Starship Troopers (novel): Difference between revisions

* [[Unbuilt Trope]]: The novel created many concepts common to the [[Standard Sci-Fi Setting]] in later SF like [[Drop Pod]], [[Powered Armor]], [[Space Is an Ocean]] and [[Space Marine]], but it is no showcase of [[Technology Porn]] or cover-to-cover action in which gratuitously manly [[Super Soldier]]<nowiki/>s slaughter unthinking hordes ''en masse''. Instead, much of the book is spent philosophising on sociopolitics and one's duty and responsibility to society. The [[Bug War]] is not against [[Dumb Muscle]] that only knows how to [[Zerg Rush]]; while they are still unafraid to spend lives like water, they are intelligent enough to use technology and have allies, more like the real Warsaw Pact forces than the post-Cold War stereotype many in the West have, the kinds of aliens that actually could [[Starship Troopers (film)|drop a meteor on Buenos Aires]]. Futuristic equipment is contrasted with the continued need for infantry at the front; one trooper asks why they are still needed in an age of H-bombs and is told clearly that there can be situations where nuking a city can be as inappropriate as spanking a baby with an ax. At another point, an in-universe warning is given against overloading with tech to the point that one gets distracted into suffering from [[Rock Beats Laser]]. [[Rule of Cool]] [[Hollywood Tactics]] like [[See the Whites of Their Eyes]] are also avoided. If it had come out today, it would have appeared to be a rebuke to later works with such tendencies like [[Iron Man|''Iron Man'']] or [[Warhammer 40,000|''Warhammer 40,000'']].

*[[Unusual Euphemism]]: To "Dance to Danny Deever" is to be hanged. (A man dropped at the end of a rope tends to bounce around for a bit.) The choice is apt, since the song "Danny Deever" is about a soldier who is hanged for murdering a fellow soldier, and apparently the tune is played at MI executions.