Starship Troopers

Starship Troopers is a militarist utopian science fiction novel written by Robert A. Heinlein in 1959. New York: Ace Science Fiction. ISBN 0441783589. One of his most popular novels, the story follows the experiences of new military recruits--mainly young men and mainly young women--who must train and fight in a war against the Bugs, or Pseudo-Arachnids: grotesque and ruthless extraterrestrial creatures resembling beetles and spiders. The Terran Federation is ruled as a "military democracy," only those who have been honorably discharged as military veterans of the Federal Service are enfranchised. All others are subjects. The novel enjoyed popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s among conservatives anxious about the American failure in Vietnam. Starship Troopers was rendered as a film starring Denise Richards in 1997 no worse than the novel. 

=Background=
 * H. Bruce Franklin 1980. Robert A. Heinlein : America as Science Fiction. New York : Oxford University Press.