The Forever War | Joe Haldeman | A easy and enjoyable SF read--with bonus social commentary

The Forever War | Joe Haldeman | One of the best War/Sci Fi novels out there

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The Forever War

	The Forever War Joe Haldeman Eos, 2003 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 296 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Private William Mandella is a hero in spite of himself -- a reluctant conscript drafted into an elite military unit, and propelled through space and time to fight in a distant thousand-year conflict. He never wanted to go to war, but the leaders on Earth have drawn a line in the interstellar sand -- despite the fact that their fierce alien enemy is unknowable, unconquerable, and very far away. So Mandella will perform his duties without rancor and even rise up through the military's ranks . . . if he survives. But the true test of his mettle will come when he returns to Earth. Because of the time dilation caused by space travel the loyal soldier is aging months, while his home planet is aging centuries -- and the difference will prove the saying: you never can go home. . .

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A easy and enjoyable SF read--with bonus social commentary

I finally read the classic 1974 sci-fi novel by Joe Haldeman called The Forever War which won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 1975 and 1976, respectively. These are pretty significant achievements and it would be difficult for a book to live up to them.

This one does.

The central premise is about a war between humans and aliens that is occurring way out in space so that even though faster-than-light is possible via wormholes, the trips ends up taking decades of Earth-time. The author uses this relativistic effect as a time-machine that allows the characters to experience huge time shifts and allows the author to speculate on Earth's future in exciting, engrossing and particularly amusing ways.

The protagonist of the book is an Everyman: William Mandella, a (presumably) straight white American male who is conscripted to fight the aliens despite a 50% casualty rate and somehow manages to survive multiple missions in what becomes known as "The Forever War."

GRADE: A.

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One of the best War/Sci Fi novels out there

William Mandella is the name of the main character of this well crafted sci-fi/war book. Author Joe Handelman and his view of the future of mankind it's just allucinating.

In the future, if you join the army you MUST be promiscous (by law). Then a few hundred years later, sex with the opposite sex it's banned (or at least not well received). A couple of hundred years later humans are cloned.

The way that long distance travels affects the timeline of a human being are extremely well detailed and written in this book. William Mandella at some point returns to Earth, just to find a new way of talking (english still spoken but quite different) and new orders in the society he left behind when joining the army. On the warfare aspect of the book its just phenomenal. The way the power suits are described and the thrilling battle moments are incredible.

This is by far one of the best books I've ever read. If you are looking for an easy to read book, entertaining, definetly shocking, with a good amount of gore and at some points humorous, then this is the one you need to read.

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Doesn't quite stand the test of time.

I feel much the same after reading Forever War as I did when I finished reading Haldeman's companion book, Forever Peace, but worse. I liked Forever Peace better. I was underwhelmed by the ending of Forever War, hoping for something a little more exciting. The ending to Forever Peace stayed with me for a while and I grew to like it better as time went by. That definitely won't be the case here. I did like the ending in Forever War, especially the way things turned out with Mandella's girlfriend Marygay, but I felt it needed a little more of a twist. Earths's population morphing into a cloned master race was interesting and unexpected but I would have enjoyed learning more about how that development came about. I assume Haldeman fleshes out that transformation more in the sequel to Forever War, Forever Free. Additionally, I really liked tracking how the human race socially evolved from one century to the next as well as the evolution of the tools of war, but I wasn't so crazy about the portrayal of earth during the short period of Mandella's return. I thought Heinlein's Earth in Starship Troopers was more compelling. Still, I enjoyed the book. I think my expectations were set too high due to the fact that it was a Hugo and Nebula award winning novel, just as they were set too high when I finished reading Forever Peace for the same reason. That tells me that both books must have made more of an impact when they first came out than they do many years later. Forever War seemed a little dated in some areas and Forever Peace isn't as cutting edge after the release of the Matrix movies with whom it shares some key concepts.

It's a good thing Forever War was not a long book. I think Joe Halderman's writing style is much more appropriate to a short book rather than a 500+ page novel or an epic trilogy, as opposed to someone like Walter John Williams who can pull off military science fiction in a much longer format as illustrated in his excellent Dread Empire's Fall saga. Had Forever War gone on much longer it would have quickly become boring and repetitive, something it barely avoided as it is. Overall, the book was well worth reading and would be enjoyed by any fan of military science fiction.

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