There was an (admittedly off-topic) thread here a little while ago about
Starship Troopers the Movie, and comments about another book by John Steakley
called "Armour"
Well, I hunted down and read Armour with some interest, and here is my 2 cents
worth:
It's quite a good book in its' way, but comparing it to Starship Troopers is
like comparing chalk and cheese.
"Armour", "Starship Troopers" and "The Forever War" are all about
power-armoured ground troops, but the emphasis in all three is quite
different.
"Armour" is mainly a psycho-drama. Very dark and moody. All the military
action takes place on the one planet, and you get very little in the way
of an overview on the war - in fact, I never gained the slightest idea
what the fighting was all about.
"Starship Troopers" is one of the all time classic SF novels. It's also a very
good read. From a war games POV, you get a much better idea of
the whole war. This still doesn't mean an awful amount - the protagonist
is really only concerned with his unit, and doesn't get much of a overview,
but from the snippets you can put together the wider picture.
The war and the action is based around a WWII paradigm - not surprising,
given it was written about 1959 (from memory). The tone is far more upbeat
than "Armour", but it is hardly jingoistic, and the Military is portrayed
favourably but not unrealistally. There are screwups and successes. Heinlein
was a magnificent writer at his best. In later years he started to waffle, but
Starship Troopers was written at his height. I don't neccessarily agree with
all the views expressed therein, but it's still a jolly good book.
"The Forever War" - by Joe Haldeman - is also an excellent book. Where
ST was obviously influenced by WWII, TFW is Vietnam in disguise. The portrayal
of the military is far more jaundiced, but still realistic. Joe Haldeman did
fight in Vietnam, and came home with a shredded knee after stepping on a mine,
so he is writing from experience. The twist that TFW has is that because of
relativity, the war lasts for thousands of years. During this time, society
changes so much that the protagonist no longer fits in.
So, in summary: (and in order of preference)
1) Starship Troopers (Lighter, more optimistic, good tactics etc)
2) The Forever War (Grimmer, but still somewhat upbeat - still good
tactics)
3) Armour - (Unremittingly grim, a bit much so for my taste, but well
written anyway, but no tactics to speak of)
There. Comments, anyone?
Excerpts from FT: 2-Aug-97 Starship Troopers & Armour by Robbie
Matthews@netinfo.
> "Armour" is mainly a psycho-drama. Very dark and moody. All the
Hmm, you should go back & re-read. (Well, OK, maybe not, but I do
periodically....) Anyway, they drop a comment that the bugs hit Earth itself a
while back, IIRC someplace in South America. I think it's near the start of
the book, part of the comments on why they're there, or it
may be in a Jack Crow section. (Yeah -- *that* narrows it down a whole
lot....)
<ahem>
Anyway, the ground fighting was all about wiping out the potential threat to
Earth. Just one comment on this: while I realize that missile guidance systems
didn't work in Banshee atmosphere, I can't believe that saturation nuclear
bombing wouldn't do the trick. (What was that comment again? No problem is so
bad it can't be solved by a sufficient
application of high explosive? ^_- )
All in all, I agree with your rankings, though when I'm in the mood for
individual hero-work Armor comes out on top.
Later,
I basically agree with the below and the other comment to add in Hammer's
Slammers to the list. Armor, though, I think, does a better job of the other
two of putting the reader in the middle of combat against an alien enemy; I
think it really gets your heart going.
Paul
> At 02:44 PM 8/2/97 +1000, you wrote:
----------
Robbie Matthews[SMTP:robbie@netinfo.com.au] said:
> There was an (admittedly off-topic) thread here a little while ago
The comments were directed towards, the movie. "Starship Troopers" the Movie,
should have been named "Armour" as it is accuretly discriibed by the comments
you made about the book, "Armour". It would seem to have little to do with the
Hienlein book, it is supposedly named for. By both
the comic and pre-movie publicity seem to bear this out.
All the mentioned books are great military SF, and we could also include
"Hammers Slammers" in the list too.
Randy
In a message dated 97-08-02 09:38:38 EDT, you write:
<< Subj: RE: Starship Troopers & Armour
Date: 97-08-02 09:38:38 EDT
From: campbelr@pop3.kunsan.af.mil (Randy Campbell)
Sender: owner-ftgzg-l@bolton.ac.uk
Reply-to: FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
> At 12:22 AM 8/4/97 +-900, you wrote:
> Got me. I didn't send a file. Though, the old Micro-Borg Win 95,
It does. You're sending file attachements every time you send a message out.
