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The Forever War (The Forever War #1)

by Joe Haldeman, John Scalzi (Goodreads Author) (Foreword)

4.08 · rating details · 13,741 ratings · 984 reviews

The monumental Hugo and Nebula award winning SF classic-- Featuring a new introduction by John Scalzi

The Earth's leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand--despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy they would oppose is inscrutable, unconquerable, and very far away. A reluctant conscript drafted into an elite Military unit, Private William Mandella has bee

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Paperback, 265 pages

Published February 17th 2009 by St. Martin's Griffin (first published 1974)

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Jul 09, 2009

Jon rated it

Recommended to Jon by: Jim MacLachlan

Shelves: fiction, science-fiction, award-winners, hugo-winner, nebula-winner, read-in-my-40s, time-travel

3.5 stars

If I had been born in the 50s and also been born male, I'm positive I would have loved this story. All the pain, confusion and futility of Vietnam but strung out and extrapolated over three thousand years (or about three years relatively speaking). The last fourth of the book salvaged the first three parts.

I didn't have any trouble grasping the science, the physics or the technology. Haldeman did an excellent job conveying them without making me take a cours...more

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Dec 30, 2007

D_Davis rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: science-speculative-fiction

I am not the biggest fan of military science fiction. I am just not interested in flanking, platoons, chain of command, tactics, military strategy, detailed descriptions of body armor and high tech weaponry, or reading about large scale space wars. Often times, I find that these qualities are written in lieu of strong characterizations and authentic human drama. What I do care about is when an author examines the personal and societal impact of space-age warfare, and Joe Haldeman does exactly t...moreI am not the biggest fan of military science fiction. I am just not interested in flanking, platoons, chain of command, tactics, military strategy, detailed descriptions of body armor and high tech weaponry, or reading about large scale space wars. Often times, I find that these qualities are written in lieu of strong characterizations and authentic human drama. What I do care about is when an author examines the personal and societal impact of space-age warfare, and Joe Haldeman does exactly this in The Forever War, a book written in direct response to his time served in the Vietnam War.

The Forever War follows the military service, of William Mandella; his time at war, his time in hyperspace travel, his time at home, and his time living in the shit are all explored. It is through this fascinating character's eyes that we experience the absolute absurdity of futuristic warfare. The lengths that the humans go through to fight an enigmatic enemy are astoundingly stupid. Okay, maybe not stupid - their strategy and tactics are sound, and the military runs like a well oiled cyborg - but incredibly frustrating. That they would spend so much time (light year's worth) and money chasing an alien race around the universe just to stop it from possibly attacking the Earth is a mind boggling proposition, and in light of how much time and money we spend on Earth, today, stopping supposed threats, it is also frighteningly plausible. The “war on terror” is only slightly less inane than the war on the aliens detailed here.

At the core of this well-written narrative lies an interesting idea: the problem of time displacement and the relative effects of light speed travel. This idea is what makes the book such a fascinating science fiction story. If this idea were to be removed, the real impact of the narrative would be all but lost. We all know that when the veterans of the Vietnam war returned home, they returned to a county that had undergone drastic societal changes, changes that occurred in less than a decade, and they had problems adjusting to it all. What would happen if the tours of duty lasted longer, much longer, like say hundreds or thousands of years? What kind of Earth would these soldiers return to? The Forever War asks this very question, and the answers it poses are, not surprisingly, grim.

Because of time displacement, hyperspace travel effects the relative time of those on board the space cruisers differently than it does those on space stations or planets - time becomes subjective... However, this also poses an interesting problem concerning the war itself. Because the fighting takes place across the furthest reaches of the universe, the humans and the aliens are constantly jumping back and forth between different stargates and different subjective times. Sometimes, the humans appear to come from the aliens' future, while other times the humans appear to come from the aliens' past, and vice-versa. This reeks havoc on the relative effectiveness of different military tactics and technologies.

The biggest impact associated with time displacement is seen through Mandella's point of view. Through all the jarring changes he endures, it is surprising that the dude doesn't off himself. He goes from being a Private, a grunt, leaving a world familiar to him, a world he calls home, to being a Major, and a total social outcast...

...Even taken as a simple allegory for the present political climate, The Forever War is insightful and powerful, but as an extrapolation of what might come in the distant future, it is a glowing and flashing warning sign. It is a cautionary tale of great magnitude, and like all memorable and well written science fiction, Haldeman asks us to learn from the past, examine the present, and make the necessary changes for the future, lest we end up sending our finest men and woman light years into outer space chasing boogie men for only God knows what. (less)

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Jun 29, 2010

Kemper rated it

Shelves: sci-fi, military, classic-lit, war, space, favorites

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, but this one is different. Hell, when it was published in 1975 it won the Hugo, the Locu...moreThis 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, 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 incomprehnsible 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.
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Dec 12, 2007

Mark rated it

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Recommends it for: anyone

Shelves: sciencefiction

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. ...more

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Jul 26, 2008

Scurra rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

Catch-22 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 c...more

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Mar 12, 2009

Sean rated it

A gripping read in the mold of Heinlein's Starship Troopers, though the novel is substantively/philosophically antithetical to ST. Haldeman's Vietnam experience informs the book from beginning to end, and he does a fine job of capturing the futility, frustration, and petty indignities of war from the POV of a (more or less) lowly participant.

* Relativity: Haldeman weaves the practical aspects of relativity into this book more than any other SF novel I've read. It's fascinating nerd...more

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Jul 22, 2009

Ron rated it

Shelves: science-fiction

Actually about a 3.8. A entertaining, fast read that most readers will love or hate for all the right and wrong reasons.

I read the "definitive version" with the original "too downbeat" middle section. Draw your own conclusions.

One thing I check before reader a book—and I <ins>never </ins>read the blurbs until after—is the date it was published. That's important here because, while the book was written in 1974, it opens in the 1990s with wh...moreActually about a 3.8. A entertaining, fast read that most readers will love or hate for all the right and wrong reasons.

I read the "definitive version" with the original "too downbeat" middle section. Draw your own conclusions.

One thing I check before reader a book—and I <ins>never </ins>read the blurbs until after—is the date it was published. That's important here because, while the book was written in 1974, it opens in the 1990s with what Haldeman (in 2008) admitted were such "obvious anachronisms. Think of it was an alternate universe."

Fair enough, because he missed so many technical things that the book is almost a spoof of science fiction. (And William Gibson praised it for "its techno-extrapolative brilliance"!?) For example, he wrote that even in centuries into their/our future credit cards would not yet be invented and micro-fiches would be the mode of miniaturized data storage. Missed micro-computers until several hundred years out. When he ran out of ideas, he labeled everything "tachyon" as his magic explanation of future weapons, drives, etc. The "usual" black hole explanation of faster-than-light travel; At least his hero has the honesty to wonder about getting ripped apart. But doesn't.

His section on a farming commune was a hoot. An agrarian ideal told by someone who apparently never spent a night on a real farm.

The hero was much like those from early Heinlein or Scalzi novels; an intentional anachronism.

Haldeman perfectly captured 70s social attitudes. Utopia seen as free drugs/sex and guns. (Interestingly, he mentions birth control but never STDs, which probably weren't eradicated in his 90s any more than ours. Typical: fun and games, but no consequences. As expected, interpersonal sexual norms shift toward/through "homolife." "Through"? You don't want to know.) His hero, of course, didn't buy it, except pot and guns,though he later labeled those who did as "zombies, happy robots." Haldeman does close with the quintessential 70s cliché that "economy needed a war." (The old Military-Industrial Complex.)

A fun read. I can see why it won so many awards in the 70s. Now it's kind of quaint.
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Feb 13, 2010

Jake Forbes rated it

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I finally picked up Joe Haldeman’s seminal sci-fi novel The Forever War and it knocked my snooty spaceship-and-military-fiction-averse socks off. Quick summary for those who haven’t read it yet, the Forever War is about one soldier’s experience in a war between humans and an alien race that, due to time dilation from faster-than-lightspeed travel, lasts over a thousand years. While there are a few battle scenes, the novel isn’t about tactics or technology at all, but rather it’s a timeless soldi...more

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Feb 27, 2008

Rob rated it

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Recommends it for: Any sci fi or military book fan

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jul 09, 2007

Mike rated it

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The main downside, in my experience, to the military SF genre is that it doesn’t really give you much to think about. The novels are fun, but for the most part they tend to focus on the action. That’s not a bad thing if that’s what you’re looking for--indeed, I quite often find myself in the mood for that sort of story. Still, it’s nice to find a member of the genre that isn’t just a less-philosophical rehash of Starship Troopers. (By the way, I do quite like most of the Heinlein I’ve read, incl...more

