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Starship Troopers  By  cover art

Starship Troopers

By: Robert A. Heinlein
Narrated by: Lloyd James
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Publisher's summary

Join the Army and See the Universe. That is the motto of The Third Space War, also known as The First Interstellar War, but most commonly as The Bug War. In one of Robert Heinlein's most controversial best sellers, a recruit of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the universe - and into battle with the Terrain Mobile Infantry against mankind's most alarming enemy.

©1959 by Robert A. Heinlein (P)1998 by Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

  • Hugo Award, 1960

Featured Article: The Best Sci-Fi Book-to-Film/TV Adaptations


Beyond raising fascinating possibilities, the best works of science fiction ask big questions: What does it mean to be human? What will the future look like? What mysteries does the universe hold, and what do they mean for life on Earth? Whether you choose to escape via audiobook, movie, or television, these science fiction stories are truly out of this world—in all their incarnations.

What listeners say about Starship Troopers

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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    10,656
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    4,137
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    1,505
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Story
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  • 4 Stars
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  • 3 Stars
    1,070
  • 2 Stars
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  • 1 Stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Science Fiction with a pinch of the past

Like many I'm sure, I started reading this book based on the movie adaptation that depicted a fascinating military science fiction storyline both unique and brutal. I've always wanted to start reading Heinlein and thought this would be a natural place to begin.

I wish I had read reviews describing how much different the story was from the movie as I kept wishing for the action to pick up and that took a bit away for me, totally my own fault and a product of personal expectations.

This book was exceptional in ways I did not expect and that was one cool part of not reading the reviews. I was able to experience it somewhat fresh.

WHAT I ENJOYED:
-This book read like a WWII story set in a science fiction background. There is something beautiful in that style that is hard to put into words.
-Following the character of Juan Rico in light of his military service was brilliant. There were times where the pace could have picked up a bit but, overall, I was completely engaged with this amazing character throughout.
-This book will challenge your thinking in ways not easily described. I particularly enjoyed the thoughts on ethics and culture.
-It's quite remarkable how timely this book is even 50 years after it was originally written. True mastery!

WHAT I DIDN'T ENJOY:
-The narration was bad, odd dubbing or issues of phasing in and out. The narrator wasn't terrible and fit the style of the book ok but overall quality was an issue.
-I do wish this book was longer to continue fleshing out the science fiction elements more but, understandably this wasn't the goal of the author.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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  • MB
  • 08-30-20

Too many rerecorded lines.

Too many edits and the rerecorded bits sound like they were recorded in a closet. Kind of breaks up the flow.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Narration voice changes

Narrator is good. But, every now and then a sentence or partial sentence is read by what sounds like a different narrator. Almost like parts were dubbed over after the first narrator was finished. It’s extremely obvious and makes the read seem unpolished.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

The ONLY TRUE Starship Troopers

Starship Troopers continues to be one of the best SciFi's of all time. It is too bad that they've never made a good movie of it. The cartoon was close, but still no cigar. Maybe a NetFlix series could be made.

The performance was only marred by multiple soft points in the audio. Maybe it was download related, I'll give it another shot at another point.

Overall though, I'm sorry I waited so long to download it!

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    5 out of 5 stars
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It should be on all mandatory reading lists.

Read it. That's all I can say. Utterly fantastic book with fantastic political concepts. A true classic.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Really interesting book!

Somehow nothing at all like the movie, but also exactly like the movie. I enjoyed the whole thing, my only complaint is that the audio quality shifts very noticeably between takes and wasn’t always edited seamlessly between sentences. Still though, a really enjoyable listen!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Narration not the best

Love the story. Performance was on the bland side. Not as bad as some of the reviews report… but certainly not good.

100% still worth the credit.
I never get tired of this story.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Lloyd James at his best reading one Heinlien best

loved it, truly masterful story telling and read by an exemplary narrator.
starship troopers is one of the crown jewels of heinliens body of work.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

love this book but audio is weird

I really like this book and the narrator is pretty good. however the audio is weird, most of the time it is fine but there are areas where it is muffled for 30 seconds, almost like they had to record sections again but did it with different mics and audio equipment.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Old friend

Read this when in 4-5 grade. Now at 80, I enjoy revisiting this story again. I started my daughter off on heinleins books also, she also reads them again.

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