Joe Haldeman, the recipient of several prestigious international. THE FOREVER WAR BY JOE HALDEMAN. You can download books for free in epub, fb2, mobi, lit. Forever Free MOBI ebook. From Joe Haldeman, the all-time master of. Forever Free reintroduces readers to William Mandella--who has been living.

Publication date 1974 Media type Print (hardback & paperback) Pages 236 pp Awards (1975) (1976) (1976) Followed by The Forever War (1974) is a novel by American author, telling the contemplative story of soldiers fighting an between Man and the Taurans. It won the in 1975, and the and the awards in 1976. (1999) and (1997) are, respectively, direct and thematic sequel novels. The novella A Separate War (1999) is another sequel of sorts, occurring simultaneously to the final portion of The Forever War. Informally, the novels compose; the novel also inspired a and a board game. The Forever War is the first title in the series.

Main article: Belgian comic writer has, in cooperation with Haldeman, created a trilogy of The Forever War. With some very minor changes and omissions to storyline and setting, it faithfully adapts the same themes in visual style. [ ] The series was translated into various languages, and had a follow-up trilogy connected to.

Film [ ] In October 2008, announced that, after a 25-year wait for the rights to become available, he was making a return to science fiction with a film adaptation of The Forever War. In March 2009, Scott stated that the film would be in 3D, citing 's as an inspiration for doing so. In the summer of 2010, Scott revealed that writer was currently on the fourth draft of a screenplay originally written.

As of May 2014, Haldeman stated he believed the project was on its seventh draft of the script. In May 2015, following the apparent expiration of a development agreement with 20th Century Fox and Scott Free, won the rights to the novel and planned to develop the project with writer and attached to star. See also [ ]. Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-08-05.

Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-08-05. • (database entry from the website).

• Park, Ed (30 December 2007).. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 10 January 2010.

• ^ (author profile at the 'media in transition' project of the ) • Requiem, Yoji Kondo, editor, p. 274 • Requiem, Yoji Kondo, editor, p. 315 • Haldeman, Joe (1997) [1974].

The Forever War.. • Christopher Sieving.. • Child, Ben (2008-10-13).. The Guardian.

Retrieved 2010-05-25. • Alex Billington.. • Charlie Jane Anders.. • Mike Fleming.. • Anita Busch..

External links [ ] • title listing at the •.

Series Info: This is the first part of the 'Forever War' series, however it can be read as a standalone. Book Description: The Earth's leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand—despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy that they would oppose is inscrutable, unconquerable, and very far away. A reluctant conscript drafted into an elite Military unit, Private William Series Info: This is the first part of the 'Forever War' series, however it can be read as a standalone. Book Description: The Earth's leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand—despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy that they would oppose is inscrutable, unconquerable, and very far away.

A reluctant conscript drafted into an elite Military unit, Private William Mandella has been propelled through space and time to fight in the distant thousand-year conflict; to perform his duties without rancor and even rise up through military ranks. Mandella is willing to do whatever it takes to survive the ordeal and return home. But 'home' may be even more terrifying than battle, because, thanks to the time dilation caused by space travel, Mandella is aging months while the Earth he left behind is aging centuries. This book is a military style space opera with.Wait! Where are you going?

Get back here. I hadn’t got to the good part yet. Give me a second to explain. Geez OK, so yes, there is an interstellar war with human troops in high-tech armored suits battling an alien enemy on distant planets. I know it sounds like another version of Starship Troopers or countless other bad genre sci-fi tales that copied it, but this one is different. Hell, when it was published in 1975 it won the Hugo, the Locus an This book is a military style space opera with.Wait!

Where are you going? Get back here. I hadn’t got to the good part yet. Give me a second to explain. Geez OK, so yes, there is an interstellar war with human troops in high-tech armored suits battling an alien enemy on distant planets.

I know it sounds like another version of Starship Troopers or countless other bad genre sci-fi tales that copied it, but this one is different. Hell, when it was published in 1975 it won the Hugo, the Locus and the Nebula awards for best novel so you know it’s gotta be pretty decent. William Mandella has been drafted as one of the first troops that will be sent to fight the Taurans. There are points in space called collapsers that are like wormholes that will transport your ship to a distant area in the universe instantly, and humanity is fighting the Taurans to use them. Both races like to build bases on nearby planets to establish control of the area around the collapsers. Unfortunately, most of the planets out there aren’t anything like what we’re used to seeing in Star Wars. They’re usually cold lifeless rocks, and just training to use their suits in these environments is dangerous, let alone trying to fight an alien race they know little about.

Mandella gets through training and manages to survive the first battle with the Taurans. That’s where the book gets really interesting. While the collapsers provide instant space travel, the ships still have to get to the nearest one and that means months of travel at near light-speed. It turns out that Einstein was right about relativity and traveling at near the speed of light makes time do some funky things. So while the troops on the ship feel like a journey only took months, years have passed for everyone else. When Mandella returns to Earth after his first battle, he’s only aged two years, but ten years have passed on Earth. Since Mandella has to do more and more light speed journeys, centuries pass on Earth even though it’s only been a few years for him.

Mandella will return from missions to find that humanity has changed so much that he has almost nothing in common with the rest of the people, and since he manages to survive several campaigns when almost everyone else dies, he’s quickly becoming one of the oldest men in the universe during his ten year (subjective) enlistment. Another quirk of the time differences is that when the humans meet the Taurans, they can’t know if they’re battling alien troops who are centuries ahead or behind them in terms of military intelligence and weapons technology. So Mandella and his fellow soldiers may have a huge advantage or be severely outgunned. It just depends on if the Taurans they’re fighting started their light-speed journeys before or after they did.

As the war drags on for century after century, it is both sustaining and draining Earth’s economy. Mandella finds himself losing all his family, his friends and his lovers to war or age. He is increasingly out of touch with Earth and the rest of humanity. The army continues to promote him, mainly because his seniority has reached ridiculous levels after centuries of service. One of the things that isolates Mandella is that homosexuality becomes the norm due to Earth overpopulation. In an ironic reversal of don’t ask-don’t tell, Mandella is the outcast that disgusts many of his fellow soldiers due to his unenlightened ways.

Even the slang spoken by other soldiers becomes incomprehensible to him. Increasingly lonely and out of sync with everyone around him with almost no chance of surviving his enlistment, Mandella nurses the hope that the war will someday end during the large gaps of time he skips as he travels to his assignments. Joe Haldeman is a Vietnam vet, and this is an obvious allegory for that war with a weary soldier stuck in a seemingly endless conflict and realizing that even if he makes it home, he won’t fit in to the world he left. While Haldeman’s science and military background gives the book its detail and depth, it’s the tragedy of Mandella’s predicament that makes it a sci-fi classic. First published in 1974 and winner of the 1975 Hugo and Locus awards, Forever War by Joe Haldeman kicks ass. More than just a book about a futuristic war, Haldeman describes a society built around the codependency of the industrial military complex and with a fluid dynamic socio-economic culture that is fascinating to watch unfold. And the welfare recipients get a bag of dope with their check.

Haldeman’s protagonist, William Mandella, is in an elite military group that travels light distances to ba First published in 1974 and winner of the 1975 Hugo and Locus awards, Forever War by Joe Haldeman kicks ass. More than just a book about a futuristic war, Haldeman describes a society built around the codependency of the industrial military complex and with a fluid dynamic socio-economic culture that is fascinating to watch unfold. And the welfare recipients get a bag of dope with their check.

Haldeman’s protagonist, William Mandella, is in an elite military group that travels light distances to battles. Transportation being what it is, less than light speed, it takes decades, even hundreds of years for the troops to reach the fight and meanwhile, society changes around him. When he reaches the end of his career, thousands of years have passed and he does not even speak the same language as his fellow citizens and the war he signed up for is ancient history. Haldeman, himself a Vietnam War veteran, brings an empathetic perspective to his futuristic warrior portrayal. Thought provoking and original, this is a MUST for science fiction fans.

************* 2016 Reread. Reading this again, I think for the third time, reaffirmed my love for this book. Reading after a couple of decades (the first time in HS, and then again only a couple years later in college) I see more of Haldeman's subtle humor. I can also see, from a 2016 perspective, how this could be seen as homophobic. An extremist, shock value idea in the 70s could be seen as insensitive now, but I get what he was doing and in context he was making a statement about nonconformism and parallel changes with his experience coming back from Vietnam. His hard SF ideas like relative time and the stasis field are great, but his statements about cultural and sociological changes are what makes this a great book. One of my all time favorites and Again: a MUST read for fans of the genre and a damn fine work of 70s antiestablishment literature.

