Editing Starship Troopers (section)

==Writing and publication==
[[File:StarshipSoldier.jpg|thumb|The cover of ''[[The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction]]'' (November 1959), illustrating ''Starship Soldier'']]

Robert Heinlein was among the best-selling science fiction authors of the 1940s and 1950s, along with [[Isaac Asimov]] and [[Arthur C. Clarke]]; they were known as the "big three" that dominated US science fiction. In contrast to the others, Heinlein firmly endorsed the anti-communist sentiment of the [[Cold War]] era in his writing.<ref>{{cite book |last=Parrinder |first=Patrick |title=Learning from Other Worlds: Estrangement, Cognition, and the Politics of Science Fiction and Utopia |url=https://archive.org/details/learningfromothe00parr |url-access=limited |publisher=[[Liverpool University Press]]|location= [[Trowbridge]], UK|year=2000|page=[https://archive.org/details/learningfromothe00parr/page/n89 81] |isbn= 978-0-8223-2773-8}}</ref> Heinlein served in the US Navy for five years after graduating from the [[United States Naval Academy]] in 1929. His experience in the military profoundly influenced his fiction.{{sfn|Booker|Thomas|2009|p=47}} At some point between 1958 and 1959, Heinlein put aside the novel that would become ''[[Stranger in a Strange Land]]'' and wrote ''Starship Troopers''. His motivation arose partially from his anger at US President [[Dwight Eisenhower]]'s [[Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty|decision to suspend US nuclear tests]], and the Soviet tests that occurred soon afterward.<ref name="Gifford"/> Writing in his 1980 volume ''[[Expanded Universe (book)|Expanded Universe]]'', Heinlein would say that the publication of a newspaper advertisement placed by the [[National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy]] on April 5, 1958, calling for a unilateral suspension of [[nuclear weapons testing]] by the United States sparked his desire to write ''Starship Troopers''.{{sfn|Heinlein|2003|pp=468–469}} Heinlein and his wife [[Virginia Heinlein|Virginia]] created the "[[Patrick Henry League]]" in an attempt to create support for the US nuclear testing program. Heinlein stated that he used the novel to clarify his military and political views.{{sfn|Heinlein|2003|pp=468–469, 481–482}}

Like many of Heinlein's books, ''Starship Troopers'' was completed in a few weeks. It was originally written as a [[juvenile novel]] for New York publishing house [[Charles Scribner's Sons|Scribner]]; Heinlein had previously had success with this format, having written several such novels published by that publisher. The manuscript was rejected, prompting Heinlein to end his association with that publisher completely, and to resume writing books with adult themes.<ref name="Gifford">{{cite web| last=Gifford| first=James| url=http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/ftp/fedrlsvc.pdf| title=The Nature of Federal Service in Robert A. Heinlein's ''Starship Troopers''| access-date=March 4, 2006| year=1996| archive-date=May 15, 2013| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130515235828/http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/ftp/fedrlsvc.pdf| url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Magill">{{cite encyclopedia|editor-last1=Magill|editor-first1=Frank N.|title=Starship Troopers|encyclopedia=Survey of Science Fiction Literature: Volume V|date=1979|last=Samuelson|first=David N.|publisher=Salem Press|location=[[Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey]], US|isbn=0-89356-199-1|pages=2173–2177}}</ref><ref name=HS>{{cite web |url= http://www.heinleinsociety.org/rah/biographies.html |publisher= The Heinlein Society |title= Biographies of Robert and Virginia Heinlein |access-date= March 4, 2006 |archive-date= November 28, 2012 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20121128133424/http://www.heinleinsociety.org/rah/biographies.html |url-status= dead }}</ref> Scholars have suggested that Scribner's rejection was based on ideological objections to the content of the novel, particularly in its treatment of military conflict.<ref name="Magill"/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Crim |first1=Brian E. |title= "A World That Works": Fascism and Media Globalization in Starship Troopers |journal= Film & History |date=2009 |doi= 10.1353/flm.0.0105 |volume=39 |issue=2 |pages=17–29 |s2cid=155012971 }}</ref>

''[[The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction]]'' first published ''Starship Troopers'' in October and November 1959 as a two-part [[serial (literature)|serial]] titled ''Starship Soldier''.<ref name=HS/> A senior editor at Putnam's, Peter Israel, purchased the manuscript and approved revisions that made it more marketable to adults. Asked whether it was aimed at children or adults, he said at a sales conference "Let's let the readers decide who likes it."<ref>{{cite book | first= William H. Jr. |last=Patterson |title= Robert A. Heinlein in Dialogue with His Century, Volume 2, 1948–1988: The Man Who Learned Better |location= New York City, New York, US|publisher=Tor |year=2014 |page=173}}</ref> The novel was eventually published by [[G. P. Putnam's Sons]].<ref name=HS/>