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Starship Troopers / Starship Soldier (1959) -- "(...) recebeu o Prémio "Hugo" na XVIII Convenção Mundial de Ficção Científica [1960 Hugo Award Winner for Best Novel] e, no inquérito feito em 1966 pela revista "Analog", classificado como uma das dez melhores obras do género, em pé de igualdade com As Crónicas Marcianas, de Ray Bradbury, e As Cidades Mortas, de Clifford D. Simak; apesar de não serem poucos os que discordam das declarações [ou provocações] do autor sobre cidadania, patriotismo, direitos civis e a vida social e política na história dos Estados Unidos. E, particularmente, das soluções e filosofias apregoadas no livro de Heinlein.

[Wikipedia] Starship Troopers is a military science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, published hardcover in December 1959. The story was first published (in abridged form) as a two-part serial in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction as 'Starship Soldier'. The first-person narrative is about a young soldier named Juan "Johnnie" Rico and his exploits in the Mobile Infantry, a futuristic military service branch equipped with powered armor. Rico's military career progresses from recruit to non-commissioned officer and finally to officer against the backdrop of an interstellar war between mankind (The Terran Federation of Earth) and the arachnoid species known as "The Bugs" of Klendathu...

Rico and the other characters discuss moral and philosophical aspects of suffrage, civic virtue, juvenile delinquency, corporal punishment, capital punishment, and war'.' Starship Troopers seems to have been meant as a political essay as well as a novel — Large portions of the book take place in classrooms, with Rico and other characters engaged in debates with their History and Moral Philosophy teacher, who is often thought to be speaking in Heinlein's voice — Colonel Dubois criticizes the famous U.S. Declaration of Independence line concerning "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as unrealistic. — (...) life and liberty exist only if they are deliberately sought and, often, bought painfully by great effort and sacrifice'.'

[Some critical reception]: 'The primary negative assessment of Starship Troopers is that it is nothing more than a vehicle for Heinlein's political views. John Brunner compared it to a "Victorian children's book", while Anthony Boucher (founder of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) remarked that Heinlein had "forgotten to insert a story". Alexei Panshin stated that the novel was "[an] account of the making of a [Marine] ... and nothing more.

In a 2009 retrospective, Jo Walton finds Starship Troopers "military SF done extremely well" — 'It’s astonishing that Starship Troopers is still controversial now — 50 years after it was first published! — "Probably Heinlein would have been delighted at how much the book has made people think and argue".

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