Robert A. Heinlein's novel Starship Troopers is one of the most popular and influential science fiction novels written. It serves as a bridge between his juvenile novels and his adult work. At the time, the audience he wrote for would have been too young to have experienced the Second World War or Korea and too early to have experienced Vietnam.
Currently, the speculative fiction genre is experiencing a renaissance in young adult literature that has not been seen since Heinlein's time. Contemporary readers of young adult have been born into the post-9/11 world, with the recently "concluded" conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the pain of the great recession. The Second World War occurred seventy years ago, and is best known through the legions of first person shooters or movies it has inspired.
Contemporary writers are, whether they know it or not, whether they like it or not, playing in Heinlein's sandbox: writers such as John Scalzi write works inspired by Starship Troopers. It is a novel that celebrates the dedication and commitment towards service of one's country---in the form of cranky lectures in protagonist Johnny Rico's History and Moral Philosophy classes about how society would function better if there was the same dedication shown to participating in democracy that was displayed in military service (revealing the kernel of authoritarianism at the heart of libertarianism).
Contemporary readers are living in a turbulent world, where violence is common, particularly in the form of extra-state terrorism. Conflict shapes the world they live in. Is Robert A. Heinlein still relevant to contemporary readers of YA? Will younger readers have the same reverence for it that their predecessors once had? I am not entirely optimistic, myself, that Starship Troopers is going to age well.
The relationship between war and contemporary YA SF readers has changed. In Heinlein's time, even the most horrible atrocities of war may not have been hidden away, but they were not as explicit either. Photographs, perhaps movies, could be seen after a respectable period of time. Crucially, the government could and did intercept anything that could be construed as damaging to the public's morale. Today, any atrocity can (and frequently is) immediately uploaded to YouTube within seconds.
The relationship between war and media has changed. For example, much of Mockingjay concerns both the Capital of Panem and Katniss Everdeen's efforts to try and out-soapbox each other. As a result, contemporary readers are no longer passive, but can easily recognize propaganda and manipulation when they see it. Information control is a lot more difficult than it used to be. Also, it is recognized now that whoever frames the perception of the conflict best is destined to win. This is not a new revelation, but in a time when information passes freely, it becomes crucial.
The relationship between civilians and the military is also dissimilar: Starship Troopers was written in a time when armies might clash at a respectable distance from civilian population centers. Not that war was always conducted in this way, or that American forces never participated in fighting in urban environments, but increasingly the amount of fighting is, by necessity, going to occur in urban environments. The relationship between civilian and combatant is now gauze thin.
This is not to say that we have grown any more pacifistic. Far from it: look at the Hunger Games, Chaos Walking and Leviathan or Uglies series, all of which have war or at least violent conflict as a central aspect of their plots. However, compared to Heinlein's veneration of the central role conflict plays in the human experience, modern young adult science fiction has a more realistic and nuanced view of warfare than Heinlein. Isaac Asimov has a famous quote where he says that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Both Heinlein and modern readers agree: warfare's necessity forms a major part of Monsters of Men, the third book of the Chaos Walking series. Warfare involves violence, but it is a focused and deliberate kind of violence as opposed to mass murder or terrorism that often passes for it.
Still, modern readers realize that warfare has very serious consequences. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is involved in the aftermath of the Hunger Games in Catching Fire; and the rebellion against the capital involves false flag operations against civilians, among other things. Compare this with Heinlein's "Bugs" who are literally natural communists, incapable of distinguishing between civilian and soldier. There is nothing in warfare so horrible that you will not do it: you will make alliances with disreputable people who will make trying to live in peace after the war as difficult as possible; you will do things that you think only bad guys do, and you will do them willingly.
Ironically for an author that tried to tell it straight and as it is, Heinlein increasingly is coming across as a man with his head in the clouds. His perspective of warfare is not only dated, it is unrealistic. Because of the influence and prominence of Starship Troopers it will continue to shape military science fiction; however, readers of modern YA SF, while they may appreciate the novel for it's advocacy of commitment to one's country, are going to be better served by SF that acknowledges that war, while it may be justified, is often anything but glorious.
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