Starship Troopers repeatedly claims that violence is an inescapable part of human nature that may be directed but cannot—and should not—be excised, because only the strongest and most adaptable creatures will survive. William Golding presented similar views in his 1954
Lord of the Flies, where a group of young boys are stranded on a remote island. Golding depicts their descent into a primal state of violence that particularly targets the weakest members of the group, though Golding presents this aspect of human nature as a horrific tragedy. Joe Haldeman’s
The Forever War, published in 1974, shares setting and plot elements with
Starship Troopers: both novels use an interplanetary war waged by futuristic humans to offer commentary on modern society. Haldeman has discussed the influence of Heinlein on his own work, and many readers see
The Forever War—in which war is alienating and destructive—as a direct rebuttal of
Starship Troopers. Haldeman denies such a direct correspondence between the two novels, and his repudiation of war is filtered in part through his horrific experiences after being drafted into the Vietnam War. Orson Scott Card’s 1985
Ender’s Game bears a marked resemblance to the premise of
Starship Troopers: Card’s novel also tells a militaristic coming-of-age story about a young man whose human society is menaced by a hive-minded alien species. However,
Ender’s Game focuses more on humans’ interactions with technology than
Troopers, and it presents a far less triumphant vision of war when Ender ultimately learns to empathize with the Buggers and repudiates the humans’ violent conduct in the “Bugger War.”