Roughly half the novel talks of a futuristic society where space marines fight aliens. If that sounds a bit generic and lame, well, it is. The book is certainly not as bad as the atrocious movie, and in fact, has very little to do with the movie, although both feature their fair share of uninspired space combat. Fortunately, the other half of the book is what keeps this story from being in the sci-fi bargain bin. The society Heinlein presents us with has some interesting values with respect to suffrage, war, politics and laws. I won't spoil the ideas behind these, but at least these parts of the novel are interesting to think about and salvage what is otherwise an uninspired book.
