Greylorn by Keith Laumer

1. This novella tells the story of a struggling earth trying to find a human colony that they have lost contact with, in order to gain assistance to free earth from its infection: the red tide. The red tide is a biological infection that covers most of the world. In the past, the world sent out 25 colony ships, but has since lost contact with one of them, on which they pin their last hopes to save earth. I describe this story because Laumer has well matched it to his pacing. He skips over large portions of the story in order to focus on just the interesting bits. In the opening chapter, two hours of debate is skipped, while the important bits are focused on. Then, the book skips ahead to when the mutiny happens, almost five years later. And without a lengthy info dump, Laumer introduces the new time period with one sentence, then it’s back to the action. Laumer admirably focuses on his plot, driving the book forward in a way consistent with pulp novellas, instead of filling in the gaps with rumination and tangential sideplots.

The Commander turned his eyes to the world map covering the wall. With the exception of North America and a narrow strip of coastal waters, the entire map was tinted an unhealthy pink.

“The latest figures compiled by the Department of the Navy indicate that we are losing area at the rate of one square mile every twenty-one hours. The organism’s faculty for developing resistance to our chemical and biological measures appears to be evolving rapidly. Analyses of atmospheric samples indicate the level of noxious content rising at a steady rate. In other words, in spite of our best efforts, we are not holding our own against the Red Tide.”

2. The characters fit archetypes, and that’s the biggest negative of this novel. Captain Greylorn is too perfect. Yeah, he gets shot and allows the mutiny to happen. But he figures out the mystery and saves the day, while probably looking handsome. Kramer acts just like an antagonist throughout: going off the handle with incomplete information. Thomas plays the part of helpful Forest Gump. But none of these are wrinkled. The plot is the focus, and that’s what puts the pressure on the characters, not themselves. The plot drives everything, and the characters are largely uninteresting.
—The aliens themselves, the Mancji, are a bit more interesting, but so much is unknown about them that they don’t really act like characters in the novel, rather, like an archetype of the unknown. I wonder if this novella is a part of a series and more is known about the Mancji in other works.

They filed out, looking as foolish as three preachers caught in a raid on a brothel.

3. The tone of the book is mystery and adventure. Especially with the last chapter, I think of this book like a mystery. In other words, situations are setup and information is withheld from the reader. Later, this information comes up and provides an “ah ha” moment for the reader, explaining everything that went on before.
—But it’s also an adventure tale. There is shooting, and crawling through trash compactor chutes, and fist fights, and chases. And more.
—The wording fits this, in a way that Dashiell Hammett could recognize. Witty asides, colloquial phrases, and short sentences that focus on the action itself.

Thomas grinned. “I useta be a radar technician third before I got inta waste disposal,” he said. “I had to change specialities to sign on for this cruise.”

I had an idea there’d be an opening for Thomas a little higher up when this was over.

I asked him to take a look at the televideo, too. I was beginning to realize that Thomas was not really simple; he was merely uncomplicated.

4. This adventure novel focuses on adventure, setting up mysteries to help the plot drag the reader along. I enjoyed the ride, and have read it twice, but only want to read more Laumer when I feel like reading pulp fiction. Good, plot driven pulp fiction, instead of Hammet’s more character driven pulp. [Reading Laumer's Wikipedia page, it seems some of his other stuff might be more interesting to me personally. So maybe I should find some more of his stuff.]

They were frozen together into one solid mass. Kramer was right. They were as human as I. Human corpses, stripped, packed together, frozen. I pulled back the lightly frosted covering, and studied the glazed white bodies.

Kramer called suddenly from the door. “You found your colonists, Captain. Now that your curiosity is satisfied, we can go back where we belong. Out here man is a tame variety of cattle. We’re lucky they didn’t know we were the same variety, or we’d be in their food lockers now ourselves. Now let’s get started back. The men won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein

For Morgan

1. The strongest thing about the writing at the start, just after that first bug-raid, is that instead of setting up a liberal-conservative dichotomy, Heinlein sets up debates within viewpoints. Two conservative viewpoints struggle for prominence—the father and the teacher. This feels more unique and honest to how I thought about politics in high school. It also sets up the way Heinlein is going to deal with Juan: he will seem to be all soldier, but he's actually going to be subtle and unique within that category.

2. Another strength of the writing is that it changes throughout. When Juan gets to OCS, we see him becoming more intelligent—we see this through word choice, sentence structure, and the way he argues, namely: the words are more unusual, the sentences more complex, and the arguments more detailed than the preceding chapters. Throughout, Juan is humorous, enthusiastic, and capable of an emotional poignancy that the reader feels. One example of his humor, "I couldn't say about that, I've never been a racehorse."