I need to read more from him. I bought and read this book based upon the many glowing reviews I saw on the internet. It's heralded as a classic and one of the best Sci-Fi books of all time. I have to disagree. I liked the concept.

Scientifically, it was intriguing. However, the story was repetitive and slow.

The exact same thing kept happening over and over again. Boring Battle, many people die. Get back on ship. Stay in space for a long time. Return to base.

There were long, long s I bought and read this book based upon the many glowing reviews I saw on the internet. It's heralded as a classic and one of the best Sci-Fi books of all time. I have to disagree. I liked the concept. Scientifically, it was intriguing. However, the story was repetitive and slow.

The exact same thing kept happening over and over again. Boring Battle, many people die.

Get back on ship. Stay in space for a long time. Return to base. There were long, long stretches where just nothing happened. Also, the character development was just non-existent.

The enemy was only described in appearance but never described for what they were. In fact, even the battles with the aliens were dull and lifeless. The protagonist is barely developed. He is just a hapless soldier who just wants to get laid on a regular basis. And for half the book he has his pick of any woman he wants and apparently has sex almost every night. And other than having some difficult command decisions to make, we learn virtually nothing about his character.

I was sorely disappointed by this book and just can't recommend it to anyone. Is often cited as one of the great books about the futility and inherent paradoxes of war. I think this is easily its equal, but is often overlooked because it is dismissed as 'just' science fiction. By using the tropes of SF, Haldeman vividly illustrates not only the psychological effects on the combatants, but also the desperate disassociation wrought between the 'soldiers' and the rest of society - his reference point was the Vietnam veterans, but it could apply anywhere and anywhen. Is often cited as one of the great books about the futility and inherent paradoxes of war.

I think this is easily its equal, but is often overlooked because it is dismissed as 'just' science fiction. By using the tropes of SF, Haldeman vividly illustrates not only the psychological effects on the combatants, but also the desperate disassociation wrought between the 'soldiers' and the rest of society - his reference point was the Vietnam veterans, but it could apply anywhere and anywhen. There are some moments of genuine horror too, especially when you start to understand what the narrator is telling you. A serious contender for my top ten books of all time.

Well I think it's safe to say that I'm not the target audience for this book. This is hard sci-fi military space opera and I haven't even seen any of the Star Wars movies, or Star Treks, and only a handful of Doctor Who episodes (I only found out last year what a TARDIS is).

I probably shouldn't have even been *allowed* to read this. Somebody Kemper should have ripped it right out of my hands decrying: 'You're not worthy!' And they'd probably be right.

Despite my keenest efforts, The Forever War Well I think it's safe to say that I'm not the target audience for this book. This is hard sci-fi military space opera and I haven't even seen any of the Star Wars movies, or Star Treks, and only a handful of Doctor Who episodes (I only found out last year what a TARDIS is). I probably shouldn't have even been *allowed* to read this.

A History Of Political Theory By George Sabine Pdf Creator. Somebody Kemper should have ripped it right out of my hands decrying: 'You're not worthy!' And they'd probably be right. Despite my keenest efforts, The Forever War is in no way in my comfort zone or wheelhouse.

Yet, I still enjoyed many parts of it very much. The hardcore battle stuff got to be a little overwhelming for my brain circuitry and I had a hard time putting it all together and keeping it all together. I wish there had been a lot less war and battle and prepping to go to war, and a lot more about this time dilation business and all the changes that were happening on earth over the course of HUNDREDS of years. More of that please!!!

The ending felt rushed to me and we only get a glimpse of Haldeman's 'brave new world' before the final credits roll. Another thing about the ending: [when it comes to the *why* the Forever War went on forever, I was a little bit underwhelmed.

Yes, war can be stupid and senseless and I realize Haldeman is writing in the shadow of his Vietnam experience, but the 'failure to communicate' argument just didn't quite zing for me. And I'm usually happy to get a 'happy' ending, but for a book filled with war and carnage that Mandella gets his snuggle bunny Marygay after all against all odds seemed a bit *too* happy and Hollywood an ending for me.

Sure, it made me smile, and I was glad for poor Mandella who had already been through the crucible many times, after all that shouldn't he get to ride off into the sunset with his sweetie on his arm? But it all seemed so abrupt and neat -- back home gentlemen, after a horrible battle in which there were many casualties -- guess what? The war's been over for a long time. It turned out we didn't even have to be fighting it at all, it was a huge misunderstanding with the enemy. How embarrassing! But you get to pick whatever perfect planet you want to live on now, and guess what?

The love of your life that you thought was dead, well she's actually alive and playing a clever game with time dilation so that she'll only be a nubile 28 year old when you are reunited. ] But despite my complaints, I did enjoy this. I can see why it would be held in such esteem many years later and recognize the influence it would have had on a genre that we have established is not one I am fluent in. *cough* understatement *cough* I have loved science fiction in the past, but this one needed a bit more humanism for me and less battlefield tactics and logistics. Any kind of action/adventure/survival in space is a trip though and offers up its own unique blend of suspense, thrills and even terror. The Forever War is no exception on that score.

The question I will leave you with is: it's been 40 years (800 by time dilation standards) -- when do we get the movie??? I'm really surprised this has such a high rating. There's really not much to it. Okay, it presents a cool concept.

What would it really be like to fight a war with an alien race across the vast reaches of space? Even with something that allowed you to 'jump' vast distances you would have to get to these places.

As the ship you travel in nears the speed of light, time for you slows down. So for the main character who was born in 1997, he returns from the war in 3143 having aged only a few years bu. I'm really surprised this has such a high rating. There's really not much to it. Okay, it presents a cool concept. What would it really be like to fight a war with an alien race across the vast reaches of space? Even with something that allowed you to 'jump' vast distances you would have to get to these places.

As the ship you travel in nears the speed of light, time for you slows down. So for the main character who was born in 1997, he returns from the war in 3143 having aged only a few years but the world he knows is no longer there. Of course along with this is all the technology changes that comes along. The main character will go out on a mission and come back and find all this new technology waiting. New weapons, medicine, food, language, customs, well you can imagine. All this was interesting but honestly, it wasn't enough. The plot almost saved the story, almost.

Have you ever been told to do something and the whole time; you're doing it you keep saying to yourself 'this is so stupid why am I doing this?' That was what the war with the aliens was like for this whole book. Finally, character development: William Mandella is the main character and other than having a high I.Q. And also being physical fit you never really learn anything about him. I never developed any connection with him. Mostly because I didn't know anything about him and just didn't care one way or the other.

I think I'll skip the rest of this series! Originally reviewed at The Forever War is touted as one of the best science fiction military novels ever written. At least, that is how I’ve always heard it described, and so going into this one, I was expecting lots of gritty Vietnam-inspired fighting and combat. And I got that. However, what I also got was an amazing mixture of science and societal evolution that made the fighting even more entertaining and the story as a whole well worthy of its “One of the Best Sci-fi Nov Originally reviewed at The Forever War is touted as one of the best science fiction military novels ever written.

At least, that is how I’ve always heard it described, and so going into this one, I was expecting lots of gritty Vietnam-inspired fighting and combat. And I got that. However, what I also got was an amazing mixture of science and societal evolution that made the fighting even more entertaining and the story as a whole well worthy of its “One of the Best Sci-fi Novels of All Time” tags.

The story follows along behind a young man named William Mandella, who finds himself “drafted” into the world’s military force to fight an unknown enemy from deep space. So, naturally, the first part of the novel highlights his training, integration into the military, and the initial combat with the enemy: all of which was very entertaining. What was even more amazing, however, is the story of the evolution of Mandella’s Earth, as this societal change turns him from a normal, red-blooded, twentieth-century man into a fossil of an age long gone. All due to the disruption of time from space travel!

There are lots of things to love about this novel, but I’ll restrain my enthusiasm to just two. One, I really thought Mr. Haldeman did an excellent job of portraying societal change over long periods of time. We all know human society changes, but usually it is so slow that older people never live long enough to see themselves transform from the human norm to the exception to the norm.

