STARSHIP TROOPERS (audiobook) by Robert A. Heinlein

Originally published in 1959.
Audiobook published in 1998 by Blackstone Audio.
Read by Lloyd James.
Duration: 9 hours, 52 minutes.
Unabridged.

Winner of the Hugo Award for best sci-fi novel of 1960.

Way back when - when I was in high school and Ronald Reagan was President, I used to read a lot of Robert A. Heinlein. Now, as an adult, I find myself all over the place with my ratings of Heinlein, mostly average. With this book, I will have two 5 star ratings, two 3 star ratings and two 2 star ratings. That makes a very mediocre rating of 3.333 out of 5. That would be a C+ on a grading scale and I agree with that assessment.

This book marks the transition in Heinlein's professional career from writing science fiction for kids and young adults to writing for adults. This book was originally supposed to be for kids but the original publisher rejected it so Heinlein shopped it around, found a new publisher and never wrote for kids again.

The book Starship Troopers is a rare book in my opinion. It is a book where the movie is absolutely better than the book, even though the movie is clearly only loosely inspired by the movie. Some sources say the movie was written and the title of the book was attached to it after the fact, and even if that is true, the movie is still better than this book.

Robert A. Heinlein

What's wrong with the book?

-The ratio of literal fascist political lecture by classroom teachers to actual battle action in a book called Starship Troopers is about 2:1. It could just as easily have been called Starship Fascist Lectures.  The lectures go on and on about how democracy was a doomed system and the only way to lead a people was by a system led by people who had served in the military. Throw in a half hour discussion of the proper way to raise children with the threat of a good old fashioned public flogging and you've got the makings of a real disappointment. 

-More than one-third of the book is about basic training. How far they ran, what they ate, where they slept and more for several hours. Sadly, two of the better characters in the book are Johnny Rico's drills sergeant and his captain.

-There was nearly as much in the book about the how the officer's dining room worked on ship as there was actual military action. Just so you know, the army sits on one end of the table, the navy on the other and they sit by descending order with the most junior officers meeting in the middle. Don't give a crap? Neither did I, but Heinlein goes on and on about it like it's extremely important. Maybe it should have been called Starship Dinners.

The audibook was read by Lloyd James. He was fine, but the audio production was sometimes clumsily edited. There were times when you could hear the recording equipment being turned on and off and there were clunky edits where the Lloyd James had gone back and re-read part but it was much quieter and not as crisp sounding as the rest of the book.

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5. The final (and very short) fight scene saves it from being a complete 1 star fiasco. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein.