Forever Free

The Forever War #2

by Joe Haldeman

“A well-written and worthy sequel to one of SF’s enduring classics”—the Nebula Award winner The Forever War—now with a bonus story, “A Separate War” (Publishers Weekly). On virtually every list of the greatest military science fiction adventures ever written, Joe Haldeman’s Hugo and Nebula Award–winning classic, The Forever War, is ranked at the very top. In Forever Free, the Science Fiction Writers of America Grand Master and author of the acclaimed Worlds series returns to that same volatile universe where human space marines once engaged the alien Taurans in never-ending battle.   While loyal soldier William Mandella was fighting for the survival of the human race in a distant galaxy, thousands of years were passing on his home planet, Earth. Then, with the end of the hostilities came the shocking realization that humanity had evolved into something he did not recognize.   Offered the choice of retaining his individuality or becoming part of the genetically modified shared Human hive-mind, Mandella chose exile, joining other veterans of the Forever War seeking a new life on a wasteland world they called Middle Finger.   Making a home for themselves in this half-frozen hell, Mandella and his life partner, Marygay, have survived into middle age, raising a son and a daughter in the process. Now, the dark truth about the colonists’ ultimate role in the continuation of the Human group mind will force Mandella and Marygay to take desperate action as they hijack an interstellar vessel and set off on a frantic escape across space and time.   But what awaits them upon their return is a mystery far beyond all human—or Human—comprehension . . .   In Forever Free, Joe Haldeman’s stunning vision of humankind’s far future reaches its enthralling conclusion in a masterwork of speculation from the mind and heart of one of the undisputed champions of hard science fiction.And in the bonus story included in this volume, “A Separate War,” Marygay, reassigned and separated from her lover, Mandella, continues fighting in military engagements across the stars—all the while planning how she and Mandella can reunite despite the time and space between them.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, War, Ebooks, Military Fiction, Audiobook, Space Opera

292 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 1999

About the author

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 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.

Reviews

[Max · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you are not a fan of The Forever War, don't read this book. If you are a fan of the Forever War, definitely don't read this book.

The plot of the last 30 pages comes out of nowhere, explains nothing, and is absolutely terrible. There was no reason to set it in the universe of The Forever War, and as far as I am concerned, this book was so bad it retroactively made The Forever War worse.

There is no reason to bother. Even if you like bad science fiction, stay away from this book.

[Lyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weird book.

First of all, this is the ACTUAL sequel to Haldeman’s brilliant 1974 novel Forever War. 1997’s Forever Peace has some of the same themes and settings as Forever War, and maybe in the same universe, but not a sequel. This one does have the same characters and is a continuation of that story.

Also this has some Heinleinesque campy but fun humor. Haldeman’s style is not as homely as Bob, but some of his turns of phrase have that same golden era SF pulp feel.

The first half of the book was great. We find Mandela on his retirement planet of Middle Finger living out his life with Mary Gay after having raised two children. Rather than going gently into that good night he’s ready for one last adventure and it sounds great – a return to the time deferred travel that made Forever War so good, when he and his travelers get back, more than 40,000 years will have elapsed. The MAN and even a Tauren were going on the trip with them.

And then the second half.

I get fussed at for spoilers so I’ll let you give this a try on your own, but the great idea went sideways and I was not impressed with the finish.

Still Haldeman, still good, just not what I expected or hoped for. Forever War is one of the greatest SF stories ever. This one, not so much.

[Nicky · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Forever Free, a direct sequel to The Forever War, with many of the same characters -- up to a point. I liked the set-up, although it was slow, because it rang true for the characters and promised more adventures to come. It was obvious that it was going to go wrong, of course, but that was going to be the interesting part.

And at first, it definitely was. I was intrigued by what scientific explanations Haldeman would come up with, and vaguely thought I remembered reading about the ruins of an older civilisation on some of the planets mentioned in The Forever War, and wondered if it was anything to do with that... There were hints from the Taurans about going into the unknown, okay, so maybe there is some clue somewhere as to what happened...

And then things went weird. Suddenly a new set of aliens showed up, but they had nothing really to do with it and were just an exposition device. And then -- pop! Another alien shows up, and shit gets philosophical.

It didn't hang together, for me.

[Minyoung · Rating 1 out of 5]

What the fuck did I just read?

[Peter · Rating 1 out of 5]

First off, if you haven't read Joe Haldeman's brilliant sci-fi novel The Forever War, then put it on your list. It's one of the best books I've ever read.

