Starship Troopers

[WellsFan]

I think that Starship Troopers(the novel that inspired the 1997 movie of the same name)by Robert Heinlein should be included in the Literature Network's selection of novels. I've read SST(abbreiviation for Starship Troopers) before and it is an exellent novel that many people I believe would enjoy immensly.

[Scheherazade]

Heinlein's books won't be available free on the net for a long time, unfortunately (copyright laws).

[WellsFan]

So, let me get this straight: You wait for the copyright to expire and then you post the stories? Why not just contact Heinlein or Heinlein's publisher and ask permission to post SST?

[gar]

I read "SST" when it was originally published - yes, I'm a grandpa now. The movie was OK but it wasn't Heinlein. The movie could have been called The Giant Bug Exterminators and given a much more truthful idea of what it was about. I'm not knocking it. I'm just saying it ain't Heinlein, even if they did use his name on it.

The same goes for the Puppet Masters, made from one of his books published in the early fifties. It was an OK movie but it wasn't Heinlein.

I've been reading Heinlein since I learned to read and I was fortunate enough to meet and talk to Heinlein several times in 1977, ten years before his death. Heinlein was very outspoken and had strong philosophical beliefs. Both of these things were obvious when you talked to him and they are certainly obvious in his books. To leave this philosophy out of a movie adaptation of one of his books cheats the people that haven't read his books and just makes Heinlein's real fans disappointed and angry.

Oh by the way; I don't know who administers his estate now that Virginia Heinlein, his gracious wife, has passed on but I don't think Robert Heinlein would have allowed one of his works to be published for free. Its not that he was stingy. He was very generous with the Red Cross, his favorite charity. (He would only autograph books for Red Cross blood donors.) Its just that he considered himself to be a craftsman. Do you know any craftsmen, say a maker of fine furniture, that would just give you a free table because you admired it?