The book talks about a society where you need to do service (military is one type, but there are other services that are non-military) to gain citizenship and voting rights. The fictional society justifies this by stating that only those that have put something on the line for the nation deserve citizenship (the book says this, not my idea).
Then the book spends its latter half describing a fictional Officer Candidate School while Rico is underway. The book does not describe military authoritarianism - that was invented by the director of the movie, who famously celebrated not having read the book.
None of my commentary should be construed as supporting the ideas in the book, only correcting what the person I am responding to incorrectly described as the subject of the book.
That’s a fair correction. I guess authoritarianism is too far of a comparison for the book. I had read it a long time ago and remembered it pretty much straight up glorifying the military and military conquest above all, and as you say, the only path to citizenship is through military service.
It is a militarily dominant society, but that doesn’t necessarily require authoritarianism as the movie portrayed.
The one thing missing from the movie I wish they had put in was that in the books, IIRC, they had mech-like suits that had to be learned how to be piloted/used, and I remember that being a decent bit of a few chapters just learning how to use their mechanical battle suits.
They did not go into battle with some basic kevlar vs giant bugs.
Do note, the society tries to dissuade people from military service and does not at all glorify it. Don’t know if you remember the interactions with Mr Dubois, the civics teacher.
The book talks about a society where you need to do service (military is one type, but there are other services that are non-military) to gain citizenship and voting rights. The fictional society justifies this by stating that only those that have put something on the line for the nation deserve citizenship (the book says this, not my idea).
Then the book spends its latter half describing a fictional Officer Candidate School while Rico is underway. The book does not describe military authoritarianism - that was invented by the director of the movie, who famously celebrated not having read the book.
None of my commentary should be construed as supporting the ideas in the book, only correcting what the person I am responding to incorrectly described as the subject of the book.
That’s a fair correction. I guess authoritarianism is too far of a comparison for the book. I had read it a long time ago and remembered it pretty much straight up glorifying the military and military conquest above all, and as you say, the only path to citizenship is through military service.
It is a militarily dominant society, but that doesn’t necessarily require authoritarianism as the movie portrayed.
The one thing missing from the movie I wish they had put in was that in the books, IIRC, they had mech-like suits that had to be learned how to be piloted/used, and I remember that being a decent bit of a few chapters just learning how to use their mechanical battle suits.
They did not go into battle with some basic kevlar vs giant bugs.
Do note, the society tries to dissuade people from military service and does not at all glorify it. Don’t know if you remember the interactions with Mr Dubois, the civics teacher.