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Nov 13, 2011

Katiarai rated it

· review of another edition

I remember reading this in high school and was absolutely fascinated about the temporal aspect of traveling faster than light. Very few authors I had read had really played up this aspect in military sci-fi, instead allowing for their versions of FTL to almost exist outside of time. I quite honestly think that was the most interesting part of the whole book. It just made you stop and think. What if you went away to protect a society and way of life that you believed only to come back and to find...more

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Jan 08, 2012

Steve rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: science, fiction

This book follows the military career of one Private William Mandella who joins the military at the start of a centuries long interstellar conflict with an alien race. The training and later the combat is brutal, with many casualties, but Mandella survives when many others are killed. Each time he returns to the war, he is promoted through the ranks, largely due to having survived where his previous superior officer did not.[return]Because of relativity, a few short months on a campaign can mean...more

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Nov 29, 2010

Jason rated it

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Shelves: fiction, paperback, joe, haldeman, science, 2008, 02-28-09-a

This book is often listed as a science-fiction classic and is on many "best of" lists. The particular version I read is cited by the author as the definitive version.[return][return]I found it to be an enjoyable read, but not really what I expected. From the description I expected it to cover more time as in the passage of time and the effect it had on the main character, but the story was more about the training the character received and more about his role in the war than about wh...more

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Dec 02, 2008

Ellen rated it

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I took a Science Fiction writing class from Joe Haldeman back at MIT, which is why I've been meaning to read this book for the last 15 years. (The class was one of my all time favorites.) I wish I'd read it back then, because I have some questions for him.

Haldeman, by the way, is a Viet Nam vet, and I think this is critical information for reading the book, which he wrote in the 70's, shortly after his tour was over, I believe.

The book follows William Mandala, a phys...moreI took a Science Fiction writing class from Joe Haldeman back at MIT, which is why I've been meaning to read this book for the last 15 years. (The class was one of my all time favorites.) I wish I'd read it back then, because I have some questions for him.

Haldeman, by the way, is a Viet Nam vet, and I think this is critical information for reading the book, which he wrote in the 70's, shortly after his tour was over, I believe.

The book follows William Mandala, a physics student who's been conscripted into a war light years away against the mysterious Taurans (who, at the beginning of the book, no one was ever actually seen.) His (initially 3, then 6, then 10-year) tour of duty lasts for hundreds of Earth years due to time-dilation, allowing him to witness portions of the entire war and also to bear witness to the vast societal changes that take place over the time span.

The book is clearly about the dangers of facism and the fruitlessness of war. I realized by the end of the book, that what bothered me most about the book - that he minimally, if at all, described any of the characters and was incredibly stingy with personal information about any of the characters, including the narrator - was the point of the book. That in a government beaurocracy that relies on war for it's economy (at least the type of war that is described in the book), there is nothing precious about life and individual people are incredibly expendible - a concept that is very difficult for me to fully comprehend, given my proclivites to "catch and release" most bugs in my house and feel guilty when I spray ants in my kitchen. By the end of the book, Haldeman's taken the concept of the expendibility of the individual even further, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone who might read it.

Haldeman also explores the ways in which both sex and sexuality can be controlled by the government by including the concepts of government-imposed sexual promiscuity as a method of troop morale (at one point stating that female soldiers are not allowed to say "No," - but there are some internal inconstencies with this) and government imposed homosexuality as a means of population control. I also had to accept that the book was written in the 70's and had, I felt, a somewhat naive (or perhaps, more accurately, 70's-centric) view of sex and sexuality in general (i.e., there's no discussion of rape or STDs, or the obvious consequences of either of these). However, I found both these concepts thought-provoking, in at least, a sort of, "would that really work and why or why not" kind of way. (less)

