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The Forever War
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.
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hmmm.. the comparison with starship troopers is fraught with peril... so... i'll launch a pre-emptive strike against possible lameness:
Do NOT judge Starship Troopers the book by Starship Troopers the movie! They are almost completely different from each other! The movie takes about 10 pages from the book and twists them almost to breaking. The result is that a movie that lost all of the really INTERESTING stuff that the book had; from political debate, full-body battle armor, to vicious bipedal aliens..
so yeah.. this goes out to anyone who decides to flame based on what they thought of starship troopers the movie.
(hmm.. i sense an offtopic coming. but i felt it was necessary to say this in order to protect two good books from a movie butchery)
ìì!
I think the comparison to Starship Troopers is reasonable and appropriate. Starship Troopers was written during the Cold War after World War II and the Korean War, and it reflects the sensibilities of the time (plus Heinlein's own philosophy, of course). I think the Forever War is a conscious updating of Starship Troopers after the country's and the author's experiences in the Vietnam War.
BTW, Haldeman used to teach a science fiction class at M.I.T., and for all I know he still does.
Yes, it is about the vietnam war. In fact, I believe he wrote it while in the vietnam war.
Check Mr.Haldeman's website yourself.
This is the book that brought me into science fiction. By far, I consider this the best book I've read (over Ender's Game, and Starship Troopers).
The times are a bit off, if you read the unabridged version (it takes place in the 90s as I recall), but the way he deals with the thousands of years that go by is just ingenious!
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Heinlein's Troopers was more political and social philosophy, from his point of view, than sci-fi. The actual slugging it out with the bugs was just the vehicle. Heinlein was like that a lot, and if you only saw the movie you know diddly about the book.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I purchased both of these books at the same time from Amazon a couple of years ago and enjoyed both. These were both recommended to me by a fellow fan of Starship Troopers (the book) who also hated the movie. I'm far enough off topic as it is so I would just say read the reviews on Amazon if you are at all curious.
I actually prefer his trilogy of Worlds, Worlds Apart, and Worlds Enough in Time, but Forever War has a couple of concepts that I come back to years afterwards. I disagree with the assessment that Forever Free and Forever Peace suck. These are different books, with different themes, in different styles. (That said, I didn't enjoy them nearly as much. If I had to recommend one book above all others as an introduction to Haldeman, it would be the short story collection Dealing in Futures
One thing that I enjoy about Haldeman's work that also maddens me is that he adores experimentimg. Although he is a consistently good writer, he really does try to fit the style to the story. Hemingway Hoax reads very differently from some of his other books, and The Coming is a study in rapid-cutting movie techniques applied to novels.
I'm glad to see this book reviewed, as Haldeman has consistently come up with some of the most interesting ideas in SF. Oh, and the tired thing about Forever War as a retread of Starship Troopers? Heinlein didn't think so. He congratulated Haldeman on "writing one of the most original stories I've ever seen."
It was adapted by Hadelman himself and inked by Marvano. It was published in French as a trilogy in 1988. Unfortunately there doensn't seem to be an english translation.
Amazon.fr
Unfortunately, the graphic art is very ordinary -- it would've been a masterpiece had it been drawn by, say, Moebius or Bilal.
The reviewer left this out, but there are actually three different versions of this book that are available.
The first version was the original publication, and is the shortest. I think it was cut to make the book shorter, and thus cheaper, and it left out most of the chapters of civilian life.
The second version added some cut chapters, but not all.
The third version is the latest published, and it contained the entire book as originally written. I recently read this version, and I think it is by far the best of the three.
I've read just about everything from Joe Haldeman- Forever War is one of his best. Others have mentioned things about the Forever Peace and Forever Free. They are all different novels, but Forever Free was neat and fun, until the very end, which was very disappointing. I'm not going to give it away, but it seems that when he was writing Forever Free, he was going strong and then had to finish it quickly to fulfill some contractual obligation. I didn't go into this book thinking that it would be more of the same, but I do want a good story, not one that makes me wonder why I even bothered reading the book.
There is a difference- it is used to distinguish between "mass-market" and "trade" paperbacks:
Here is a link.
From that link:
Mass-market paperbacks (pbk)
AKA "rack sized", these are the books that you can find in any store selling books. Most measure aproximately 4.25" x 7".
Trade paperbacks (Tpbk)
Paperbacks that are larger than mass-markets, many times having the same dimensions as a hard cover. Known as trades because they are generally only carried by actual bookstores (in the trade) and not in non-bookstores, like grocery stores. (This however is starting to change.)