3. Juan consistently breaks the fourth wall, talking to the reader. I find this effective here. But why? Perhaps it invites the reader to pause and consider. Perhaps it increases immersion for the reader. But this direct addressing of the reader is effective for me here as it makes it hard for my mind to wander when Juan is talking directly to me. I think it would be boring over a whole book, but it works here because it does not happen all the time, and the book isn't too long. The teachers of HMP talking directly to Juan are also an effective way to talk to the reader without formally breaking the fourth wall.

4. Like other war memoirists, Juan is trying to... not quite justify himself, but certainly explain himself and perhaps convince the reader as well. Heinlein must've done his homework before starting this fictional war memoir, because it feels very honest to war memoirs that I have read. This realism helps make Juan more human—it comes from believing that humans always make the decisions they think will benefit them the most in the context of their personal experiences, their learned experiences from others, and the specific situation. Where he fails war memoirists is that he does not have the same relish for describing tactics. He tries to get away with this by saying they changed tactics each drop so the bugs wouldn't get wise; but with how many MI platoons would be involved in a war of this scale, I don't quite buy that. This is even more perplexing when I realize how liberal he is with throwing around ranks and group sizes like "rump battalion", with no explanation for the reader, expecting that they know this information. Perhaps he doesn't consider this important or interesting to the wider audience that he was writing to.

5. The best writing in the book is that Juan's changing reasons for joining and staying are illuminated without Juan changing who he is significantly, but through him becoming more self-aware. War and the right to vote are certainly motivators, but it is difficult to tell how important they are to Juan himself. He seems to try and talk himself out of those as reasons, but the amount of time spent on them in the novel seems to imply their importance. It may be a realization that he would wonder his whole life whether he was his own person—which is a fascinating either/or/if choice: either he joins or he doesn't, but if he dies he could never know anything. This is an effective problem to put a character into as a writer, and it helps illuminate Juan's character. But the time when he decides to quit boot camp until the end of that lengthy chapter is brilliant and evocative. The coup de grace is near the end where he starts noticing other people again—the band marching specifically. Essentially he becomes self-absorbed on orderly duty—despite the court marshal and Zim getting chewed out. But after the letter, on the march back, he stops living for himself and begins living for his squad mates. And the writing reflects that: it goes from introspective examinations of Juan's emotions to Juan looking around himself and realizing that he is not in a vacuum, and the writing describes the band and the march back. This scene really got me interested in boot camp stories—of which the two chapters in Lone Survivor do a very good job of evoking the experience, though the writing may be a bit thick on bravado. Anyways, this part is where he finally grasps why he fights—though it isn't mentioned here: he fights for the guy in the fox hole next to him, and so others do not have to. Why Juan fights and gets a commission shifts throughout the novel as he becomes more self aware. Initially it seems that he is joining up because of a shifting pattern of nebulous reasons: Carmen, Carl, franchise, teen angst, individuality, curiosity, boredom, pride, citizenship, et cetera. Then he realizes that he does it for other MIs. Yes, there is a small streak of pride and eagerness to try new things, but mostly he does it for the other soldier next to him. He continues with his training at OCS because of the challenge of it, for fear of not measuring up to it.

6. The other spectacular writing is in Juan's respect and empathy for the bugs. Killing them is his job, but he regrets the torture of captured bugs. He is not a genocidal racist. He actually learns from and respects the bugs. The three main conclusions of the bugs that Juan appreciates are their organization, their quick gestation, and the value they placed on a single life as below that of the good of the whole. The first two points are merely about efficiency and effectiveness in combat and war—it is understandable that a soldier like Juan would look at these with admiration. The third point is where Juan connects with the bugs the most—after all, he himself has become a soldier and placed the value of his own life below that of the good of the whole. In this may be Heinlein's greatest writing in the book: Juan, for all of his bravado, for all of that talk of his friends, empathizes with the bugs. He respects them on the battlefield, of course, but he also respects their society to an extent. He seems to regret the torture that the humans subject the bugs to when they capture a live specimen. Yes, he appreciates the safety and more effective weapons that study of bugs affords him and his squad, and I do not think that he would trade anything for that. But he still regrets the necessity of the torture. I'm reminded of once talking to my uncle—my great uncle actually, but nobody ever calls him that. He was in the Merchant Marines during the second world war. I was a kid in high school interested in nuclear physics, and I was dumb enough to ask him about the bombs. He told me and I will never forget what he said. But the point that applies to Juan's case is that Uncle Bob felt the same about the bomb that Juan feels about torturing the bugs for information. He was happy that the destruction of two Japanese cities saved the lives of so many Americans, so many of his friends. And yet he was in tears over the pain and damage caused to the people of those two cities. It was initially something that they rejoiced about and celebrated on board the ship because that final invasion tension had been released. But as he learned more about the effects, he also mourned.