Having said that, this sequel was incredibly disappointing and I do not recommend it at all. It actually starts out pretty well, following the same narrator and some of the same characters from The Forever War, and I was really enjoying it. But about halfway through the book, there are a series of unexplained occurrences, and the plot takes a sharp left turn. I actually enjoyed this part of the book as well, and wondered how the mystery would be resolved. Not well, as it turns out. The ending is the biggest deus ex machina cop-out I have ever read, with a multitude of self-indulgent cultural references to the era when Haldeman grew up to boot. It is an anticlimactic and unsatisfying ending that resolves almost nothing, made all the worse by how exciting and fun to read the book was up to that point. Read The Forever War, but don't read Forever Free.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Forever Free is a sequel to The Forever War, Haldeman's famous classic science fiction novel that was written over a quarter-century earlier. He re-examines some of his themes and conclusions from the earlier time, and it's altogether a very different and unusual book. I believe I would have liked it better had I not had the first one in mind at the time, or if it had been written as a stand-alone story. The ending is interesting and ambitious, but didn't work for me. It's a thoughtful novel and I enjoy having read it, but I think the original far outshines it.

[Tim · Rating 1 out of 5]

Forever long, boring and unfulfilling. 0 of 10 stars

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an odd book, one that slowly draws you down an expected path and then throws a monkeywrench into the plot and renders up an essentially absurdist ending. I’ll take it. Go ahead, bake me, shake me, and remind me that the author is the true god.

The author got on the hit parade quite young after returning from Vietnam. His “Forever War” was an outstanding anti-war novel for me. In which citizens of the future are brainwashed into enlisting or accepting their draft into a distant war with aliens and come back to a society they can no longer feel a part of. That the world they left behind has advanced hundreds of years due to the relativistic effects of traveling near the speed of light made for a wonderful metaphor for the return of soldiers used as cannon fodder.

This tale revives William Mandella and his partner and fellow ex-soldier Marygay not long after their return from the stars. They are living in a retirement community of fellow soldiers from different times tucked out of the way on a barren, cold planet. All are out of joint with this future utopia run by post-humans who have evolved to life enhanced with a hive mind and thus beyond their ken. The boredom and complacency gets to Bill and Marygay, leading them to hatch a plan to steal a ship to go on a round-trip, returning thousands of years later. Maybe by then the true humans will get an edge over their wimpy caretaker-rulers.

The scheme calls for stealing one of the armored waldo suits from a museum to get them the fighting capacity to effect their subversive plan. This was a fun development to counter the mental malaise we get in from experiencing this society. Surprises ensue. Then we are off with a group of the rebels, all whetted to face a future where kick-ass humans can have a better chance. But something or someone intervenes with their trip. A different adventure and ending is in store for these characters and the unsuspecting reader. Be careful of what other reviews you read, or the cosmic twist in store will lose its punch.

This republication of the 1999 book was provided for review by the publisher through the Netgalley program.

[Frank Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I think this was the best of the bunch. The narrator is changed for this final novel and he is much more dynamic than the previous narrator which probably played a large part in my level of enjoyment.

William and Marygay go away on a sort of time travel trip when an incident occurs where the law of physics fuck up in a specific fashion and then they return to Middle Finger via escape pods to find that a similar problem had occurred there at the same time.

The description of Earth in this future gets even more outlandish than before. In my view it suffers a common scifi trope, where in order to be more futuristic it becomes more absurdly "immoral" by the standards of the reader (or at least of readers contemporary with the original publication.)

The 20% risk of death associated with SA (Suspended Animation) makes for a pretty brutal method of travel.

And finally, a note to future-Frank, who will no doubt be coming back to this review one day, hoping to recall the story from his earlier "review" - sorry pal, I didn't leave you much to go on with this series. Remember that you enjoyed it and that you do reckon it's worth another read. This final book has a whacky end but a great plot otherwise, and even though you didn't care much for the love story initially, you'd warmed up to it by this last book. Go on. Give it another run.

[Dustin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Joe Haldeman wrote a classic science fiction novel about the cost of war waged when the distance between enemies was light years away. Then, he wrote this. A novel which began slow, started to pick up steam, and then he had zero idea how to finish. So he threw in a shape-changer race. Then God.

A joke? No idea. But it was terrible.

[Soo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Notes:

#3 had all the earmarks to become my fav out of the trilogy. It's a direct sequel to #1. Then weird stuff started to happened and the ending would have fit well in the Twilight Zone. Eh, this is not a long book. The themes were too large to explore in 200 pages. Story suspense can handle a few holes but it you can't rearrange a bunch of stuff and expect readers to just go with it.