However, here Mandella experiences this very thing first hand, finding that he is an alien among his own kind and an object of ridicule from new recruits, who label him a fossil of a passed age – even though he is only in his late twenties. Haldeman does not stop there, but shows how these new recruits are themselves relegated to the trash heap of societal change. Something that clearly highlights that no one’s role in society is safe from the slippage of time and keeps the narrative interesting throughout. The other thing I love about this book is that Mandella is an ordinary soldier.

He isn’t one of those quick-witted characters who suddenly become the general of the war; or the person outwitting all the lifelong diplomats and generals of the aliens; or some genetically modified killing machine with a super computer in his head. Rather, he is an ordinary man, who finds himself learning how to be a soldier and trying to do practical things to keep from being killed – including being lucky. In fact, Mandella never seems untouchable; his triumph readily anticipated; or his spaceship already fueled to carry him to his happily ever after. Nope, until the last page, I really wondered if things would turn out okay for this very real and very human soldier. The only thing I had a problem with was the ending, because it was a little sappy. However, I can’t harp about it very much, since I really, really wanted a decent ending to the story. I never expected a fairytale, happily ever after ending, but what I did want was one that at least left hopes for some small portion of happiness for everyone.

As many reviewers have already stated more eloquently than I, The Forever War is a great sci-fi story. It is an experience that mixes testosterone-filled, military excitement with insightful, societal changes, adds in a bit of political corruption and warmongering before ending with a dash of hope. And my only regret is that I did not read it sooner in my life. I first read The Forever War a couple years ago in audiobook format, I quite liked it but to be honest it did not leave much of a lasting impression. I suspect the audiobook format is not suitable for this particular book, I don’t remember there being anything wrong with the narration, I just could not retain much of the details after finishing it, just a vague feeling that it is quite good. I love audiobooks, but I am beginning to think that short sci-fi books are not really the ideal for this I first read The Forever War a couple years ago in audiobook format, I quite liked it but to be honest it did not leave much of a lasting impression. I suspect the audiobook format is not suitable for this particular book, I don’t remember there being anything wrong with the narration, I just could not retain much of the details after finishing it, just a vague feeling that it is quite good.

I love audiobooks, but I am beginning to think that short sci-fi books are not really the ideal for this format. Which brings me to the reread in print format, The Forever War often crops up in “favorite sf books” discussions and I feel as if I haven’t really read it and this won’t do. As you might expect The Forever war belongs to the subgenre of “military science fiction”, a subgenre I normally avoid unless the author has interesting points to make about war or military life. Books that focus on the action or thrills of military campaigns are anathemas to me. This book is more of an exploration of the nature and principles of warfare than about details of battles (though there is some of that also); basically it is an anti-war novel.

The book I finished reading just before starting this reread of The Forever War is, it is interesting to compare the two as sci-fi books. To me the Aldous Huxley book is not really sci-fi as the emphasis is on the social satire and the futuristic setting and sci-fi tropes are tools for the author to communicate his cautionary message. The Forever War is unabashedly sci-fi, certainly it is an allegory of the Vietnam War which the author Joe Haldeman served in. However, Haldeman’s knowledge of physics and engineering is clearly evident in the hard science parts, and the futuristic tech is clearly aimed at sci-fi readers. The only soft or handwavium sci-fi element is the FTL spaceflight through “collapsar jumps”; and this plot device is very cleverly and logically used to explore the implications of time dilation. The book is very well written and the (first person) narrative tone gradually changes from a sardonic tone in the early chapters to a more matter of fact tone and then a melancholic tone towards the end. The book is too short and densely plotted or all the characters to be fully developed but the protagonist William Mandella and narrator is very sympathetic and believable.

I also love the way the book suddenly switch from the war setting to a dystopian near future Earth, then back to the war and then a far future setting for the novel’s conclusion. The middle section set on Earth is really my favorite part of the book, with the drastically changed culture and social mores. If I have one complaint it is the overlong section which tells the story of the final battles with the aliens Taurans, personally I always find scenes of military engagements very dull, though you may feel differently. Fortunately when that is over we arrive at a wonderful twist and denouement, I do not find the eventual fate of Mandella and his girlfriend quite believable but it is by no means unsatisfactory. While I was reading about the final battles in the later chapters I was speculating whether to rate this book at 4 stars because I found those battle scenes a little tedious, but after finishing it I feel a 5 stars rating is a more accurate representation of my esteem. ____________________________ Update May 2, 2015: The is coming! Reread anyone?

An Epic Satire of the Art of War “‘Tonight we’re going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man.’ The guy who said that was a sergeant who didn’t look five years older than me. So if he’d ever killed a man in combat, silently or otherwise, he’d done it as an infant.” The opening paragraph provides a glimpse into the most intriguing aspect of “The Forever War,” that of the affect of time dilation, officially defined as: the principle predicted by relativity that time intervals between events in An Epic Satire of the Art of War “‘Tonight we’re going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man.’ The guy who said that was a sergeant who didn’t look five years older than me. So if he’d ever killed a man in combat, silently or otherwise, he’d done it as an infant.” The opening paragraph provides a glimpse into the most intriguing aspect of “The Forever War,” that of the affect of time dilation, officially defined as: the principle predicted by relativity that time intervals between events in a system have larger values measured by an observer moving with respect to the system than those measured by an observer at rest with respect to it. This concept is explored in the 1953 novel, “Childhood’s End” by Arthur C. Clarke as protagonist Jan Rodricks travels to the Overlords homeland in a faraway galaxy; upon his return to Earth he has barely aged, while 80 years have passed for those who remain on Earth.

In “The Forever War,” the concept is turbo-charged as we follow the travels of William Mandella between Stargate and phenomena called Collapsars (what we today would refer to as a black hole) and distant planets where a war with the Taurans rages for thousands of Earth years. The novel is broken down into the parts of Mandella’s life as he ascends from a foot soldier to a leader in the United Nations Exploratory Force (UNEF), which was assembled for war against the Taurans. As someone who studied the history of Vietnam, including the French occupation of Indochina and the American involvement (which began well before LBJ escalated the war), the metaphors and irony vis a vis the Indochina Wars (fought between 1946-1979) were striking; that the smartest and strongest are sent against the Taurans (vs.

The US draft where often those who were the poorest and less privileged were sent against Vietnamese); that the Earth to which Mandella returns, many decades or hundreds of years later is very different from the one he left, unwelcoming and undone (vs. The US soldier who returned from Vietnam to an often hostile and volatile America very different from the one he left); that the war is a supportive crutch to a failing Earthen economy (vs.

The US contractors who during the age of Vietnam had much production in the US, especially the East and West Coasts where employees for the defense contractors supported the local and national economy); that the theory was that Earth’s economy would collapse without the war (vs. A US economy that did collapse after its involvement in the war ended – though admittedly more from an oil shock owing to the Yom Kippur war than Vietnam, doubtless the end of lush government spending and contracts had an impact overall). Where the novel may disappoint readers is in the characterization of Mandella and his love interest, Marygay Potter. In the beginning, Mr. Haldeman ushers images that would make Ron Jeremy jealous, of orgies and fantasies; gratuitous love-making.

“Actually, she was the one with the new trick. The French corkscrew, she called it. She wouldn’t tell me who taught it to her, though.

I’d like to shake his hand. Once I got my strength back.” Unfortunately, we don’t get beyond this first layer and it takes away from the denouement. The bottom line: “The Forever War” is an epic story of the pointlessness of war, the impact it has on the troops and their families, and the tendency for mankind to descend to chaos rather than order. Fans of speculative fiction will find the technology and its descriptions riveting, the social changes thought-provoking (forced homosexuality and the “cure” for heterosexuality) though I wonder if they will care enough about Mandella to witness his conclusion. Conscript-to-brutal bootcamp-to-faraway-alien-war.

Countless novels have followed this story structure, aping Heinlein’s Starship Troopers with mixed results. Like me, you might be getting tired of encountering this storyline. Tired of reading what too often turns out to be Full Metal Jacket In Space - Minus The Social Criticism. If that’s the case, borrow twenty bucks, get to a bookstore and order a copy of The Forever War. This is military-flavoured bootcamp-to-war Science Fiction in its finest Conscript-to-brutal bootcamp-to-faraway-alien-war.

Countless novels have followed this story structure, aping Heinlein’s Starship Troopers with mixed results. Like me, you might be getting tired of encountering this storyline.

