Legendary science-fiction artist Stephen Hickman brings every inch of frenetic action to the page in the first illustrated edition of Robert A. Heinlein’s Hugo Award-winning Starship Troopers. Introduced by Joe Haldeman.
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Starship Troopers
Earth is caught in the midst of a deadly conflict with the implacable Arachnids, a swarm of insect-like aliens intent on wiping out all human life. Fresh recruit Juan ‘Johnny’ Rico signs up impulsively, keen to prove himself in the upper echelons of the Navy. Instead he finds himself assigned to the Mobile Infantry, the frantic and hardcore frontline where all that stands between life and an alien death is a sophisticated armoured suit. Thrown into a training programme that may well kill him before he even gets a crack at the ‘bugs’, Johnny’s destiny lies in war-torn space.
‘Nothing has come along that can match it.’
Science Fiction Weekly
Production Details
Quarter-bound in blocked cloth with blocked metallic paper sides Set in Meridien with Stencil display 272 pages Frontispiece and 6 colour illustrations, including 2 double-page spreads Metallic coloured page edges Slipcase with a printed inset colour label 10˝ x 6 ¾˝
The philosophy of war
‘I always get the shakes before a drop.’
Winning a Hugo in 1960, Starship Troopers is one of the first great works of military science-fiction, and its author has been celebrated as one of the masters of the wider genre alongside Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury and Philip K. Dick. Serving in the US Navy for 5 years, Robert A. Heinlein brought the lived experience of his service to this, his most famous work. Written partly in reaction to the US policy of ceasing nuclear testing in the late 1950s, Starship Troopers remains a controversial novel, with its central argument that violent conflict is an inevitable and necessary part of human civilisation. In his warm and perceptive introduction for this edition, Joe Haldeman, author of The Forever War, talks about the influence Starship Troopers had on his own work, and how the fallout of the Vietnam War changed the speculative fiction of the 1960s and 1970s.
Iconic science-fiction hardware
Popularised by Paul Verhoeven’s film version in 1997, Starship Troopers has had a wide and lasting influence across multiple arenas, with the ‘powered armour’ of the Mobile Infantry becoming a familiar sight in films, television, comic books and video games. In part thanks to Heinlein’s rousing vision of future warfare, armoured exoskeletons are edging closer to being a reality for soldiers currently serving, and the book itself remains on the required reading list for US Marines.
Depicting a war-torn universe
For this, the first illustrated edition, science-fiction and fantasy illustrator Stephen Hickman has been commissioned to produce 7 illustrations, with 2 double-page spreads. A Hugo Award winner himself and known throughout the SFF community for his work inspired by writers such as J. R. R. Tolkien, Larry Niven and Anne McCaffrey, Hickman brings fantastical space opera to each full-colour page, conjuring vast spaceships, unsettling chitinous legs and dreamy plumes of nuclear flame.
About Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein was a prolific American science-fiction writer. He was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1907. Having served in the US Navy for five years he went on to study mathematics and physics at the University of California, which greatly influenced the technical nature of his writing. His first work, ‘Life Line’ (1939), was published in the magazine Astounding Science Fiction and its success motivated Heinlein to start writing full time. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Heinlein decided to frame his writing in a more political fashion, coining the term ‘speculative fiction’. His short story ‘The Green Hills of Earth’ was published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1947. He went on to write several successful novels and cultivated a wide readership. His most influential works include Starship Troopers(1959) and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966). Heinlein’s science fiction transformed the genre and took it from the pulp era to the forefront of popular culture. He won several awards for his work, including the Hugo Award. Heinlein died in 1988 and is now widely remembered as the ‘dean of science-fiction writers’.
About Joe Haldeman
Joe Haldeman is an American science-fiction writer. He was born in 1943 in Oklahoma City, and received his degree in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Maryland in 1967. He served in the US Army during the Vietnam War as a combat engineer, where he was severely wounded and won a Purple Heart. His experiences in Vietnam inspired his first novel, War Year (1972). After receiving an MFA degree in creative writing, Haldeman focused on his science fiction writing. He went on to write hugely successful novels including The Forever War (1974), Forever Peace (1997) and Hemingway Hoax (1991). He has won several awards for his writing including the Hugo and Nebula awards. In 2012 he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.
About Stephen Hickman
Stephen Hickman is a professional illustrator, sculptor and author. He has created work for most of the major publishing houses over the past 4 decades, in the process painting covers for authors such as Robert Heinlein, Frank Herbert, Anne McCaffrey, Harlan Ellison, Neil Gaiman and Orson Scott Card. His work has earned numerous awards, including the Hugo Award, 6 Chesley Awards from the National Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists, and 2 of the SPECTRUM Gold Awards. His own publications include The Lemurian Stone (1988), The Fantasy Art of Stephen Hickman (1989) and EMPYREAN: The Art of Stephen Hickman (2015). Hickman lives in Hudson Valley, New York State.
Reviews Powered By
Average Score for 61 Review(s)
Quintessential sf, presented in a beautiful format, from the metallic stampings and page edges to the perfect illustrations. I'm very pleased with this one.
Review by
MR JAMES BARRY
on 21st February 2023
I love the binding and the jacket.
Review by
BRICE ST. JOHN
on 6th September 2022
The illustrations are great. I think more colors and care could have gone into the cover of the book.
Review by
MR TRAVIS BRYANT
on 23rd July 2022
beautiful edition, love this book. On becoming a soldier and an officer. On war and and citizenship, rights and duties.
Review by
Dennis
on 12th July 2022
Beautiful book. It was a present for my husband and he was super excited to get it.
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