Please fix this.
----------
From: ChanFaunce@aol.com[SMTP:ChanFaunce@aol.com]
Sent: Sunday, August 03, 1997 14:27
To: FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Starship Troopers & Armour
In a message dated 97-08-02 09:38:38 EDT, you write:
<< Subj: RE: Starship Troopers & Armour
Date: 97-08-02 09:38:38 EDT
From: campbelr@pop3.kunsan.af.mil (Randy Campbell)
Sender: owner-ftgzg-l@bolton.ac.uk
Reply-to: FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
To: FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk ('FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk')
File: starship.dat (1686 bytes) DL Time (26400 bps): < 1 minute
> [quoted text omitted]
> OK, I'll bite. What is this file, and what should i do with it? [Be
;-) ]
> Chan '????' Faunce
Got me. I didn't send a file. Though, the old Micro-Borg Win 95, program
I had to use to send my mail may have had an agenda of it's own.:)
Randy
On Sat, Aug 2, 1997 at 8:20:06 AM, Aaron P Teske <Mithramuse+@CMU.EDU>
wrote:
> Anyway, the ground fighting was all about wiping out the potential
I'm having a hard enough time with the guidance systems not working, but I
don't remember enough of the book to remember why that was the case. I would
think, though, that if we knew enough BEAM TROOPS DOWN, we could beam warheads
down as well, or perhaps have the troops set a few ADMs...
> On Sat, Aug 2, 1997 at 7:36:35 AM, Randy Campbell wrote:
> All the mentioned books are great military SF, and we could also
Just last night I was describing my favorite "Slammers" scene -- where
they wait for the enemy satellite to come above the horizon so they can take
it out
with the tank gun -- to one of the guys with whom I game.
Mayfair's _Hammer's Slammers_ game was okay, but it did lack some of the
flavor (as all of the Mayfair SF book games seemed to). AH's old
_Starship
Troopers_ game had some problems, but I always thought that the system
could
be saved. AH's new _Starship Troopers_ game sounds like it may be even
worse than the movie.
> Randy Campbell wrote:
> Got me. I didn't send a file. Though, the old Micro-Borg Win 95,
Randy (and anybody else using Microsoft Mail)
I know of about 10 people so far who have this problem. It seems to only occur
when actually replying to a message (i.e. I have never seen it in the first
message I got from somebody, but I have in ALL others in that thread).
My current guess is that it has something to do with formatting in the message
text. If you have any Bold, Italics, wierd fonts or colors, etc. that are
incompatible with the rest of the world that might be causing the problem.
Does that fit the bill, or are you using plain text?
Tom
P.S. Is there anybody out there who:
1) Uses Microsoft Mail and DOES NOT have this problem? 2) Has fixed this
problem?
This sounds a lot like the same problem that I had while using Lotus notes.
Seems the big E-mail companies have some stuff inserted so that certain
options can be used between other Exchange / Notes users (i.e. in a
company where every one uses the same mail) but out side in the real world we
are all different... some where in Exchange thier is a setting for this. the
most common protocalls for mail now are POP3, and MIME (also Base
64).
what is / seems to be happening is this attachment is stuff intended for
another Microsoft person. the opption is set to Microsoft and others so that
you get the Text with an extra file that normaly would be interprited my
Exchange. find this setting and turn it off.. i'll do some research an see if
i can find something when i get home.
thats what i think... reguards Chris CMC
> Got me. I didn't send a file. Though, the old Micro-Borg Win 95,
I know of about 10 people so far who have this problem. It seems to only occur
when actually replying to a message (i.e. I have never seen it in the first
message I got from somebody, but I have in ALL others in that thread). My
current guess is that it has something to do with formatting in the message
text. If you have any Bold, Italics, wierd fonts or colors, etc. that are
incompatible with the rest of the world that might be causing the problem.
Does that fit the bill, or are you using plain text? Tom P.S. Is there anybody
out there who: 1) Uses Microsoft Mail and DOES NOT have this problem? 2) Has
fixed this problem?