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Jan 28, 2012

Jane Connor rated it

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Земля, быстро осваивающая космос, вступает в войну с тельцианами – инопланетянами, которые начали нападать на земной транспорт. Формируется элитный отряд, в который призывают людей с высоким уровнем интеллекта и физической подготовки. Уильям Манделла, в прошлом студент физмата, тоже попадает в такой отряд. Большая часть времени уходит у них даже не на войну, а тренировки, причем ни про тактику, ни про поведение собственно врага им ничего не говорят. В конце концов проходит их первый бой, и солда...moreЗемля, быстро осваивающая космос, вступает в войну с тельцианами – инопланетянами, которые начали нападать на земной транспорт. Формируется элитный отряд, в который призывают людей с высоким уровнем интеллекта и физической подготовки. Уильям Манделла, в прошлом студент физмата, тоже попадает в такой отряд. Большая часть времени уходит у них даже не на войну, а тренировки, причем ни про тактику, ни про поведение собственно врага им ничего не говорят. В конце концов проходит их первый бой, и солдаты возвращаются на Землю, где прошло уже двадцать лет, хотя для наших героев прошла только пара лет (эффект релятивистского замедления времени из-за способа их путешествий). Земля изменилась почти до неузнаваемости, и Уильям, который жаждал покинуть армию, решает снова уйти на войну.

Книга участника вьетнамской войны Джо Холдемана была выпущена в 1974 году и является своего рода литературным ответом на роман Роберта Хайнлайна «Звездный десант». Роман, говорили, смело разоблачает милитаристские настроения и провозглашает антивоенные идеи. В результате хвалебных отзывов и наличия у этой книжки таких премий как «Хьюго» и «Небьюла» ожидала чего-то такого прямо невероятного, потрясающего и гениального. В общем, да, синдром завышенных ожиданий – это действительно тяжелый случай. В моих глазах книга Джо Холдемана не гениальная, и не отвратительная, а просто-напросто нормальная. Достойная вещь, но не более того.

Да, антивоенный пафос присутствует, и даже милитаристские взгляды Холдеман вполне себе высмеивает. Но благодаря форме повествования (рассказ ведется от лица самого Уильяма Манделлы) и тому дикому количеству идей и концепций, которые автор пожелал засунуть в небольшую в общем-то книгу, центральная мысль о бессмысленности войны быстро размывается. Иногда даже создается впечатление, что «Бесконечная война» – не цельное произведение, а просто склад идей – приходи, бери и пользуйся, все равно от Холдемана не убудет.

Кстати, многие авторы так и делают. Все в ассортименте: перемещения через червоточины, которые называются Старгейтами; идея о стазис-поле, где не действует энергетическое оружие, но действуют «примитивные» стрелы, дротики и копья; загружаемая прямо в мозг база данных о боевых искусствах и все прочее в том же роде. Каждый нф-автор и сценарист выбирает по себе, а некоторые берут книгу прямо целиком, как Макото Синкая в своих «Голосах далекой звезды», только меняют героя на героиню.

Как всякий уважающий себя фантаст, Джо Холдеман мнит себя великим футуристом, поэтому не забывает упоминать про прогресс и социокультурное развитие. Как и всякий доморощенный социолог и культуролог, он с полной убежденностью высказывает в «Бесконечной войне» абсолютно абсурдные предсказания о человеческом обществе. Что, вообще, вполне в духе авторов-фантастов – по непонятной причине они всегда считают, что прогресс науки и техники повлечет собой глобальные изменения в социуме, причем в самые короткие сроки.

Обаяние этому немудрящему роману прибавляет, как ни странно, как раз это самое повествование от первого лица. Сдержанная, почти репортажная манера, саркастические ремарки «в сторону» и пронизывающее каждую строчку ощущение бесцельности всего происходящего вокруг это как двойной удар по чувствам читателя. У Холдлемана лучше всего получается описывать состояние отчужденности от привычного мира, погружение человека, с одной стороны, в бессмысленные боевые действия, а с другой – его столкновение с родным миром и мирной жизнью, в котором ему вечно нет и уже не будет места. (less)

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Jan 21, 2012

Patrick rated it

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Shelves: sci-fi, spec-fic

The Forever War is part of the science fiction military genre, which tends to imagine future space conflict and the various difficulties posed by zero gravity, future weapons and armor, alien species, and relativistic travel. Some authors dwell on the "naval" aspects, such as in Piers Anthony's Mercenary (the second book in the "good reading for a middle-school student" Bio of a Space Tyrant series) or Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game (which you should read if you haven't -- e...more

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Jan 15, 2012

Jack rated it

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This book is so familiar. Perhaps it was written first (1974) and other books imitated it.

I will not be able to paraphrase the quote, much less accurately attribute it, but it has long been observed that the fact that corrupt, depraved, cynical, defeated men and women are rewarded with new life, with children, with babies , and are transformed by them, is evidence that God loves us.

