Book Review: Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman
Joe Haldeman is best known for The Forever War, an award-winning novel about a military conflict with aliens that lasts for over a thousand years. Forever Peace was published two decades after The Forever War, but despite the similarity of titles, it is not a sequel to the earlier work. Forever Peace is also about futuristic warfare; however, its conflict takes place on Earth between opposing human factions.
It begins in a fairly conventional science fictional way: the Alliance, which includes the United States, is fighting a union of third world guerilla forces. The Alliance has the advantage of superior technology, including nanoforges that can construct anything as long as they are provided with materials, and surgically modified soldiers that can jack into a network system and operate combat robots called soldierboys by remote control. The story is mainly told in first person by a solderboy named Julian Class, but it occasionally switches to third person point of view. It begins by describing the violent and pointless conflict between the two factions, but it soon introduces other elements that add tension and intrigue. Julian’s lover Amelia Harding and her colleagues find out that a massive interplanetary physics project, if completed, could destroy the universe by creating a second big bang. The scientists that discover this want to warn the powers-that-be to end the project before the universe is destroyed, but a group of ultra-violent religious fanatics known as the Hammer of God want it to proceed and bring on the end of existence. At the same time, the creators of the jacking technology that makes it possible for people to share minds and for soldiers to power their robotic weapons find out that this technology, under certain circumstances, can “humanize” people, making it impossible for them to kill others; if this process were enabled universally, world peace would ensue.
All of this makes for an action-packed, if unlikely, tale of intrigue, warfare, politics, subterfuge, and fanatical religious assassins, as one side tries to bring about global peace and the other side tries to prevent it.
There is something profoundly wrong with the idea of achieving peace by forcing everyone to jack into a computer network. This in effect is what the protagonists are attempting to bring about. The pessimistic and cynical premise is that only forced mechanical reprogramming can bring peace to humankind. On the other hand, if we take a look at the current rabid, crazed, polarized state of the world, it seems increasingly unlikely that people will simply cease arguing, shake hands, and agree to live in peace. It might indeed take something spectacular to cure humankind’s inherent aggressiveness. So who knows? Right now, I think we all have to agree that whatever is being tried isn’t working. Despite the efforts of many, the world continues to become increasingly confused, chaotic, and divided.
Ultimately, Forever Peace works on two levels: it is an entertaining science fiction thriller, and it raises questions and introduces ideas on the importance of peace and how it can be achieved.