Tired of reading what too often turns out to be Full Metal Jacket In Space - Minus The Social Criticism. If that’s the case, borrow twenty bucks, get to a bookstore and order a copy of The Forever War.

This is military-flavoured bootcamp-to-war Science Fiction in its finest form, as refreshing and thought provoking as it no doubt was when it was released in 1974. Like Starship Troopers, this book is a template for the lesser works that have followed it. The story is a simple one. William Mandella is conscripted and sent to fight in a brutal, bloody war with an alien species. The battles he must fight are so far from Earth that the time-dilation effect of high-speed space travel turns his subjective months at war into years on Earth, his years into decades. Each time he returns to Earth human society has changed further, and Mandella’s is less and less able to fit in, to feel welcome, to feel at home.

From this simple premise Haldeman spins a story of real insight and empathy, an extended allegory for Haldeman’s own war - Vietnam - and the tragedy of soldiers who return from conflicts to find both society and themselves changed so much that the only place they really belong is back on the front lines. This isn’t a typical blazing-beam-cannons military SF novel.

Haldeman doesn’t obsess over laser wattages or projectile calibres, instead focusing his keen writer’s eye on the impact war has upon its participants. Haldeman has explored this territory a number of times, most successfully in All My Sins Remembered and some of his short stories (there’s a real pearler – ‘A Mind of His Own’ in a collection of his work called Infinite Dreams), and he brings an authentic and sensitive voice to his SF. When I found out after reading this book that Haldeman was badly wounded in Vietnam I wasn’t surprised – he writes war in a way I have very rarely seen in SF, less pew-pew!/Kaboom!, and more understanding of the pain and suffering, both physical and otherwise, that soldiers go through.

Haldeman’s novel equals Heinlein’s classic in its social observations and intellectual heft, but in my opinion The Forever War is a more empathetic work, engendering genuine pathos for Mandella and his comrades. It really is a landmark classic of Science Fiction. This is obviously a classic in the realms of sci-fi and of anti-war novels, and another book with thousands of reviews that I can't improve upon, but I'll just offer a couple of insights. One of the primary concepts from the book is the main character returning from space travel (complete with Spacial Relativity) to an Earth that was completely foreign to him; it was a massive dose of culture shock which progressed deeper and deeper the further the story went.

I was in the US Air Force for 22 yea This is obviously a classic in the realms of sci-fi and of anti-war novels, and another book with thousands of reviews that I can't improve upon, but I'll just offer a couple of insights. One of the primary concepts from the book is the main character returning from space travel (complete with Spacial Relativity) to an Earth that was completely foreign to him; it was a massive dose of culture shock which progressed deeper and deeper the further the story went. I was in the US Air Force for 22 years, and can say without a doubt that returning to the US after a 4-year overseas assignment to the Philippines, that this type culture shock is a real thing.

I was stationed there from 1985-1989, and basically immersed myself in the Philippine culture. When I returned to the US in mid-summer 1989, there was so much that had changed in 4 'short' years. Imagine being a military member sent to outer space, traveling through colapsars (wormholes), and returning to Earth a century or more in the future while you've only aged a few weeks or months. The other thing that the author captures very well is the lack of understanding of the 'big picture' at the lowest enlisted level. This is something that will always be a factor in any military, even though you constantly hear, 'think of the military objective'. That objective is so obscure and far-off that the peons have no idea why they do what they do.

They follow the propaganda that the enemy is 'evil', and that our government is 'good'. This was Haldeman's view of the Vietnam War in a nutshell. His allegories, especially early on, with the battalions attacking Tauran 'villages' were spot on, and the question of whether the troops destroying said villages as part of the overall military objective was something our troops continually struggled with, coming home with PTSD. He didn't mention it in the story, but you can see the effects of PTSD in a lot of the characters in the book. The Forever War is a great classic military sci-fi joint for a few reasons: 1. Time dilation.

Haldeman takes this one feature of space-time travel and makes it the central character of the novel. It messes with the protagonist's life, makes military strategy interesting in that your enemy could suddenly have weaponry far more advanced that you (or just as likely could be carrying sticks), and it gives the story a far-reaching feel. There's no complex world-building (although some hi The Forever War is a great classic military sci-fi joint for a few reasons: 1. Time dilation. Haldeman takes this one feature of space-time travel and makes it the central character of the novel. It messes with the protagonist's life, makes military strategy interesting in that your enemy could suddenly have weaponry far more advanced that you (or just as likely could be carrying sticks), and it gives the story a far-reaching feel.

There's no complex world-building (although some hints are dropped about the visited planets) and long descriptions of evil empires. Space is a cold, lonely place with lots of big rocks.

I kept thinking that Haldeman knows what he's talking about, both in terms of the military elements, for good reason obviously, and in terms of the science. The reader needs to feel like the writer knows more than him and that box is triple checked. Awesome concepts. The concepts were revolutionary and don't feel dated. I was shocked at how much from the Matrix was ripped off from Forever War.

Useful social commentary. The Vietnam context comes alive again with today's events.

This book is a relevant comment on both eras. I'm a slowish reader and I read this over three days. I'm not always in the mood to take on a six-course meal of a book and it's nice to launch right into the story and ride the wave. Like a good military campaign, Haldeman gets in and gets out. Really enjoyed this. I've had the longest fascination about war and the military lifestyle whether in historical books or works of fiction in general.

There's just something deeply stirring about men and women giving up their lives in service of country or a government system even when that kind of loyalty demands death, destruction and bitter endings. I have great respect and admiration for this kind of people even if those things are mixed with pity and sadness as well. My enjoyment for reading, watching and learn I've had the longest fascination about war and the military lifestyle whether in historical books or works of fiction in general. There's just something deeply stirring about men and women giving up their lives in service of country or a government system even when that kind of loyalty demands death, destruction and bitter endings. I have great respect and admiration for this kind of people even if those things are mixed with pity and sadness as well. My enjoyment for reading, watching and learning about wars throughout histories is a double-edged one; on one hand, it does break my heart to know about such fragile and empty lives being sacrificed as people in such compromising positions have to face the sharpest consequences. On the other, I often view the bloodshed and deaths during war-times (fictional or not) to be the most thrilling and exciting stories ever told.

To have literature grant me access and safe passage inside the heads of the people who were part of it, and travel the dystopic landscapes of such times will always be the most fruitful of my reading experiences. 'This is really a novel about coping back to regular life after the thrills and traumas of conflict--and finding that you have become alien. If you want to tell a story about war, you need to find a way of articulating a profundity of alienation, a depth of strangeness and dislocation.' Joe Haldeman's science fiction novel The Forever War was not quite what I was expecting and definitely belongs to the scarcity of books that were able to surprise me in both enlightening and despairing of ways right after finishing them. It tackled some themes concerning sexuality in a manner that I still wasn't sure how to feel about even at this moment, and it fulfilled my earnest desire to read warfare in both its cold and exacting nature and its terrible, malicious form. I felt entirely full on these aspects of storytelling because Joe Haldeman's experiences in the Vietnam War (which was partly an inspiration for this story) truly do come alive for this grand novel, and were contextualized with such an aching retrospection and an uncannily sharp-edged clarity infused with a wicked sense of gallows humor. This was a story about war and its aftermath and earth-shattering effects on cultures and societies from someone who genuinely knows what a battlefield looks, feels and smells like firsthand which makes the physical and psychological descriptions of the intergalactic and planetary battle scenes here quite haunting.

The horrors depicted are uncomfortably clinical at times too. What was so notably interesting about The Forever War is its science jargon concerning time dilation during space travel which meant that the soldiers, who fight wars against the alien lifeforms they consider enemies named Taurans, are bound to age in a shockingly slow pace. And this is where the central conflict and existential mediation of the book delve deeply about. Told in the first-person perspective of William Mandella, The Forever War is not just a story about war and death or the dystopic concepts of harmony, progress and social change that have always been essential to any grim science fiction novel.

The Forever War is foremost about isolation from humanity in the most visceral level of unfamiliarity that one tends to become alien even to himself. In his service as a war veteran and on-and-off-and-on again soldier on duty, Mandella has lived an almost immortal life where he could stay in a certain planet for five months but come back to earth a century later. This, of course, is a disconcerting transition, particularly when the world that you know changes and destroys itself in order to create a new cultural identity and status quo right before your very eyes and you have no other choice but to adjust to these abrupt changes.