That's more or less what Forever War is, as well. Both books, are colored by the 2 very different authors perceptions of the government, and by their different time periods in which they grew up, and formed most of their philosophical underpinnings.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
I'd also suggest Frederik Pohl's story "The Gold at Starbow's End" (collected in a book of the same title), plus the novel Gateway from around the same time. The relativistic physics speculation in these 25yo works may not have been treated kindly by subsequent developments but the fictive descriptions are worth the read.
BTW, Forever War isn't a novel but a concatenation of a series of stories published in Analog magazine. At the time Haldeman acknowledged the influence of both Troopers and his Vietnam experiences. Some may also enjoy his mundane (non-sfnal) novel about Vietnam, War Year.
I'd strongly recommend both None so Bline and Dealing in Futures, two of his short story collections. Both are great reads, with wonderful observations and thoughts interspersed aong the stories and poems.
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Book(n): Utensil used to pass time while waiting for the TV repairman
From The Ultimate Science Fiction Web Guide:
<http://magicdragon.com>, click on "Science Fiction"
Joe Haldeman, full name Joe William Haldeman:
Hugo Awards 1976, 77, 91, 95
Locus Poll Award 1976
Nebula Awards 1975, 90, 93
World Fantasy Award 1993
HOMer Award 1994
SF Chronicle Award 1995
Joe Haldeman@sff.net
Joe [William] Haldeman, born Oklahoma City 9 Jun 1943, son of Jack Carroll Haldeman and Lorena Spivey, married Mary Gay Potter 21 Aug 1965, author:
* War Year [Holt, 1972]
* Cosmic Laughter, 1974
* The Forever War [St.Martins, 1975; Science Fiction Book Club; Ballentine Books]
* Mindbridge [St.Martins, 1976; Science Fiction Book Club; Ballentine Books]
* Planet of Judgment, 1977
* All My Sins Remembered, 1977
* Study War No More, 1977
* Infinite Dreams, 1978
* Worlds Without End, 1979
* Worlds, 1981 (with brother Jack C. Haldeman II)
* There Is No Darkness, 1983
* Worlds Apart, 1983
* Tool of the Trade, 1987
* Buying Time [William Morrow, June 1989] IMMORTALITY ISBN 0-688-07244-5, a.k.a. "The Long Habit of Living"
* The Hemingway Hoax [Morrow, Jun 1990] TIME TRAVEL 0-688-09024-9
* More Than the Sum of His Parts [Pulphouse (Short Story Paperback), May 1991]
ISBN 1-56146-514-3
* 1968 [London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1994; Morrow, 1995] SF/Vietnam Autobiographical, highly recommended
* Forever Peace [Ace , Oct 1997] ISBN 0-441-00406-7, sequel to The Forever War
* also the "Attar the Merman" series
* some "Star Trek" novels:
* Planet of Judgement [Bantam, 1977]
* Star Trek: World Without End [Bantam, 1979; June 1993]
Anthologies and Collections Edited:
* Nebula Awards 17 [Holt, 1983]
* Dealing in Futures [Viking, 1985] 11 stories + 3 poems
* Body Armor: 2000 (co-anthologists Martin H. Greenberg, Charles G. Waugh)
[Ace, Apr 1986] 11 Military/SF stories, ISBN 0-441-06976-2
* Space-Fighters (co-anthologists Martin H. Greenberg, Charles G. Waugh)
[Ace, Apr 1988] 15 stories, ISBN 0-441-77786-4
* Supertanks (co-anthologists Martin H. Greenberg, Charles G. Waugh)
[Ace, Apr 1987] 10 stories, ISBN 0-441-79106-9
* Vietnam and Other Alien Worlds [NESFA Press, Feb 1993] ISBN 0-915368-52-8
4 stories + 5 essays + 4 poems + long intro
* None So Blind [Morrow AvoNova, May 1996] ISBN 0-688-14779-8
Collection of 11 stories + poems
* Saul's Death & Other Poems [Anamnesis Press, June 1997] ISBN 0-9631203-4-4
$10.95, 77pp, trade paperback, cover artists: Toni Luna Montealegre,
SF/Fantasy Poetry collection (32 poems)
B.S. 1967 in Physics and Astronomy, University of Maryland;
MFA in English 1975 University of Iowa;
Associate Professor of Writing Program 1983-87, M.I.T.; served with U.S. Army 1967-69, decorated Purple Heart; recipient Hugo Award 1976, 1977; Nebula Award 1975; Lifetime Active Member of Science Fiction Writers of America, Authors Guild, Poets & Writers Inc.