In this book a man and a woman overcome war, random fate, military discipline and indiffer...more

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Jan 12, 2012

Mar rated it

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I read reviews of this on Amazon before downloading it and there were some pretty scathing comments, especially involving the sex and drug scenes. I decided I would go ahead and read it after seeing positive ratings here and reading the sample Kindle download.

I'm not sure if I disliked the book because I'm just not a science fiction aficionado or if it was because I found the text to be slightly sophomoric. The latter I shall write off to the beach read category and I will forgive. Tha...more

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Dec 28, 2011

Bruce Zheng rated it

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If you haven't read Starship Troopers yet, you probably should. First, it is a good book, and written by who I think is unfortunately the most neglected of the three golden age science fiction giants, Robert A. Heinlein. Second, The Forever War and Starship Troopers in a way respond to each other, and reading both is a good way of understanding two drastically different perspectives on war.

It would be too simplistic and belittling to say that The Forever War is a critical response to t...moreIf you haven't read Starship Troopers yet, you probably should. First, it is a good book, and written by who I think is unfortunately the most neglected of the three golden age science fiction giants, Robert A. Heinlein. Second, The Forever War and Starship Troopers in a way respond to each other, and reading both is a good way of understanding two drastically different perspectives on war.

It would be too simplistic and belittling to say that The Forever War is a critical response to the message of Starship Troopers. Rather, the two books represent two different cultural contexts and perspectives on war. Whereas Starship Troopers was written in a post-WWII environment, The Forever War reflected post-Vietnam feelings. Reading both is interesting from not only an ideological but also a historical perspective, and that definitely contributed to my rating. Right, with that out of the way, on to the book itself.

First, the characters. There are really only two of any importance, and they aren't developed to a great degree. Mandella is essentially a conduit for Haldeman to express his own war experiences (in fact Mandella is a near anagram of Haldeman), and Potter is more or less the only other person present for the entire story. Both are however somewhat likeable, and don't hinder the more important parts of the book.

Second, the setting. I really like Haldeman's portrayal of the future. It's neither overall much better or much worse than the present; the major difference is how culturally alien it is. It's hard to say why, but the earth of the 2020s in the book disturbed me far more than Orwell's 1984 or Huxley's Brave New World. Mandella's future shock is easily felt by the reader, and with it creates a sense of purposelessness that is the book's driving feeling. The time dilation used in the book not only translates Haldeman's culture shock for the reader; it is also used creatively to explore the effects of a war that is engaged across time and space. When moving into conflicts, they have no idea whether their weaponry is incredibly advanced or incredibly primitive in comparison to their enemies'. While ships that move close to the speed of light may not be all that realistic, the portrayal of the effects of such technology is well explored by Haldeman.

Finally, the commentary. Like Starship Troopers, The Future War is as much an ideological essay as it is a book. The prevailing idea here is one of utter confusion and chaos, and it works rather well. Haldeman uses both the science fiction setting as well as the plot to communicate to the reader. The time dilation is a fitting and creative analogy for logistical failures of the military. Mandella's future shock translates also to his own growing isolation due to military service. Finally, the battles are so violent and abstract that they transcend romanticism. There is no valor or bravery or patriotism here, only killing. The ending is strangely optimistic, and contrasts from the rest of the narrative, which was a little bleak. However, I feel that Haldeman was not trying to create a fatalistic view of humanity. Rather, he was commenting on the utter stupidity of war, especially the one he fought in, and celebrating that once in a while we come to our senses and give ourselves a few years of peace.(less)

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Dec 05, 2011

Elisa Nuckle rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: alltime-favorites, 4-stars-or-better

Rating: 5/5 stars

Amazon blurb quote: “The book tells the timeless story of war, in this case a conflict between humanity and the alien Taurans. Humans first bumped heads with the Taurans when we began using collapsars to travel the stars. Although the collapsars provide nearly instantaneous travel across vast distances, the relativistic speeds associated with the process means that time passes slower for those aboard ship. For William Mandella, a physics student drafted as a soldier, t...moreRating: 5/5 stars

Amazon blurb quote: “The book tells the timeless story of war, in this case a conflict between humanity and the alien Taurans. Humans first bumped heads with the Taurans when we began using collapsars to travel the stars. Although the collapsars provide nearly instantaneous travel across vast distances, the relativistic speeds associated with the process means that time passes slower for those aboard ship. For William Mandella, a physics student drafted as a soldier, that means more than 27 years will have passed between his first encounter with the Taurans and his homecoming, though he himself will have aged only a year. When Mandella finds that he can’t adjust to Earth after being gone so long from home, he reenlists, only to find himself shuttled endlessly from battle to battle as the centuries pass.”