As exciting and wonderfully compelling the moments of Mandella being a soldier were, it's actually the daily grind of his civilian life post-war that provides this novel with its beating, bleeding heart along with all the messy and intricate parts. One of the shift in societal values in Earth is the normalcy of homosexuality and outright abolishment of heterosexuality (which eventually softened in another decade or so where now heterosexuality can be 'reformed' or 'cured'). Procreation between man and woman is now seen as a wasteful activity and biological harvesting is the more prevalent practice so homosexual couplings are encouraged so the population is kept under control as well as the eugenics that come along with it. It's an idea and plotline that has made me shiver.

I identify as a queer woman though I'm not very political about it, or at all, honestly. I wasn't offended or anything like that because I always contextualize the times a book was written in before accusing the material to be hate-mongering or promoting discriminatory propaganda. True, I found the portrayal of homosexuality in this book as slightly offhanded and bizarre because the reversal of what was considered taboo, sexuality-wise, did not sit well with me, though I understand the point Haldeman is trying to get across by switching the roles. Now, I don't think this novel is trying to promote either sexuality but it does make an interesting argument concerning societal attitudes and how much they can be changed decades or centuries from now. Fortunately enough, I believe the generation of today is taking a more positive step forward in accepting homosexuality and other gender-specifics identifications outside what is considered 'traditional'.

But The Forever War is a cautionary tale on how a wrong step does lead to a misdirection where an exclusion of one race, sexuality, etc. Does in fact only reinforce damaging and harmful (if not utterly barbaric) way of thinking. Much like how the homosexual society of Haldeman's creation is now the oppressor of a minority it perceives to be sinful or unnatural.

There may be plenty of discussions to be had on that aspect of the novel (and I'm sure other people online and in GR have talked about it too), and it's certainly the one that has struck a chord in me. In spite of that polarizing theme, this novel has a few other ways to engage anyone who enjoys science fiction in its most eye-opening, radical and unexpectedly humorous and moving of moments. William Mandella's crisis concerning the age-generation gap between him and the platoons he must handle and work alongside with had been an interesting development to watch, as well as his bittersweet relationship with Margay Potter, yet another soldier who is his only connection to a world that was lost to him for good, which provides the book with so much needed warmth and insight. I also loved the fact that, indirectly, this book also cautions us against the concept, if not the pursuit of some us, for 'immortality' and our rather stupid desire to acquire it. Life is only precious because it is supposed to be short. We are supposed to expire.

But someone of Mandella's position is not allowed to live a brief yet fulfilled life but rather just exist by default, suspended in a sort of personal limbo of repetitive cycles because he can never be released from active duty as long as humanity keeps fighting its monsters, real or imaginary. This was really well-done in the book; Haldeman has given us a harrowing depiction of Mandella's struggle to fit in in an ever-changing world that always seem to leave him behind as he's stuck in a continuous loop of soul-crushing military service with little to no hope for a normal, well-balanced life. The Forever War is a highly sophisticated science fiction novel that happens to be only the first book of a series. Its writing is purposeful and meditative, filled with infectious moment of grief, action, philosophical dimensions, and, above all else, one man's tireless quest for a loving life against the suffocating immensity of deaths around him. Now I won't have time to read the next installment this year or the next but I am definitely going to follow up on it once I set up a new reading roster.

RECOMMENDED: 8/10 DO READ MY REVIEWS AT. After completing The Forever War, I had to take a step back and think about what I’d just read. This is good and this is not so good. I did not particularly care for the story, in fact I’d expected better, but there was a meaning behind that story, and therefore I was left with an indelible impression. A lot of praise has been given to this book written in 1974 by Haldeman, a Vietnam Veteran. His experience is felt in these pages, but not in an obvious manner. The Forever War is analogous to wha After completing The Forever War, I had to take a step back and think about what I’d just read.

This is good and this is not so good. I did not particularly care for the story, in fact I’d expected better, but there was a meaning behind that story, and therefore I was left with an indelible impression.

A lot of praise has been given to this book written in 1974 by Haldeman, a Vietnam Veteran. His experience is felt in these pages, but not in an obvious manner. The Forever War is analogous to what war can do to man (mankind), yet it spans a millennium into the future, across an infinite outer space, against an enemy barely known. Yeah, that part definitely resembles the war.

I like the main character Haldeman created called William Mandella. He is brash with a soft center. Too bad most of this book’s time is spent talking about the battles. That would not be so bad if what occurs had been more interesting. Don’t get me wrong, there are some good parts in here. Women fight this war too.

Early on, Mandella meets Marygay. She becomes his counterpart (I could just say lover here, but she’s more than that).

The book is at its best when these two are together. So why did I stop to think about this book after it was over? As the soldiers travel light years through worm-holes they age normally while those they leave behind can age ten, twenty, a hundred years.

It all depends on the distance. In my mind, Mandella becomes a man trapped by time. What’s to go home to? In many respects, war is now his identity. One last thing to say: Loved the ending.

Joe Haldeman saved the best for last. Okay, K asked me to elaborate on why I hate this book, so. There was apparently a point in the distant, fortunately-gone past where all you needed to write science fiction was a good idea. Not characters. Not writing that was remotely competent or dialogue that sounded like human beings might say it or any sort of ability to extrapolate human society or even any understanding of what humans are like. You just had to have a good idea and you could write a classic! The Forev Okay, K asked me to elaborate on why I hate this book, so.

There was apparently a point in the distant, fortunately-gone past where all you needed to write science fiction was a good idea. Not characters.

Not writing that was remotely competent or dialogue that sounded like human beings might say it or any sort of ability to extrapolate human society or even any understanding of what humans are like. You just had to have a good idea and you could write a classic! The Forever War is that classic.

Here is the good idea at the core of this festering waste of words: war is hell, and relativistic war is extremely prolonged hell. Are you amazed? Are you awestruck?

Are you stunned with Haldeman's brilliance yet? Well, you better be, my friends, as that is literally ALL HE HAS for you in this book.

The rest of it? The hero is -- well, if he had more depth or dimension, I would probably hate him, but as it is, he's just a cardboard cutout of a neckbeard's MMPORG persona.

There's a girl. She is technically also a soldier, but obviously she is really just there as window dressing/the object for Our Amazing Hero to moon over. There are future societies, each more ridiculous than the last (my favorite bit of ridiculousness: in the future, tobacco is illegal because it's a waste of farmland, which, fine, but marijuana is distributed free by many governments, because -- I guess it does not require growing?) There's a plot that is barely coherent and a war no one, including the author, gives a single shit about. And now I must issue a trigger warning; I will spoiler cut this for my friends who need to avoid descriptions of rape. [The women in this book are supposed to be equal. They are in the army, they fight on the line, they are Modern Women. But they are ALSO expected to be camp followers.

When they arrive at a station inhabited mostly by men, they are required, by law and custom, to have sex with anyone who wants them. A group of heavily-armed women who are nonetheless subject to culturally enforced rape. And that may be the fantasy of every lonely, pathetic dude incapable of actually interacting with women, but it for sure isn't something I want or accept in my supposedly-equal futures. Just to be sure no one ever feels they have to read this amazingly awful classic, I'm going to spoil absolutely everything of value about this book.

Here we go: War sucks. Don't have one or be in one if you can possibly help it. And now you never have to read this awful, awful book, you lucky person, you.

Originally reviewed 2009, I just came back to put in a spoiler tag, which I didn't know how to do at the time.oops. Interesting take on things.

In a way in the end this is more an 'anti-war' book than a stand alone novel. It unfortunately reflects the Utopian type views that came out of the 60s/70s reaction to Vietnam, the one that asks the question, 'what would happen if they gave a war and nobody came?' Of course the unaccepted (but logical)answer to this question is, they bring it to you. Se Originally reviewed 2009, I just came back to put in a spoiler tag, which I didn't know how to do at the time.oops. Interesting take on things.

In a way in the end this is more an 'anti-war' book than a stand alone novel. It unfortunately reflects the Utopian type views that came out of the 60s/70s reaction to Vietnam, the one that asks the question, 'what would happen if they gave a war and nobody came?' Of course the unaccepted (but logical)answer to this question is, they bring it to you. See the Twin Towers in New York as a reference to what happens when someone gives a war and you don't come. I always find the phrase 'anti-war' rather pompous, like war is a place or a thing you can decide to avoid on your own.