7. However, I believe this book to be one of Heinlein's less skillfully written novels. I have a slight problem of the pacing, bookending a war memoir with action on both sides does not quite support the extensive introspection of the middle. This is something that Heinlein may have been able to fix with more actions from training camp and OCS to help pace Juan's introspection better. Also, it feels like he started writing this novel and then changed his mind about a few things without taking them out. For instance, page 33 gives some hints as to where the novel is going, but two things on this page are entirely dropped: the "neodog symbiote", and the SPCA (?) trouble at the neodog exhibit. My question is: why even hint at this event and then drop it? I can understand if your hints give some context of the world that Juan exists in, but these hints are so specific within the fiction that they're defective for setting the mood of Juan's context. It is baffling. And I've come to the conclusion that I think Heinlein intended to write a much longer novel, but when he decided to write this story closer to a novella, he forgot to take out some of the threads that he started in the early chapters. These abandoned threads were glaring to me. Part of the strength of most novellas and shorter novels is their tight focus.

8. The strongest part of this novel, and probably the reason why Heinlein received more letters about this book than any other, is the incredible amount of ideas that Juan expounds. This novel is not so much a story being told as a number of ideas being listed. It's unusual in that. I typically do not discuss the ideas within a book here in this space because these notes are intended to be useful for my writing and my memory. However, the whole point of this novel is Juan, and he is explained to the readers through maybe five to ten actions, and an overwhelming amount of interlinking ideas. To illustrate his point, I have listed all of the ideas that I could find within this book. A couple of the ideas are spoken by HMP professors, but even these ideas are merely there to explain Juan. I marvel at how related and interlocking each idea is with the rest of them. I want to stress here that I do not agree with all of these ideas, I just want to leave a record for myself of how many ideas it took Heinlein to create such a well rounded, believable character in Juan. Though I explicitly note why I disagree with a couple of the arguments, that does not imply that I agree with the others. Except for 1, 2, and 24, these ideas are listed in chronological order of where they are found within the book.

1. A whole class of ideas are witty one liners about the beliefs of soldiers:
—Sergeants are bad
—Soldiers find things not practical to be silly
—Soldiers want to die in bed
—Soldiers have mostly been the same through history
—Do something constructive at once, don't think too much because that wastes time
—Keep moving
—Gender roles are important for organizational benefits
—Show deference to women
—Cleanliness is key
—There are only two sizes in the army: too small or too large
—Do not ask a silly questions of your superiors
—Personal space is important
—Personal time is important
—Civilian life is complicated and untidy
—Practice makes actions unconscious
—Don't pass up the line what you can decide
—Civilians know more about the war's overall progress than a soldier
—Civilians do not speak the same language
—Stupid races do not build spaceships

2. A smaller class of ideas are witty one liners about the beliefs of civilians:
—Military service is silly
—Always take the easiest route

3. A lot of the ideas in the book center around violence. I have a friend who believes that violence is the most basic human language, so I was very interested in these ideas.
—First off is the idea that violence settles things: it has settled more issues in history than anything else, like Carthage. The HMP Professor goes on to state that the opposite view is thoroughly immoral and inexcusably silly.
—Second is the idea that violence is a tool, not a negative. It is a way to train people like when we use restrained violence when training dogs or spanking toddlers. Another way to put this is that you can save a lot of violence by getting one good punch in to make your opponent question whether he really wants to fight you are not. This is violence trying to prevent further violence. This is violence training another person. It's also that violence is just a symptom.
—Thirdly, war supports the government's decisions by force, by violence.
—Fourth, it is a form of communication: it can be about setting hierarchy or gaining respect; it can be a friendly bonding experience like that one between Zim, Frankel, and Shujumi; or it can express faith in a person after a mistake. Flogging is a compliment because it says we think you are capable and worthy of being corrected or fixed. (87)
—Fifth is the extensive portion on the violence inherent in Public Parks at night. This begins on page 90 and there are some smaller ideas about violence contained in the next five pages, but the real conclusion on page 95 is that violence is useful because it comes from our innate survival instincts: it loads the pain side of the pain-pleasure equation.

4. There are moral differences between a veteran and a civilian: a soldier has proven that he's willing to lay down his life for the good of the whole, while civilians have not inherently proven that of themselves.

5. Boot camp and OCS are as hard as possible because what comes next is harder—military service. They are finely tuned tools to create with the army needs with what it has. (45) Any other way or any less hard would not be safe to those around the soldier, or to himself.

