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

Relativity, Anyone?

[Sargent1]

Having read the review, I'm rather surprised that no mention was made of the relativistic effects which were the underpinning of the book.

See, the reason that it's the Forever War is that everyone who's sent to the frontlines to fight travel on ships that accelerate to an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. The narrator of the story thus spends hundreds of "objective" years fighting the war for a few years of his subjective time. The result? The soldiers who are asked to fight in this war find themselves more and more estranged from human culture, which changes at the usual rate of one year per yer. The soldiers are anachronisms, and as the war drags on and society and the rules of engagement change, the soldiers find themselves cut off from society.

FOREVER WAR vs. STARSHIP TROOPERS

[Lumpish Scholar]

The Forever War first appeared as a series of short stories and novellas in Analog Science Fiction / Science Fact magazine. When the first story, "Hero," was published in 1972, critics complained it was a rip-off of Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers with sex (and slightly fancier powered armor).

The difference? Heinlein was a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who contracted tuberculosis and was forced out of the service with a medical discarge; I believe he was never given the chance to see combat. Haldeman was a Vietnam draftee. (His online biography says, "Purple Heart and other standard medals.") They had very different views of war. Haldeman's was new and unusual for the SF community.

Both are very good stories by very good writers.

Pay for writers?

[NMerriam]

This review does no justice to the book, and is distressingly superficial. If it was written by a sixth-grader, I would give this "book report" a barely passing grade.

To review the Forever War as simply Starship Troopers with different training and aliens is to miss the point. This is not a book "about" aliens or technology or hyperspace travel or combat suits.

This is a book about the nature of war -- the people we send to fight, society's relationship to those people, and the permanent affect such an undertaking has on the lives of those it touches.

The Forever War is an excellent novel, not because it is a sci-fi tale, but because it is a human tale -- an admonition to society that conflicts are not to be entered lightly, and that we have a responsibility to those who fight, well beyond merely supplying them with bullets.