One side almost always wants to avoid any war. Just saying 'war is bad' we won't participate' doesn't work, just ask Neville Chamberlain. ****************** I'm giving a spoiler warning here on this one as I want to comment on the way Haldeman ties up the book.so, spoiler beyond this point. *************************************************** [In the end of this book after generations of war (the characters are able to fight much of it because of the time distortion involved in near light speed space travel), we and the alien enemy learn to communicate (finally) and both sides say, 'why did you start this thing?' To which both sides answer, 'us?

You started it!' The entire point of the book is that war is pointless.and in a way it is or can be. The only problem not addressed is that in dealing with a bully if you just choose not to fight, you get pounded. Oh well.idealism is good, I am an idealist but so is a grasp of reality. Pacifism has been tried and tried, actually I wish it worked. For the pacifists to survive there have to be those who hold other ideals the ones that require (as Stephen King might say) taking a stand. Not till the return of Jesus Christ will we be able to beat our swords into plowshares I'm afraid.

The Forever War: Not as much impact as I was expecting Originally posted at I had so many preconceptions about this book. It won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus and Ditmar Awards for Best SF novel back in 1975-6, and I knew it was a SF treatment of Joe Haldeman’s experiences as a soldier in the Vietnam War. So I was expecting something similar to films like Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Brian De Palma’s Casualties of War (1989), Michael Cimino’s Th The Forever War: Not as much impact as I was expecting Originally posted at I had so many preconceptions about this book. It won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus and Ditmar Awards for Best SF novel back in 1975-6, and I knew it was a SF treatment of Joe Haldeman’s experiences as a soldier in the Vietnam War.

So I was expecting something similar to films like Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Brian De Palma’s Casualties of War (1989), Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978), Hal Ashby’s Coming Home (1978), or a book like Neil Sheehan’s A Bright and Shining Lie, etc. Instead, the book felt a lot more like John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War in tone, along with Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers minus the libertarian sermonizing. To be honest, through very little fault of the book itself, I found myself a bit disappointed. I was expecting a searing condemnation of the horrors of war, the callous use of young soldiers by generals in the military, a painful inability to readjust to civilian life, and lost faith in a false Cold War ideology.

The book covered all these themes, but in a very matter-of-fact, unadorned style. Perhaps I should appreciate that the author didn’t use a sledgehammer to drive home an anti-war message, but that’s what I kept looking for and not finding.

Having been born in 1974, I have no memory of the Vietnam War and my first exposure to it was Oliver Stone’s iconic film Platoon in 1986, at age 12. It was really the first film I saw that realistically depicted the ugliness and chaos of war, and depicted the moral pitfalls of innocent young soldiers sent to fight an enemy in a foreign land, supposedly on behalf of the Vietnamese people, but discovering it was more about Cold War politics and containment of Communism than liberation or freedom. That film affected me very deeply – I was shell-shocked after watching it, and mesmerized by the performances of Charlie Sheen, Willem DaFoe, and Tom Berenger. I felt a strong connection to all the characters, and was shocked and horrified by some of their actions. But I learned that the fires of war can transform ordinary people and bring out their worst side. So I came to The Forever War expecting a story equally as intense and wrenching. But when you change the enemy from Vietnamese people to inscrutable aliens that cannot speak human language, you automatically prevent the reader from developing any sympathy for them.

Granted, soldier William Mandella feels a bit of remorse when his first encounter with the Taurans results in a one-sided massacre, but he quickly adjusts to this reality and doesn’t really struggle with his conscience much afterward. There is no sense of the outrage that accompanied the My Lai massacre, for example. In fact, the book makes it impossible to feel anything for the aliens whatsoever, as they remain alien and inscrutable to the end. Mandella’s loyalties lie with his fellow soldiers, completely understandable, not some aliens intent on killing him. He goes from battle to battle just trying to survive, with the time-dilating effects of near-light travel meaning that many years have passed on Earth after each tour of duty.

The book get more interesting when Mandella first returns to Earth and discovers that most things have gotten worse, and not much has gotten better. The world is overpopulated, the main industry is the war in space, and society has gotten more chaotic and violent. He and his fellow solider and lover Marygay Potter are taken aback by the poor quality of life in America and elsewhere. The biggest shock for them is that homosexuality has become widespread as a means of curbing population growth, and is encouraged by many governments. He feels quite uncomfortable at this development, and I’m not sure how much we should read into his attitude – just because a character behaves in a certain way doesn’t mean the author believes that. But in terms of the story, it seems implausible to me as a means of birth control.

What about contraception? Surely in the future there would be other advances in medical technology to limit pregnancies. In any case, Mandella and Marygay find it impossible to readjust to life in this radically-changed society and elect to re-enlist in the military again. They request non-combat training positions, but are immediately switching into senior combat roles instead. And they continue to move up in the ranks, mainly through sheer luck of survival, while most of their comrades die in terrible ways. Haldeman certainly wanted to debunk the idea of heroism and individual merit in war – you’re either lucky or you’re dead. On the plus side, I thought the futuristic combat details of The Forever War were excellently portrayed.

Haldeman seems to know his science quite well, and I can see how this book inspired a whole generation of military SF. However, I’m not usually interested in this subgenre with the exception of Lois McMaster Bujold’s MILES VORKOSIGAN series, because that is firmly focused on character-driven stories in a military SF context.

The time-dilation effects of each tour of duty was also an ingenious metaphor for the disorienting social changes that soldiers encountered when they returned home. But again, I didn’t get a sense of intense struggle on Mandella and Marygay’s parts, just mild dislocation and dissatisfaction. In the end, I think The Forever War is a well-written and important book in the SF genre, especially at the time it was published, but I didn’t connect with it as much as I expected. Let's say you're shipping off to a particular battle in a war. By the time you reach the battle, fight it, and return home, everyone you know has died of old age and the society you protected has evolved (or devolved) into something you don't recognize or particularly like.

What would you be fighting for? That's just one of the issues brought up in 'The Forever War' by Joe Haldeman. The Plot In this novel of galactic war, the alien menace is the Taurans. The war is fought over collapsars, which ar Let's say you're shipping off to a particular battle in a war.

By the time you reach the battle, fight it, and return home, everyone you know has died of old age and the society you protected has evolved (or devolved) into something you don't recognize or particularly like. What would you be fighting for? That's just one of the issues brought up in 'The Forever War' by Joe Haldeman. The Plot In this novel of galactic war, the alien menace is the Taurans. The war is fought over collapsars, which are wormhole entrances through which you can travel great distances without traversing the intervening space. The only thing is, you have to travel from a base of operations to a collapsar at light speed, causing the 'time dilation' effect described by Einstein.

That is, time passes on earth relatively quickly compared to time passing on the ship. Therefore, a trip to a collapsar taking a few months for the people on board takes decades relative to the people on earth. The novel's protagonist is a man named Mandella, who is drafted into the war at its onset. He travels to and from battles, finding that Earth and its society changes drastically upon each return.

The Good The battle sequences are abundant and the action is well portrayed. The familiar military science fiction standby of armored fighting suits is recycled here.

However, it's well done and necessary to the plot, as the environments in which the battles occur are hostile to human life. The non-battle sequences are the most compelling part of the book, though. The way Mandella views and experiences the changing of human society and social evolution when he returns home from a battle is what makes the book so special. Mandella, a twentieth century man, has to adapt to drastic changes, and ends up doing so, which makes the tone of the novel hopeful, in my opinion. The novel also incorporates a lot of hard science.

The relativistic time dilation effect is just one example. At one point in the story, a stasis field is invented, rendering futuristic weapons obsolete and forcing the soldiers to go back to melee weapons like swords and battle axes. Also, did you ever wonder what a small conventional missile traveling at near the speed of light would do to a planet? The book also addresses the nature of war to a certain extent. Haldeman states in the introduction of the novel that it was written to be about Vietnam.

There's certainly evidence of it here as Humanity's war with the Taurans is probably ten times as screwed up as Vietnam was. The Bad I bet many of you didn't know that the interstellar war with the Taurans began in 1997. Maybe you just forgot. That's the main problem I had with the book.

Haldeman addresses this in his introduction and tells the reader to think of it as a parallel universe. I didn't really buy this, but I do know that, for the purposes of the story, Mandella had to be a twentieth-century-born man, so that his reactions to the changing of society could be genuine. However, this obvious anachronism just bothered me a little bit.

