war", but added that "it's a very well-crafted novel, and I believe Heinlein was honest with it". The Forever War contains several parallels to Starship Troopers, including its setting. Commentators have described it as a reaction to Heinlein's novel, a suggestion Haldeman denies; the two novels are very different in terms of their attitude towards the military. The Forever War does not depict war as a noble pursuit, with the sides clearly defined as good and evil; instead, the novel explores the dehumanizing effect of war, influenced by the real world context of the Vietnam War. Haldeman received a letter from Heinlein, congratulating him on his Nebula Award, which "meant more than the award itself". According to author Spider Robinson, Heinlein approached Haldeman at the awards banquet and said the book "may be the best future war story I've ever read!" Harry Harrison's 1965 novel Bill, the Galactic Hero has also been described as a reaction to Starship Troopers, while Gordon R. Dickson's 1961 novel Naked to the Stars has been called "an obvious rejoinder" to Starship Troopers. Ring of Swords, written by Eleanor Arnason in 1993, also depicts a war between two highly aggressive species, of which humans are one. The story deliberately inverts several aspects of Starship Troopers; the story is told from the point of view of diplomats seeking to prevent war, rather than soldiers fighting it; and the conflict is the result of the two species being extremely similar, rather than different. Adaptations 1997 film The film rights to the novel were licensed in the 1990s, several years after Heinlein's death. The project was originally entitled Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine, and had been in production before the producers bought the rights to Starship Troopers. The film was directed by Paul Verhoeven (who found the book too boring to finish), and released in 1997. The screenplay, by Ed Neumeier, shared character names and some plot details with the novel. The film contained several elements that differed from the book, including a military that is completely integrated with respect to sex. It had the stated intention of treating its material in an ironic or sarcastic manner, to undermine the political ideology of the novel. The mechanized suits that featured prominently in the novel were absent from the film, due to budget constraints. The film utilized fascist imagery throughout, including portraying the Terran Federation's personnel wearing uniforms strongly