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Forever War The Joe Haldeman 9780060510862 Books

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Forever War The Joe Haldeman 9780060510862 Books

I haven't read sci-fi in many years (it was my passion as a teen, but I'm long past that period of my life now), so I was pleasantly surprised by the writing and intellectual quality of The Forever War. It is a provocative novel that uses the Theory of Relativity to show us how much the world changes over the 100s of years that actually pass while the space warriors are on missions that last for months. Shifts in social and sexual mores that occur during the protagonist's three combat missions are jarring for him, yet he manages to hold to his personal principles and beliefs. The parallels with Vietnam are clearly intentional (since the author fought in Vietnam), and the returning soldiers are greeted not as heroes but as oddities in a culture that has foresworn war and made peace with an enemy that had slaughtered many of the men and women's friends. This novel is the kind of thoughtful science fiction that I used to love, and I'm delighted to know that such books are still being written. Bring on more!


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Forever War The Joe Haldeman 9780060510862 Books Reviews

It's certainly a good book and I enjoyed reading it, however I think that it has lost something since being written. Maybe its tremendous impact on the SciFi genre is working against it when read today. Specifically, the concepts which were novel when this was written, have become SciFi tropes and standards, which since have executed with greater breadth and resolution. The book's length also works against it in that it's hard to flush out concepts when the timeline of the book is millennia and the book is less than 300 pages. I'm not sure it is fair to criticise the odd anachronistic future technology already surpassed today, but it was somewhat jarring at times. For all the criticism I have, it is absolutely a required read for any lover of Science Fiction. It is one of the corner stones that the modern genre is built on and an enjoyable read.
Joe Haldeman's classic science fiction war novel, The Forever War, appears on most lists of the all-time most popular stories in the field. The book won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel. When it was published in 1974, the Vietnam War was winding down. Haldeman had fought in the war and was badly wounded there. At the time, a dozen publishers rejected the novel because, as Haldeman reveals in an Author's Note at the front of the edition of the novel, "'nobody wants to read a science fiction novel about Vietnam.'"

Today, the parallel between the Vietnam War and Haldeman's story is difficult to see. The Forever War could be no war in history, or every war. "It's about Vietnam because that's the war the author was in," Haldeman writes. "But it's mainly about war, about soldiers, and about the reasons we think we need them."

A classic science fiction war novel set centuries in the future
The Forever War opens in the 1990s, a period that seemed far off when the book was published. But the time quickly advances far into the future as a result of the time dilation explained by the Theory of Relativity. Haldeman posits travel at near light-speed through portals in space-time that are most commonly called "wormholes." He generally refers to them as "collapsars," which are the super-dense product of supernovae. This is the mechanism through which Haldeman can portray his protagonist, William Mandella, fighting in an interstellar war with an alien race called Taurans over the course of many centuries.

This is hard science fiction—up to a point
Haldeman treats relativity on the basis of a solid understanding of astrophysics. Mandella is, in fact, a physicist. The starships Haldeman describes appear to be consistent with our understanding today of ship design and propulsion systems appropriate for space travel. And, unlike most science fiction authors who venture far into the future, Haldeman clearly grasps the ways language changes over time. Centuries later, in his telling, 21st-Century English is virtually unintelligible to contemporaries. In fact, of course, there's unlikely to be anything virtual about the difficulty. Just try to understand Old English today!

However, relativity, spaceship design, and linguistics aside, Haldeman's tale is entirely fanciful. The super-weapons he describes may well be based on what scientists today might imagine will be possible. But they are, in the end, imaginary. So, too, are the Taurans.

Considerations of reality notwithstanding, this classic science fiction war novel is suspenseful, tightly written, and psychologically plausible. And this edition is, in fact, Haldeman's original text, before the publishers of the 1970s toned it down for what they deemed the less tolerant readers of the time.

About the author
The Forever War was Joe Haldeman's second published novel. It remains the work for which he is best known. He has written more than 30 novels and received every major industry award. Haldeman's long, successful career has won him a Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and placement in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.
I first read this many years ago, but seeing it at a bargain price of $1 over the Black Friday weekend was irresistible.
It's been good to revisit it, too. Sure, I remembered an awful lot, but times have changed in our world since then, which makes for something of a good parallel with the tale itself.
For those unfamiliar with the book, it's the story of William Mandella, a soldier fighting in deep space for humanity - but the faster than light travel that carries him and his fellow soldiers into battle also means that while only a year or two may pass for them, many years pass on the Earth they are fighting for.
Before they know it, the world they left behind is almost unrecognisable to the soldiers - and the only remnant of the world gone by are the soldiers themselves, finding in one another the familiarity they can no longer see in society.
There are obvious connections here to the veterans who returned from Vietnam - Haldeman himself served there - and came home to a country they struggled to fit into after the horrors they had experienced.
Among the changes they see are changing attitudes to sexuality over the years. I've seen people criticise the book for Mandella's attitude to homosexuality, which becomes more prominent in society in the decades in which he's off fighting alien aggressors, but really that's a representation of both Mandella's place and time, and I would argue a positive showing an increased acceptance of homosexuality. Sure, Mandella has a struggle to accept that - but he struggles to accept everything about the changed world. He is a man literally out of time, with regard to just about every aspect of society.
It truly is a visionary novel, tackling heavyweight subjects of how you go on fighting for a world you no longer recognise, even as you do your duty.
If you've never read it, trust me, put it on your reading list - it truly is one of the greats.
I haven't read sci-fi in many years (it was my passion as a teen, but I'm long past that period of my life now), so I was pleasantly surprised by the writing and intellectual quality of The Forever War. It is a provocative novel that uses the Theory of Relativity to show us how much the world changes over the 100s of years that actually pass while the space warriors are on missions that last for months. Shifts in social and sexual mores that occur during the protagonist's three combat missions are jarring for him, yet he manages to hold to his personal principles and beliefs. The parallels with Vietnam are clearly intentional (since the author fought in Vietnam), and the returning soldiers are greeted not as heroes but as oddities in a culture that has foresworn war and made peace with an enemy that had slaughtered many of the men and women's friends. This novel is the kind of thoughtful science fiction that I used to love, and I'm delighted to know that such books are still being written. Bring on more!