I didn't really buy some of the societal changes, either. At one point, homosexuality becomes the norm and hetero becomes the exception. I don't see this happening unless genetic engineering comes into play, which it eventually does. Also, some of the aspects of future military life are infeasible to me. There are co-ed platoons of soldiers who openly sleep with each other in a kind of 'hippie free love' way, which I just didn't buy. Also, there's open smoking of marijuana which would never be allowed in any military of any era, I believe. Conclusion None of the bad points I mention detract significantly enough from the novel for me not to recommend it highly.

It's a good read. It's also considered to be a classic of Science Fiction Literature. After some thought, I had to bump this rating up a star.

Originally, the laconic writing style gave me the impression the book fell short of the masterpiece it was capable of being; but, I now realize the Spartan prose works perfectly well with the delivery and message of the book. I have to admit now, the book is undeniably a masterpiece and deserves to be seen as such. In one sense, this book is an amusing and entertaining galactic war story that is smartly delivered and is faithful to physics, After some thought, I had to bump this rating up a star. Originally, the laconic writing style gave me the impression the book fell short of the masterpiece it was capable of being; but, I now realize the Spartan prose works perfectly well with the delivery and message of the book. I have to admit now, the book is undeniably a masterpiece and deserves to be seen as such. In one sense, this book is an amusing and entertaining galactic war story that is smartly delivered and is faithful to physics, particularly the theory of special relativity. In another sense, however, this book is a dark and disturbing book that portrays the worst parts of human potential; a human potential that seems even more dark from the likeliness of its manifestation.

In many ways, this book is simply about death: Death of the body, death of the mind, and death of the spirit; death of reason, and the death of freedom. Death, death, death. Yet, even surrounded by such death, the book manages to be optimistic about life. The Forever War was written in the context of the Vietnam War, but is completely applicable to any war, or to any discussion of war. It's continued relevance is remarkable, and completely depressing. The causes and justifications of war seem to never change; the cost of war never seems to be any less steep, nor the toll on people any more humane.

The people who start wars continue to do so from narrowness of understanding, and the people who fight wars continue to return to homes they do not recognize and a world to which they no longer belong.Assuming they return home at all. War devalues human life, regardless of the patriotic praises we heap upon military personnel, and it destroys societies. There is perhaps no human creation as terrifying as a war with no end in sight, and if that war becomes coupled with the economies of those engaged in it and if it becomes zealously defended as a source of identity, then the war becomes all the more terrifying. It should be no surprise this novel remains relevant today. Some might call this book a military space opera novel, and they would be right; but some would also see such labels and avoid the book based on assumptions about those labels, and they would be dead wrong. This is one of the finest Science Fiction novels I've read in a long time, and I hope neither the book, nor its messages, are forgotten.

The cover blurb on the copy I was reading referred to it as the science fiction Catch-22. While The Forever War has some of the same attitudes as Catch-22, what kept popping up in my head was how much this was a post-Vietnam response to Starship Troopers. On doing the barest of research, it appears Haldeman was wounded in combat in Vietnam, and that perspective is definitely in this science fiction book.

In particular, what happens when you come home. Note: The rest of this review has been withdr The cover blurb on the copy I was reading referred to it as the science fiction Catch-22.

While The Forever War has some of the same attitudes as Catch-22, what kept popping up in my head was how much this was a post-Vietnam response to Starship Troopers. On doing the barest of research, it appears Haldeman was wounded in combat in Vietnam, and that perspective is definitely in this science fiction book. In particular, what happens when you come home. Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision. In the meantime, you can read the entire review.

While it reminded me of Heinlein's Starship Troopers and Avatar (especially the beginning where recruits are told about all the things that could kill them and how they likely wouldn't make it back alive), Haldeman's Forever War takes a different turn. Haldeman's book focuses on a soldier fighting an interstellar war. Because our character is traveling to his battles at near-light speed, when he returns to earth between missions, decades pass. Haldeman speculates about the social changes taking While it reminded me of Heinlein's Starship Troopers and Avatar (especially the beginning where recruits are told about all the things that could kill them and how they likely wouldn't make it back alive), Haldeman's Forever War takes a different turn. Haldeman's book focuses on a soldier fighting an interstellar war. Because our character is traveling to his battles at near-light speed, when he returns to earth between missions, decades pass. Haldeman speculates about the social changes taking place, changes that our character has difficulty adapting to or fully accepting.

Despite social changes, there is one constant; the war continues. So I’m on a relativistic shuttle, waiting for you. I never found anybody else and I don’t want anybody else. I don’t care whether you’re ninety years old or thirty.

If I can’t be your lover, I’ll be your nurse. Hey kids, you know how people keep using that word allegory, and you’re never really sure what they mean, and they probably aren’t even sure what they mean?

This is an allegory. If there’s a reason we have the phrase “deceptively slim” in our book reviewing vocabulary, it’s for books So I’m on a relativistic shuttle, waiting for you. I never found anybody else and I don’t want anybody else.

I don’t care whether you’re ninety years old or thirty. If I can’t be your lover, I’ll be your nurse. Hey kids, you know how people keep using that word allegory, and you’re never really sure what they mean, and they probably aren’t even sure what they mean? This is an allegory. If there’s a reason we have the phrase “deceptively slim” in our book reviewing vocabulary, it’s for books like The Forever War. This thing won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. No mean feat, that.

And for the first little bit, I couldn’t figure out why. Joe Haldeman gets off to a slow start, with a book that is refreshingly familiar in the way it lampoons the gung ho enthusiasm with which an conscript army gets sent off to be slaughtered in the name of politics and the economy. It’s Vietnam, only in space. I think the quotation I used to open this review shows that The Forever War is actually a love story, where the lovers are not merely star crossed but star scattered through time and space. We don’t learn a lot about William Mandella the person prior to the war. We know he was a physics teacher; we meet his “younger” brother and his mother, and that is about it. The start of the war marks an epoch for Mandella, even though by his subjective reckoning, the Forever War lasts less than ten years.

The Mandella we initially meet seems to be a man of few convictions. He was conscripted into the army. He doesn’t put up a fuss. There is a fatalistic quality to Mandella’s actions and remarks—he is seldom happy about what is going on, but he never seems able to stir himself to do anything about the situation. He is, indeed, a terrible leader, as he himself remarks on numerous occasions.

Really the only thing that makes him stand out is the charmed life he leads: he hasn’t managed to die yet. In this way, Haldeman, of course, remarks on the impartiality with which war strikes down officers and enlisted personnel, heroes and cowards alike. War is like the honey badger: it doesn’t give a shit. And for all the fancy technology both UNEF and the Taurans have, neither can alter such a fundamental apathetic constant of the universe. Haldeman spends little time exploring the motives behind the war. The inciting reason is something along the lines of “Our ship blew up. The Taurans were there.

We should do something. War is doing something.

We should do war.” It’s like the worst false syllogism ever—but that, of course, is the point. War, as they say, is good for absolutely nothing—except as an economic machine in which human lives are the lubricant. However, if you’re looking for science fiction with intense ground battles and descriptions of sexy powered mecha suits, then this is not the book for you. There are a few action sequences, but Haldeman opts for a more realistic approach to space combat.

He invokes relativistic velocities, logistical computers, acceleration couches, and even probability tables. This is space combat as it probably would be, not the sexy space combat we see in science fantasy shows.

And I give mad kudos to Haldeman for spending the time to explore what trying to fight at relativistic speeds might entail. I love the idea that, because of all this relativistic travel, you’re encountering an enemy who is either decades or centuries ahead of or behind you, technologically. Blows my mind. Where I went wrong at the start of the book, actually, was assuming this would be more about the minutiae of war, the battles and the experience of boots on the ground, than it is.

To be fair to me, that’s kind of how Haldeman sets us up at the beginning. Mandella and the new recruits are all training for ground operations by day and having randomized free-lovin’ sex by night.

Man, those 1970s. Fortunately, the rest of The Forever War corrected my interpretation. By the end I started to understand why this book has received so much acclaim.

In addition to the wealth of discussions we can have about warfare, we can also talk about the portrayal of sex and gender here. I suspect by 1970s standards it was fairly avant garde. The way Haldeman posits a fluidity of sexual orientation, including cultural and social shifts normalizing homosexuality over heterosexuality, reminded me a little of Samuel R. Delany’s work.

