world.

Great author though honestly most of his books do nothing for me.
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I recall that the guy who made the movie only got a brief summary of the book, may not have totally listened and decided to make a movie version that involved making the MC white and blonde to somehow make it fascist

Wanting to wipe out the bugs=Racist, because they may as well be “The Other”
 
Navarro said:
What makes it especially hilarious is that the Federation in the book isn't trying to wipe out the bugs, but to figure out a way of communicating with them and then negotiate some kind of peace.
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Haven’t read the book, but I presume like what I recall of the movies, it turns out the bugs really are just xenophobes disgusted with humanity’s very existence

It NOT simply just being a case of different morality, accidents or the conflict being “gray” could be sort of taken as something IRL as “Dude, no use trying to understand “The Enemy” they’re just “The Enemy” even when you understand them so just shoot them and feel zero guilt about destroying them!”

Or how “dehumanizing” the enemy makes it easier to kill them and the fact of them truly being a bunch of bastards would sound “immature” compared to whatever “just as bad” sort of arguments they’d maybe prefer to hear
 
I didn't read very much of Heinlein. I liked "Starship Troopers" and "The Puppet Masters", didn't really like "Double Star" and "Citizen of the Galaxy". And that's all I've read of him, and even these I read like 20 years ago, in my childhood.

Missed famous highlights of his such as "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", "Stranger in a Strange Land" and "The Number of the Beast", I heard good things about these but seeing as I'm not particularly a fan from what I did read, I've decided to pass on reading them. Maybe some day, but for now the backlog is too large.
 
CarlManvers2019 said:
Haven’t read the book, but I presume like what I recall of the movies, it turns out the bugs really are just xenophobes disgusted with humanity’s very existence
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I wouldn't give the SST movie much heed - it fails both as a criticism of fascism/totalitarianism and as an adaptation of Heinlein's work. The only thing it's good at is as an expose of Paul Verhoeven's childhood trauma over Allied air raids in WW2 occupied Holland and his resentment over American cultural influence in Europe. Oh, and as a dumb action movie.
 
Navarro said:
I wouldn't give the SST movie much heed - it fails both as a criticism of fascism/totalitarianism and as an adaptation of Heinlein's work. The only thing it's good at is as an expose of Paul Verhoeven's childhood trauma over Allied air raids in WW2 occupied Holland and his resentment over American cultural influence in Europe. Oh, and as a dumb action movie.
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Try telling that to dudes like Zor on SB, I remember a thread on it and it seemed full of guys who didn’t read or find it so boring they didn’t like it and that the Earth Government wouldn’t work or wasn’t necessary to exist
 
Navarro said:
I wouldn't give the SST movie much heed - it fails both as a criticism of fascism/totalitarianism and as an adaptation of Heinlein's work. The only thing it's good at is as an expose of Paul Verhoeven's childhood trauma over Allied air raids in WW2 occupied Holland and his resentment over American cultural influence in Europe. Oh, and as a dumb action movie.
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I love Paul Verhoeven. The original Robocop and Total Recall movies kicked ass. I still use Clarence Boddicker as a yardstick for villainy. If your villain wouldn’t last five seconds in a room with Clarence, then he’s a pussy. Just about every movie villain from the 2010s fails to measure up, by the way.
 
Train Dodger said:
I love Paul Verhoeven. The original Robocop and Total Recall movies kicked ass. I still use Clarence Boddicker as a yardstick for villainy. If your villain wouldn’t last five seconds in a room with Clarence, then he’s a pussy. Just about every movie villain from the 2010s fails to measure up, by the way.
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Hearing that guy made those two awesome movies, which I enjoyed very much also made the SST adaptation just utterly baffles me.
 
Hlaalu Agent said:
They were a milquetoast authoritarian/imperialist power, so essentially not nearly as bad as he wanted to portray them.
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Plus, the public lashing wasn’t too bad a punishment....though the fact the squad leader rather than the one who accidentally shot someone else took it, isn’t exactly such a nice idea

Also, they were the entire of majority of the human race, I think even that colony with a fence for the Bugs was one that left of its own free will before asking for help and still blaming the Federation for the war
 
CarlManvers2019 said:
Plus, the public lashing wasn’t too bad a punishment....though the fact the squad leader rather than the one who accidentally shot someone else took it, isn’t exactly such a nice idea

Also, they were the entire of majority of the human race, I think even that colony with a fence for the Bugs was one that left of its own free will before asking for help and still blaming the Federation for the war
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Pretty sure those helmets are bullet proof, thus he was at fault for the accident. At least that is what I understand of the reasoning, plus he broke protocol. It was a live fire exercise. Though I will defer to those in their national military since obviously they will have a more valid understanding of the matter than my civilian one.
 
Hlaalu Agent said:
They were a milquetoast authoritarian/imperialist power, so essentially not nearly as bad as he wanted to portray them.
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The portrayal of the Federation makes perfect sense when you realise that it's 1990s-era America, seen through the eyes of a psychological basket case who thinks that America's cultural influence through Europe is equivalent to Nazi Germany actually conquering European countries and slaughtering people en masse (this is what Verhoeven actually says in the commentary).
 
Navarro said:
The portrayal of the Federation makes perfect sense when you realise that it's 1990s-era America, seen through the eyes of a psychological basket case who thinks that America's cultural influence through Europe is equivalent to Nazi Germany actually conquering European countries and slaughtering people en masse (this is what Verhoeven actually says in the commentary).
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Did they follow it up with “ethnic cleansing” and some inane “5 year plan” or something?

Question, does “Nationalism or Fascism” as they are conflated really depend on there being “another country”? My occasional lurks on SB and even your Eagle & The Bear thread over there kinda showed that there are dudes who still think the Enclave is a fascistic hellhole or something similar because “it lies to its citizens” when I’m pretty sure most of the top brass barely even know the Enclave’s NCR related history themselves and they extend this sense of Nationalism even to the areas they conquered like Canada(dem Canadians are now Americans, so will those Mexicans be Americans and now they are bounded together)
 
I'll admit I've never read a book by Heinlein (well, that and by probably most the other "classic" SF writers as well), but I've read enough about him and SST that I find the accusations of fascism labeled against him to be irritating, amusing, and boring at the same time. Mainly it seems to boil down to his "critics" (and I use the word really loosely) being unable to compute that any kind of society can only work if there are rights and duties instead of just rights. Well, that and Paul Verhoeven not having read the book and deciding to turn it into "Ken and Barbie" meets fascist aesthetics because, reasons, I guess.^^
 
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