 Scholar Bruce Franklin referred to it in 1980 as a "bugle-blowing, drum-beating glorification" of military service, and wrote that militarism and imperialism were the explicit message of the book.Science fiction writer Dean McLaughlin called it "a book-length recruiting poster".In 1968 science fiction critic Alexei Panshin called "Starship Troopers" a militaristic polemic and compared it to a recruiting film, stating that it "purports to show the life of a typical soldier, with a soundtrack commentary by earnest sincere Private Jones who interprets what we see for us."