Like Delany, Haldeman is notable not just for mentioning such lifestyles but actually challenging the heteronormativity of the author’s contemporary society. By our standards today, some of the way Haldeman deals with gender roles remains problematic. Sexual orientation is decisively dichotomous (with the possible exception of Kahn, who, if we can give them any kind of label, might be considered pansexual). And although Haldeman joins Delany in portraying alternative sexualities, he doesn’t go so far as to deconstruct gender identity much—men are still men, women are still women, and there doesn’t seem to be anything in between.

Still, I have to give Haldeman credit for the way he handles gender roles. Women in this book are just as capable as men, with just as much diversity in attitude and behaviour. There are weak women and men, strong women and men, thoughtful women and men, and so on.

All of Haldeman’s characters are people rather than stereotypes of class, race, and gender, something that is to his credit as a writer. Despite these elements, however, The Forever War is not so much transgressive as it is expressive of hopes and cautious optimism. After all, as I said earlier, it’s really just a long con culminating in a heteroromance for the ages. Mandella and Potter finally find each other and get a postscript baby in a galaxy. They live on one of several enclave planets with other heterohumans on tap as breeding stock in case the main Man, Kahn, discovers a flaw in its many-and-sundry clones.

This is the part where you might be wondering if, somewhere between page 180 and 210, you nodded off and drowned (because you were reading this in the bathtub like me—you mean you don’t read in the bathtub? That last development seems like it comes out of left field—but I kind of see it as the logical extreme of the type of progression Haldeman was showing each time Mandella swung back towards Earth. And that’s not the only possible resolution, but it was one way to puncture the cyclic equilibrium of destruction and rebuilding that Earth underwent while UNEF played soldiers with its excess population. But I digress. Mandella and Potter’s romance is rather low-key.

They start off, like everyone else in their basic training, as randomized sleep partners. Gradually they become a couple. For a little while, as Mandella remarks, it seems like they stay together mostly out of inertia: by being posted to the same assignments and by virtue of, you know, not dying, they happen to be the only people left alive from their time period. Relativity and war have taken care of everyone else. I understand how that could be a powerful bond, more powerful even than physical or emotional attraction. I swear that the only reason Haldeman hammers us with repetitive explanations of what these relativistic voyages are doing to Mandella and Potter is so that when they get split up, it’s immediately tragic and poignant. Mandella spells it out for us (in case you were nodding off in that bathtub again—stop doing that), but that doesn’t undermine the pathos at all: they will be inextricably separated, forever.

Of course I had peeked at the last page and knew they wouldn’t be. But that letter from Marygay, the one with the quotation I used above, is probably one of the best things about this book. It just has such a spirit of optimism about it. When William reads it, realizes what it signifies it’s as if the weight of those centuries that have passed him by lifts from his shoulders, and he becomes a person again rather than a cog in the machine. I would have liked to see his reunion with Marygay in person, rather than an epistolary epilogue—but that might just be me. The Forever War hasn’t jumped to the top of my list as far as war novels go. But I’m glad I read it.

There’s something to be said for classics that are short: if they don’t live up to your expectations, then you haven’t wasted much time—but if they do, then you can re-read them again and again without feeling like you’re reliving every Russian winter Tolstoy spent writing them. The Forever War falls into the latter camp for me. I haven’t decided if I’ll check out the sequels, but I’m sure I’ll come back to this book some years from now, and see what else it has to show me. Touted as the best sci-fi military novel ever written, I went into reading The Forever War with a lot of expectations; probably too many.

Not to say that I didn't like it. I liked it a lot, I just didn't love it and I don't think it's the best military sci-fi novel ever written. I liked Starship Troopers by Heinlein much more. Where Heinlein takes a positive look at war, Haldeman uses his experience with the Vietnam war to paint a more dismal picture, not that this was the point that makes Stars Touted as the best sci-fi military novel ever written, I went into reading The Forever War with a lot of expectations; probably too many.

Not to say that I didn't like it. I liked it a lot, I just didn't love it and I don't think it's the best military sci-fi novel ever written.

I liked Starship Troopers by Heinlein much more. Where Heinlein takes a positive look at war, Haldeman uses his experience with the Vietnam war to paint a more dismal picture, not that this was the point that makes Starship Troopers my favorite of the two. In the version I read, there was an introduction by John Scalzi who compares The Forever War to his own novel, Old Man's War. I can definitely see the comparisons, but I even enjoyed Scalzi's novel a bit better. Okay, enough with the comparisons, I did actually like this book, so I'll get into the good stuff. Throughout the novel, Haldeman plays with the theory of relativity and time dilation. So, the main protagonist, William Mandella, becomes an old man of two or three hundred years old at the actual age of 25.

Or is that switched. Anyway, his body is a 25 year old's.

This is always interesting and Orson Scott Card plays around with this in his Ender's Game series too. Because of this time dilation that's going on, the earth is going through many changes while Mandella is away. The portrayal of earth was done really well throughout the book. One time Mandella returns home to find earth to be a far different place than he remembers it.

Food is running out and crime has become such a problem that people need body guards or at least a high powered gun if they go anyware. This causes Mandella and the rest of the company that returned home to earth to get back into the military, where there's at least some stability. I had just a minor quibble with the way Mandella and his love interest, Potter, came together. It just didn't seem to real to me. They were not very friendly with each other and suddenly they couldn't be apart. Anyway, this wasn't a huge deal, and it still works fine for the story.

Who should read this? If you're in the mood for a war story that shows how pointless everything about war is, this is for you. It definitely doesn't celebrate war like many sci-fi and fantasy novels tend to do. This was a good story, but I didn't think it lived up to the hype and that may be it's biggest fault. 3.5/5 stars (Really liked it). Another notch in my journey to revisit the classics of SF I read as a youth. I think I was a sophomore in high school when I first read this one; now, as then, I preferred it to that other classic of MilSF - Starship Troopers.

I suppose it is a preference, with fiction, for story and character over political philosophy lectures, particularly when the lectures are tendentious and self serving. In The Forever War, Haldeman's protagonist and narrator William Mandela is a soldier who fights a thousa Another notch in my journey to revisit the classics of SF I read as a youth. The Office Uk Torrent Complete Tv. I think I was a sophomore in high school when I first read this one; now, as then, I preferred it to that other classic of MilSF - Starship Troopers.

I suppose it is a preference, with fiction, for story and character over political philosophy lectures, particularly when the lectures are tendentious and self serving. In The Forever War, Haldeman's protagonist and narrator William Mandela is a soldier who fights a thousand year war in the space of a few of his own years due to the time dilation effects of space travel, and has to withstand a massive culture shock and catch up on huge technological advancements every time he arrives at a new destination in the war.

And even after a thousand years neither Earth nor the alien Taurans they are fighting know what the war is even about. No need for lectures here: Haldeman lets the absurdity of the circumstances speak for itself. The middle section of the novel, in which Mandela and his lover Marygay Potter return to an Earth they barely recognize after completing their first term of service, is the weakest.

Such an extreme depiction of near future civil upheaval is always going to date badly, but even with that in mind, I think Haldeman's view of the social sciences is a bit behind his own time. This is a not uncommon failing of hard SF writers, then and now, stemming from a drive to generate the worst case scenario when weighing the future against the struggles of the present. When his characters are mired in the rigors of war and military life, however, this novel earns its reputation as a classic - especially in the imaginative leaps Haldeman makes with each jump to the future.

Brother of Haldeman is the author of 20 novels and five collections. The Forever War won the Nebula, Hugo and Ditmar Awards for best science fiction novel in 1975.

Other notable titles include Camouflage, The Accidental Time Machine and Marsbound as well as the short works 'Graves,' 'Tricentennial' and 'The Hemingway Hoax.' Starbound is scheduled for a January release. SFWA pres Brother of Haldeman is the author of 20 novels and five collections.

The Forever War won the Nebula, Hugo and Ditmar Awards for best science fiction novel in 1975. Other notable titles include Camouflage, The Accidental Time Machine and Marsbound as well as the short works 'Graves,' 'Tricentennial' and 'The Hemingway Hoax.' Starbound is scheduled for a January release. SFWA president Russell Davis called Haldeman 'an extraordinarily talented writer, a respected teacher and mentor in our community, and a good friend.' Haldeman officially received the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master for 2010 by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America at the Nebula Awards Weekend in May, 2010 in Hollywood, Fla.