6. Cave men are no dumber than us, they just had less tools. (49)

7. There are no dangerous weapons, just dangerous people. The idea here being that the technology itself is not inherently dangerous, but the way that people use that technology is dangerous. For example, a car used safely is safe; while a car used to run pedestrians over is a dangerous weapon. But the car did not choose to be a dangerous weapon, the driver chose to use it as a dangerous weapon.

8. Value is relative, not absolute.
—Marx does not work because people are different: an apple is inherently more valuable to a baker wanting to make an apple strudel to sell than to a farmer needing something to feed to his pigs. This is because of personal and contextual differences. What matters is what the baker can do with the apple, and what he is willing to do or give to get the apple.
—"Nothing of value is free," because we are most satisfied with what we have earned, therefore we value it more. Misplaced value drags countries, societies, and cultures down. By this he means makes them less powerful in the eyes of others because they value things differently. For instance, Russia did not value their land as much as Napoleon valued conquering it, so they were able to trade land for life and kept the French out. What does a Russian care for Napoleon? They do not value the same things.

9. Technology, like the armored suit, should be designed to work with humans instead of requiring a retraining of the mind and reflexes. (84) [For more on this conclusion, see Donald Norman's The Design of Everyday Things, from 1988.]

10. Symbolism is important throughout the book, but especially in the story of Dillinger. Symbolically, Dillinger is still a soldier. Not in truth, but in fact. Not to them, but to others. It is about taking responsibility after the fact for something that they did not do, could not have stopped, but will take responsibility for in order to serve the greater good of the people. It is a bummer for the group, and they do penance to clean their reputation and remind themselves of their duty to the larger whole. It also teaches Juan that there is bad luck out of his control, maybe even that accidents exist. Though I think he concludes that these are unanswerable questions, at least at this point in his education and life.

11. Moral instinct does not exist: we are trained into it. The basis of morality is duty. Duty is to a group what self interest is to an individual. Duty is purely an adult virtue.

12. The right to life is a fallacy when drowning in the Pacific. [Here he confuses right to life and right to continued life.]

13. The right to liberty costs blood—even in the bloodless revolution of a democracy.

14. The pursuit of happiness is a state of mind, not a right.

15. When dealing with the loss of someone close to a group, as much as possible, keep everything else as close to what it was like before they died.

16. Sanctuary as a planet: radiation is necessary for evolution. [The metaphor being that hardship is necessary for betterment. This is clever because Sanctuary is the opposite of hardship—by being without hardship for the first time since boot camp, Juan is finally able to catch his breath and reflect on hardship.]

17. Why Juan fights: mostly he does it for the other soldier next to him. He continues with his training at OCS because of the challenge of it, for fear of not measuring up to it. For his father, it is an act of faith and self exploration, a rite of passage and a break from the norm.

18. Citizenship is a selfless, long-term state of mind. It is humble and proud, and willing to sacrifice for the greater good. (129)

19. Citizenship and state power: basing citizenship on military service because those citizens have already proven themselves willing to sacrifice for the greater good. Veterans are no more able to put down rebellions than civilians—perhaps they are less able due to potential disabilities from war wounds. [But this idea seems to ignore those gadflies like Socrates—selflessly sacrificed for the greater good, but through different means than military service.] Absolute authority in right to vote wedded to the ultimate social responsibility: wagering one's own life for the right to vote and watch over the greater good of the public. It also takes aggressive people and gives them the power they want, but first a term to work out their aggression in the military. It also gives power to those who have had bad days, those who are less likely to balk under pressure, and who have memories of fallen comrades to remind them of their purpose in serving the greater good.

20. Morals are self preservation above the individual level. Like duty is self interest at the group level, morals are self preservation at the group level.

21. One prisoner is worth risking everything to save. Because if we do not save that one prisoner, what are we trying to preserve? Humans always want their prisoners back. They always attempt rescue, and typically more rescuers die.

22. War is inevitable: a population will be hunted to extinction if it does not expand. When it expands, it forces population pressures that lead to war.

23. Pare the army down to mostly fighting men and hire out all the other jobs to the navy or civilians. This will lead to more camaraderie which helps the army look after and take care of its own, as well as keep itself in line. It will also be much more efficient.

24. The three main conclusions of the bugs that Juan appreciates are their organization, their gestation, and the value they placed on a single life as below that of the good of the whole. [This implies that we should learn from our enemies, not only to beat them in combat, but also to better ourselves and understand our own context better.]

In closing, the wikiquote article on this novel is a good reference. Numerous quotes mostly organized per chapter.