Okay, so if that little blurb didn’t hook you, you’re clearly not interested in the concepts of time and relativity, which is fine. Personally, I love the concept of one person living to see the beginning and end of a thousand year long war because of time relativity. Technically, because of the collapsars, these people travel near instantaneously from collapsar point to collapsar point. Mandella, at the beginning of the story, was only enlisted for two years, and, like the blurb said, came home twenty-seven years later, even though he’s only around twenty-five years old.

Awesome, right?

Personally, I loved the writing style of this book, but some of the Amazon reviews said it reads like literary fiction or that the narration is bland. If you’re into Twilight or Potter-type narration then yeah, this book won’t really be entertaining because of the sheer difference in style. However, I think the narration is one of the book’s most interest aspects. You infer a lot, you miss out on a lot of details (especially about Earth throughout these thousand or so years).

The other interesting aspect was the Taurans. They aren’t human in most ways, other than the fact that they are bipedal. Their motives aren’t exactly explained, and you’re left with an interesting amorphous concept of what it means to fight the Taurans instead. The humans aren’t fighting someone who wants to eradicate the human species, they’re fighting a race that suddenly started attacking once humanity started using the collapsars. What in the world does that even mean? Were the collapsars theirs first? And so on. Again, maybe I just read way too far into the text, but the book is so rich in details and concepts (like the relevance of war, sexuality even).

When it comes to concepts, there are certain turns of events that can be really controversial and were honestly surprising to me at first, but I like that the author went out on a limb and wrote the story anyway, controversy be damned. But if you don’t like homosexuality or the thought of homosexuality (because that seems to be a big issue with a lot of people I know), read this book with caution but not presumptions. It’s a part of the story but not the entire point, so don’t get caught up on it.

Okay, I’ll stop rambling about this. My point is the book is wonderful, makes you think about our world and where it’s heading (whether or not we can change it), and what war means. For me, there were some interesting parallels to the US’s recent long-winded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but you’ll have to tell me if you get the same thing if you read the book. I think a lot of people have said the writer was referring primarily to Vietnam, since the book was written in the 70s. But I’ll stop now. Really. Go buy the ebook at least, it’s only $4.95, and it’s well, well worth that price.(less)

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Nov 10, 2011

Ilsa Bick rated it

· review of another edition

I have a confession to make: before this book, I'd never read any of Haldeman's work. Don't ask me why. Given my interest in the military, I should've. OTOH, and to be fair, I didn't read a bunch of military sci-fi when I was younger, and Haldeman, a Vietnam vet who clearly explores that war in his fiction, penned stories that didn't thrill me as much as, say, hard sci-fi. And, honestly, I just wasn't interested in Vietnam back then, maybe because, as a young kid, I didn't understand what th...moreI have a confession to make: before this book, I'd never read any of Haldeman's work. Don't ask me why. Given my interest in the military, I should've. OTOH, and to be fair, I didn't read a bunch of military sci-fi when I was younger, and Haldeman, a Vietnam vet who clearly explores that war in his fiction, penned stories that didn't thrill me as much as, say, hard sci-fi. And, honestly, I just wasn't interested in Vietnam back then, maybe because, as a young kid, I didn't understand what the war was really about and by the time I became a sentient human being, there were other things to worry about. Vietnam was something to forget not dwell on and certainly nothing to really give any serious thought.

What an idiot. Me, not Haldeman.

