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"To say that "The Forever War" is the best science fiction war novel ever written is to damn it with faint praise. It is, for all its techno-extrapolative brilliance, as fine and woundingly genuine a war story as any I've read."
--William Gibson, author of "Neuromancer, Spook Country
""There are a handful of moments when an American science fiction novel abruptly and seemingly effortlessly satisfied every possible expectation conveyed not only by the genre's ambitions, but of those of the whole literary landscape with which it was contemporary: Sturgeon's "More Than Human," Dick's "The Man In The High Castle," LeGuin's "Dispossessed," Gibson's "Neuromancer." "The Forever War" is one such book, and like those others still carries with it that air of recognition and possibility."
--Jonathan Lethem, author of "Gun With Occcasional Music, Fortress of Solitude
""Perhaps the most important war novel written since Vietnam . . . Haldeman, a veteran, is a flat-out visiona
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The book portrays the politics of war as we know it today, showing that little changes in the distant future, regardless of technological and social advances.
The main character - William Mandella - is thrown into a war with a distant enemy who he knows little about. However, traveling through "wormholes" in space to the next battlefield and then back to HQ posses many difficulties, with decades and centuries passing
in the time that a 6 months mission is completed. Technology on both sides advance, but one never knows who is furthest advanced at any given time in the far reaches of space....
Soldiers are expendable and the enemy must be destroyed at all costs, no questions asked... sounds familiar??.
Each tour of duty takes Mandella further into an increasingly dizzily future and further up the career ladder until the war's final conclusion.
All in all, a book worthy of the SF Masterworks series. A thought provoking and worthwhile sci-fi experience.
In the late twentieth century, Earth develops the ability to travel to distant parts of the galaxy through portals called collapsars; they soon come into contact with an alien race called the Taurans, and war breaks out between the two worlds. The protagonist, William Mandella, finds himself drafted into the intergalactic service under the provisions of the newly established Elite Conscription Act of 1996. Rather than retain the future scientists and leaders at home, this act works to form an intergalactic army of the world's best and brightest young men and women. The new recruits endure a grueling and sometimes fatal training regimen before shipping out to the planets of disputed galactic areas. The trip itself is dangerous, and the troops must secure themselves in protective chambers while they make the long journey to their destinations. Traveling at speeds close to that of light, a journey of several months equates to centuries back home on earth. The troops themselves are made up of both men and women, and a high degree of "confraternizing" goes on between the two sexes. Mandella bonds with one woman in particular, and a part of the story revolves around their attempts to stay together. Mandella is injured in combat, and he returns to an earth that has changed greatly: it is not safe to go anywhere without a bodyguard, homosexuality has become widespread in the culture of nine billion earthbound souls, jobs are incredibly complicated to secure, and Mandella cannot fit in. He reenlists in the service. After another injury and another disillusioning trip home, he goes back into the service as an instructor; almost immediately, though, he is given command of a new ship and sent to a star system 150,000 light years away. By this time, with hundreds more years having passed on earth, heterosexuality has essentially disappeared, and his young recruits are basically genetically engineered test-tube babies. The story of his final military action makes for a thrilling end of the story.
In the end, the author seems to express his own opinions about warfare, which it is certainly his prerogative to do, but the importance of the novel seems to lie mainly in the personality of Mandella and the author's portrayal of a drastically changed future earth society. This work was truly visionary. Hard science fiction elements include time travel (relative, of course) through collapsars (essentially black holes), a means by which humans can survive speeds close to the universal speed limit, and the military hardware of the future. The social context of the evolving story is the most striking part of the book to me, though. Malthusian population crises lead mankind to embrace (and at one point legislate) homosexuality. Mandella's heterosexuality is looked down upon and actually affects the morale of the troops under his command. The author also deals to some degree with cloning, which is certainly a timely topic, and delves into the political, economic, and social structures of his future earth. Mandella himself offers a case study in humanity. A reluctant warrior, he does what he has to do despite some ambivalence about the war itself, and he holds true to his personal beliefs and values in a world (several, actually) turned on its head. There is also a love story of sorts in the book, but it actually serves to heighten the importance of the protagonist's internal struggles with himself and with a world that becomes completely foreign to him. This is science fiction of the highest caliber and stands alongside the master works of authors more widely-recognized than Haldeman.
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