Graduation Day: The Testing 3 by Joelle Charbonneau
The final test is the deadliest. Cia Vale and Tomas Endress know the terrible cold equations behind the Testing. Cia is forced to admit however that it works, helping the country to rebuild after the shattering wars. But the cost is so great, that Cia agrees to undertake terrible acts to end the Testing. She will learn that trust is never an option and that the Testing never ended. This was an okay wrap up to the trilogy but it is not Brechtian alienation and feels underwritten.
Best Line:
“Results are important. Especially if the reports we are getting from beyond our country’s borders are accurate.”
~
Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
From the author of ‘The Puppet Masters’, ‘Space Cadet’ and ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ comes this fascist sexist tale of a psychopath recruit of the future going though boot camp and into the mobile infantry to fight for the Terran Federation who are losing their war against the Bugs. This is Heinlein’s author tract in which the future bears a big resemblance to the 1950s and there is an obsession with communism and being manly namely fighting wars and dying. This inspired the movie franchise and the awful cartoon series. The typeface was appalling and this is a terrible book.
Best Lines:
“Got scrubbed with stiff brushes and floor soap by his squad mates while a colonel-instructor chaperoned and make helpful suggestions.”
“You must never give them a chance to violate it.”
“That blow must never land!”
“We don’t know how far down they are. Not am I anxious to find out.”
“He’s radioactive debris on Klendathu.”
“Like Earth, but retarded.”
“It was somewhat dimmed by the fact that we had each heard about Carl - killed when the Bugs smashed our research station on Pluto - but only somewhat as we had learned to live with such things.”
“Men are not potatoes.”
~
The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein
This is a sexist dated tale of an alien invasion; it was made into a terrible movie in the 1990s. ‘Sam’ is a spy who along with his vile father and fellow spy ‘Mary’ sets out to fight the aliens in a ‘2007’ which is a lot like the 1950s. There is talk of head phones, stereocasts, newscasts, tempus pills, spools, buzz boxes, portable scanning rigs, stereo-video, tapes, typers, vendo machines, gays are described as unfortunates, the Iron Curtain/USSR is still around, the UK has a King and yet there are flying cars, there has been a WWIII and man has been to Mars and the Jovian moons and there are space stations and a colony on Venus. To fight the aliens people get naked, Sam and Mary marry, the alien invaders are winning and so the ’heroes’ come up with a plan to attack Titan and everyone acts like a psycho. This was horribly sexist and dated tosh.
Best Lines:
“Those were not normal male men.”
“If the parasites won, I’d arrange to be dead.”
“Most women are damn fools and children.”
“Close the dampers on your fire places!”
“A man wearing a coat is an enemy - shoot!”
“I just asked if people around here wore shirts.”
“Of course they do. Where do you think you are, mister; Arkansas?”
“Forgive me, darling - I’m being weak and womanish.”
“Do you want me to be?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll try very hard to be.”
“Beat the plowshares back into swords.”
“How deeply one must hate.”
“Puppet masters - the free men are coming to kill you!”