I picked up this classic of military sf while on layover in Chicago and so discovered what I've missed all these years. Haldeman's writing is terse without descending into caricature, but there is also plenty of violence here (including sexual). The strength of the story, though, doesn't reside with the characters or even, in many ways, the situation--to wit, he science is actually quite hard-core; and the story is deceptively simple,the plot turning on a physicist turned soldier named William Mandella. Earth is at war with a mysterious race, the Taurans, and the beauty of the conceit is that because of the vast distances involved in fighting this war, each battle is horrifically lopsided. In other words, if you're traveling at near light-speed, but it still takes hundreds of years (in Earth time) to reach your target, the enemy has had those hundreds of years to perfect their weaponry. By the time you reach your destination, you're already outgunned. Battles are waged and the results aren't known for years afterward. To say that this is an allegory about Vietnam or the futulity of war is almost too simplistic. With its graphic violence (both battle-related and sexual), this novel reads much more like an extended case of PTSD. Take the time to read this short and powerful novel.
(less)

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Nov 09, 2011

Steven Kent rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: absolute-favorites, science-fiction

This is my all-time favorite science fiction novel.

The Forever War is not about war, it is about time and societal evolution. The action scenes are not especially good, the science and human interactions are AMAZING!

Some nondescript aliens have picked a fight with humanity. To get to the battles on other planets, people must travel light years away. They must deal with the realities of time dilation.

Haldeman, a man who knows served in Vietnam and studied as...more

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Sep 18, 2011

Jim rated it

· review of another edition

I am normally not a fan of science fiction; however, a few books of this genre interest me. I read this one because it was suggested to me that this book was about Vietnam, my war. The idea of setting a science fiction story to a Vietnam-like background intrigued me. The book was first published, I believe, in 1974, at the very end of our involvement in that area of Southeast Asia. The author is himself a Vietnam vet, so I was motivated to read it.

Unfortunately, I did not find th...more

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Sep 11, 2011

Dchavez06 rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy-sci-fi

This is an incredibly compelling work of science fiction. Best I can describe it is that it's like Starship Troopers meets Ender's Game; but what impressed me most about it is its plausibility and realism. If you think about it, it's pretty damn amazing that a book that describes an interstellar war that lasts over a thousand years can be realistic, but it is. It's inspired by the Vietnam war, and the descriptions of the war-time environment environment -- based on the author's own experience in...moreThis is an incredibly compelling work of science fiction. Best I can describe it is that it's like Starship Troopers meets Ender's Game; but what impressed me most about it is its plausibility and realism. If you think about it, it's pretty damn amazing that a book that describes an interstellar war that lasts over a thousand years can be realistic, but it is. It's inspired by the Vietnam war, and the descriptions of the war-time environment environment -- based on the author's own experience in Vietnam -- are full of details, texture, and emotion. I believed the world the author presented much more than from some abstract, clinical sci-fi about space marines.

On top of that, the author's descriptions of the way the war was were brutally realistic. The soldiers are astronauts more than anything, and the deadly and hostile environment is grounded in hard science. A solider can die as easily from a rip in a spacesuit or a slip on a chunk of hydrogen ice as from an enemy laser or tachyon bomb. And they drop like flies, with few soldiers surviving basic training or the first battles and the protagonist ending up jaded, crippled, and alone. Forget Orson Scott Card's descriptions of space fighters and missiles; here, lasers fired from millions of kilometers away can destroy a cruiser in a nanosecond, a pebble traveling at near the speed of light is a devastating weapon, and months can pass between battles as spaceships accelerate slowly through the huge distances between stars and planets.

And on of THAT, the author has some great ideas thrown into the mix, which I'm pretty sure make some kind of sense. Spaceships warp through collapsing stars (rather than random "hypergates"), and the description of the military's "stasis fields" was fascinating. It's not perfect -- the description of dystopian Earth is flat and unrealistic, and I hate when alien beings are inexplicably humanoid, air-breathing and food-eating vertebrates like ourselves. But I forgive it, mostly because the effects of relativity and space travel are so solidly described and understood.

To sum up -- an engrossing, creative, and beautifully realistic sci-fi action novel. Favorite book I've read in quite a while. I finished it the day I got it. :)(less)

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Aug 30, 2011

Philip Tucker rated it

· review of another edition

Joe Haldeman's THE FOREVER WAR is a brilliantly conceived tale of futuristic war and the toll it will take on those who must journey across light years to wage it. Intergalactic warfare faithfully portrayed by somebody who understands the ramifications of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity means that going to war is a one-way ticket, because the home you return to will be long gone by the time you get back.

As such, it's fascinating to follow the two main characters as their tours ...more

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Aug 05, 2011

Ben rated it

· review of another edition

Speaking in favor of The Forever War, I read this book in two sittings (at the expense of a good chunk of sleep). With that in mind, it's safe to say it was a fairly engaging read. On the other hand, it wasn't so astounding that (as I now realize there's a sequel, Forever Peace) I'll be jumping right into the sequel. The novel was entertaining and never dull or bad, but at the same time not life-changing literature either.

