The Forever War

mfarah writes: "I've liked science-fiction ever since my mother introduced me to the genre with a couple of Asimov's books when I was ten years old. I read a decent amount of it in high school, but pretty much abandoned the whole thing in university (not enough time and no money; my Usenet addiction didn't help)." Now he's going to try to soak up some of your time (but not too much) with this review of another Science Fiction classic, below. The Forever War author Joe Haldeman pages 254 publisher Avon Books rating 9 reviewer mfarah ISBN 0380708213 summary A short but good military SF novel. After finishing university, I suddenly had money and time available. Decided to take advantage of this to re-take my hobby, I purchased an awful lot of SF books (mostly the classics), and have been catching up for the last three years.

The latest book I've taken out of my "read pending" queue is The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman. Its credits include the Nebula Award in 1975 and the Hugo Award in 1976, and being considered one of the classics of the genre.

This is a fairly short science-fiction novel (250 pages in my mass-market paperback copy), dealing with the main character William Mandela, a young physics student drafted into the UN-controlled space army when war breaks out against the Taurans, an alien species we at first know nothing about (I'll purposefully avoid getting into a detailed discussion of the plot).

The novel is told to us from Mandela's viewpoint; Mandela narrates everything that happens in a very easy to read colloquial style, with an exquisite attention to details; the short chapters the book is divided in makes it a breeze to read -- a weekend in my case (and I'm no fast reader).

The Mandela character is well constructed, and his account reads like a friend telling you the story of his life. There are other characters that barely appear in the novel, yet they also feel properly written. The plot is simple and direct, with just a couple of nasty turns at key points in the story (you'll know them when you see them).

This description may remind some people of Heinlein's Starship Troopers: young guy (Mandela/Rico) enters the army, goes through a training period, goes to war with an unknown species, kicks butt and all that. Actually, that superficial description is where the resemblance stops: the way Mandela and John Rico get into the army is distinct, the training period is quite different, the aliens have nothing in common; both novels focus mainly on different stuff, and the few common themes are treated differently. If you expect this to be a Starship Troopers clone, you'll be surprised.

Surprisingly, the treatment of science isn't -- very detailed. There is enough of it to dismiss claims of this being a war novel simply translated into a SF setting (even if the author's acknowledged that the novel deals with his experiences in the Vietnam war), but hard-SF zealots might be disappointed.

All in all, this was a very enjoyable read, and I highly recommend it. I've voted 9 for this novel in the Top100SF.

You can purchase The Forever War at Fatbrain. Want to see your own review here? Read the book review guidelines, then submit using Slashdot's web-submission page :)

Comments

Re:You 'geeks' really annoy me

[Myco]

When slashdot gives you a troll, make lemonade. Or trollade, hmm...

Anyway, this could be turned into an interesting question -- we're (sort of) at war, so is it really appropriate to be giving praise to a book about a war that goes on for hundreds of years? Well, you bet your ass it is. To be trite, remember that the unexamined life is not worth living. A book such as this represents a fantastic reflection on what war really means. That doesn't make it inappropriate in these troubled times -- it makes it extremely relevant.

Which goes to show that it's a great piece of science fiction. Some of us may have forgotten, but good sci fi is not about the future, it's about the present. The standard approach for a really good sci fi story is to take some observation about humanity, for example some cultural trend, and see what happens if it's extrapolated into a hyperbolic example. By looking at a potential future, we gain insight about the present.

Forever War is Good, Forever Peace Really Sucks

[Nova Express]

Certainly The Forever War has its virtues, even if it remains very much an artifact of its time, and the first section of the book is the best.

But unfortunately, despite winning the Hugo and Nebula, Forever Peace (a thematic rather than literal sequel) is a remarkably bad novel. Again the first parts of the book, depicting telepresence-operated military robots fighting a war in Central America, are the best, even if the "Central America as Vietnam War" analog was done much better by Lucuis Shepard back in the 1980s. But after that it gets just plain awful, with paper-depth, sadistic idiot villians intent on literally destroying the world taking over the plot. In fact, the villians are such cliches that they accomplish the rare feat of making Ayn Rand's villians look subtle in comparison. Also, some would say that the ultimate message of the novel is rather revealing of late-20th century liberal thought. "Oh, if we could only cut open everyone's brain, force them to become a hive mind and make them think good thoughts, we could make the world a paradise!" Avoid.

Finally, Haldeman has stated that Heinlein's Starship Troopers was the primary influence on The Forever War, so you can stop debating that question already.