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This was one of Heinlein's earlier works, when he was in his "make war, not love" phase. The story follows the adventures of Johnny Rico as he joins the MI, the "military infantry", troopers equipped in powered armored that enables them to jump around, using all sorts of advanced weaponry. The enemy in this story is the "bugs" intelligent spiders who are bent on destroying humanity. The story follows Johnny as he goes through basic training, which is the "you're in the army now" part of the story that could be applied to any era. The futuristic part really begins when he gets his first combat assignment, zipping around in powered armor on a botched mission on the bug home planet of Klendethu. The story is a classic if only because it was one of the first (if not the very first) to introduce the concept of a futuristic, high powered infantry that could shoot out of spaceship tubes in capsules to parachute down on planets--sort of elite paratroopers. The story goes into how the bug society is organized and what kind of enemy they actually are, which makes for interesting reading. Less interesting are the pages devoted to "moral philosophy", Heinlein's ideas on how a society should be run. But these are easy enough to skip past. If you want a great military adventure, this is one for you. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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