Personally, I love it. I think that he’s probably dead-on with his political philosophy, e.g., people don’t value things that they don’t have to put in some personal effort for. Verhoeven thinks that Heinlein was a fascist, but Heinlein himself was a radical libertarian that was deeply affected by WWII, with a strong distrust of “big government” and any kind of organized religion.
There’s definitely casual racism and genocide in the book–notably the skinnies–and Heinlein is very definitely a product of his time. And it’s probably written for a late teen/early 20s audience. So take this all with a grain of salt.
Personally, I love it. I think that he’s probably dead-on with his political philosophy, e.g., people don’t value things that they don’t have to put in some personal effort for. Verhoeven thinks that Heinlein was a fascist, but Heinlein himself was a radical libertarian that was deeply affected by WWII, with a strong distrust of “big government” and any kind of organized religion.
There’s definitely casual racism and genocide in the book–notably the skinnies–and Heinlein is very definitely a product of his time. And it’s probably written for a late teen/early 20s audience. So take this all with a grain of salt.