The book is most certainly science fiction, but for the mos...more

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Jul 27, 2011

Darran Mclaughlin added it · review of another edition

This novel is a masterpiece. It is one of those concise, perfect novels like the Great Gatsby or Revolutionary Road where every element that goes into making a great work of fiction is present. It is a novel that transcends the genre and should be read by everyone that appreciates good writing. It is possibly the best science fiction novel I have ever read and is certainly one of the best war novels I've ever read. It is to the war novel what 'On the Yard' is to the prison novel. Written in clea...more

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Jun 07, 2011

Rntz rated it

· review of another edition

I vacillated between giving this 3 or 4 stars. It is a damn good old-fashioned scifi yarn, and the fact that I chose a 3 is not a disrecommendation. The treatment of physics in particular is very good; time-dilation is critical to the structure of the book, and violations of physics as presently understood are explicitly noted as such and are mostly believable (the "stasis field" is a little *too* perfect a fit for the plot, though).

However, it just didn't hit me with enoug...moreI vacillated between giving this 3 or 4 stars. It is a damn good old-fashioned scifi yarn, and the fact that I chose a 3 is not a disrecommendation. The treatment of physics in particular is very good; time-dilation is critical to the structure of the book, and violations of physics as presently understood are explicitly noted as such and are mostly believable (the "stasis field" is a little *too* perfect a fit for the plot, though).

However, it just didn't hit me with enough emotional force to justify giving it 4, especially since emotional and moral impact, and not simply cool ideas, were clearly the focus of the book. The characterization in particular failed to connect with me. The characters seem a little flat, especially the secondary ones, and even the primaries don't develop much. But then, one of the fundamental contrasts of the book is the main characters' stasis relative to massive change in the society they keep returning to.

Also, it was written episodically, and it shows. Chapters are sharply divided, often ending on a cliffhanger, and this repeated structure gets monotonous. The overall structure of the book feels slightly clunky and disjointed. There are subplots that seem as if they might have been introduced just to create something to write about, not to serve any overall purpose in the book.

I'm prepared to believe in the book's literary significance in context, from what I've read of it elsewhere. I wasn't there (or rather, then) to experience the context. The cliches it breaks were already discredited for me, and some ideas that might have seemed fresh at the time (the ending, in particular) have aged poorly. The Vietnam War is history to me, though similar parallels can be drawn to more recent events, and "history" is not a synonym for "irrelevant"; but more importantly, the lessons it seeks to impart have already been imparted to me. (Unless I missed something, which is always possible.)

This review is full of qualifiers and subjective verbs, because my feelings for this book are ambivalent. But in the end, I'm vacillating between calling this a good book or a great one. Either way, it's worth the reading.(less)

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May 22, 2011

Robert Appleton rated it

· review of another edition

The Forever War had languished on my shelf for a couple of years, and I don’t know what I was expecting. An author friend of mine cited it as one of the three best SF books ever written.

It’s certainly up there, I have to say. It’s no Starship Troopers clone; instead, Haldeman really nails the insulation/isolation of a soldier’s tour of duty across light-years of space. Over the course of the story, the time dilation he experiences from constantly travelling at near the speed of light...more

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Apr 01, 2011

Nick Tramdack rated it

· review of another edition

' "She's very pretty." A remarkable observation, her body torn and caked with crusting blood, her face smeared where I had tried to wipe away the tears. I suppose a doctor or a woman or a lover can look beneath that and see beauty.'

In 6th grade, long before I read (or even cared to read) Haldeman's actual book, I borrowed a comic adaptation of it. The artist was Marvano. The go-between was the Mercer County Public Library. And I owe so much to the New Jersey librarian who ...more

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SciFi and Fantasy...: Sex and gender stuff in this book - spoilers	21	82	Feb 10, 2012 03:53am
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About Joe Haldeman

Brother of Jack C. Haldeman II

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 ...more

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“Tonight we're going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man.” — 4 people liked it

“The 1143-year-long war hand begun on false pretenses and only because the two races were unable to communicate.

Once they could talk, the first question was 'Why did you start this thing?' and the answer was 'Me?” — 1 person liked it

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