Re: Mission to Mars

In a message dated 3/16/00 1:38:48 PM Central Standard Time, 
agoodall@interlog.com writes:

<< The moment I saw the men standing around in a circle, firing at a bug
in 
the
 middle, I started laughing my arse off and realized Verhoven was
laughing at
 Heinlein. Now, to be honest, I DO think that Heinlein fans deserve a
serious
 treatment of Starship Troopers. But I also think that most sci-fi fans
(who
 tend to be a very conservative lot) give his views far too much
credence. 
  >>
Yeah, I laughed at that myself. "Sir, I'm sorry to report a 50% casualty

rate." "What happened, lieutenant? Bug ambush?" "No sir, friendly fire."

The thing about his views, there is the typical "he was a fascist vs. he
was 
right!" thing for so long it's gotten very funny. No one really looks at
the 
time he wrote the book, and the audience it was written for. It was
written 
in the 50's, for an audience who remembered WWII, most of the people
they 
knew were veterans, or contributed to the war effort in some way. A
society 
that based the right to vote on military service wasn't very far-fetched
to 
them, they were practically living in such a society. Looking back with
our 
Y2K sensibilities, where the society as a whole tends to pretty much
dismiss 
military service, or give it and veterans mere lip service, we can laugh
at 
such a prediction. Just my .02 cents...

John
JohnDHamill@aol.com