[glimpsedafar · Rating 1 out of 5]

Considering the fond memories I had of Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, I began my reading of this "long-awaited sequel" with high hopes... alas, ones destined to be dashed soon upon cracking the covers of this book. Gone were the compact prose, tight writing, and solid pacing of its predecessor, with entire stretches of the text serving negligible function other than to pad out the pages.

Unfortunately lost as well was any real sense of direction in the overarching plot of the story, with the action blundering aimlessly down back alleys like some drunken sailor striving to retrace his route back to the docks. Not only does it feel as if Haldeman set out to write this novel without any idea of how he would get his characters from start to finish, but it actually seems dubious that he even had an eventual destination in mind for them at all.

To avoid spoilers, I shall restrict myself to pointing out that the only real mystery the book presents is essentially used as a throwaway plot device to force a state reset on a story that had clearly gone well off the rails. That no explanation of (nor justification for) it is ever attempted by the author is disappointing, but not nearly so much as the blatant deus ex machina he uses to mop things up at the very end of the novel.

Let me clear on this: not merely relative to the superb The Forever War, but in absolute terms, Forever Free is not a good book. I expected so much more from Haldeman, and in particular for the lead characters of Bill and Marygay, who deserve a strong storyline and instead get mired on Middle Finger. There is apparently another book in the Forever series, so I would like to believe that they receive better treatment there than they did here in Forever Free.

You will forgive me for being less than optimistic, however.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've liked Haldeman's work since I first read the Forever War in the '70's. I don't know why it's taken me so long to read the final volume in his series- just happenstance I suppose. It was worth the wait. He paints alien worlds and characters with his usual skill.

The plot keeps you engaged until the end but I think he cracked up the landing, when he trots out the God gambit to wrap things up. For the first 3/4 of the book we have an interesting, detailed slog of existence and survival. A bit Heinleinesq in tone but Haldeman is definitely his own stylist ( likely just a reflection of shared military experience).

Then in the last few chapters we get not one but two omnipotent alien species, no hints of which were dropped in the previous novel. One of which (Omnis) has been living on Earth, undetected since prehistory and whose spokesman takes the form of both John Wayne and Walt Disney.
He also offers an ingenious explanation for the many mid to late 20th century references in the novel set thousands of years in the future...it was humanity's best era. Go Boomers! The hero and heroine were born in that age, so that, too.
But its Haldeman and he can take all the poetic license he needs, in my opinion. It works better if you read Forever War and the short story A Separate War, first. The middle novel, Forever Peace, is not directly related to the storyline and can be skipped in this context (still an interesting story). I reccomend this book but then I too believe the mid to late 20th century was humanity's best era, so be warned. (Go Boomers!)

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is the sequel to the Forever War. It was marketed as book 3 in the Forever War series, but the 2nd book, Forever Peace, was not a sequel to the Forever War. As far as I am concerned it should have been sold as a stand alone book. It was about soldiers fighting a war in the future and is set in the same universe as the Forever War, but it shares none of the characters from the Forever War or this book Forever Free. This book is a good read and continues the story of William Mandella and Marygay and their lives after the Forever War ends but it is disappointing after having read the Forever War. I do however recommend reading it if you are a fan of Joe Haldeman. It has a rather strange ending but over all is a quick and entertaining read.

[Dan Teed · Rating 1 out of 5]

Imagine you went to a restaurant and had a really nice meal. A meal so nice you decided to go back again. This time, your appetizer is delicious, and the main course is okay but not as good as that last time you were here. Then, for dessert, the waiter comes over and farts in your face. That is this sequel.

[Whitney (SecretSauceofStorycraft) · Rating 2 out of 5]

By itself, this book was fine I guess, But as a follow up to the amazing forever war, this is a significant drop in quality and overly contrived. The ending especially was particularly rushed.

To be honest, skip it and move on to forever peace!

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

So much of this book was thrilling. I think the protagonist’s voice is great, and I found the plot exciting. It was such a great return to the world of *Forever War*, especially because I so greatly disliked the thematic sequel *Forever Peace*.

And the book kept getting better and better as I read it. I love science-fiction stories that are based around a mystery, and I thought that the author’s decision to move away from the genre of sci-fi war novels in favour of a mystery novel was great. I didn’t expect this move until it becomes clear that the characters are experiencing weird things out in space.

But then the characters make a literal u-turn, and so does the book. I don’t get what happened. Part of it is a very bizarre, unsatisfying, and rushed resolution to the mystery. But a large part of it also is a sense that the author just didn’t want to commit to the central premise and the scheme that the characters spent the first half of the book plotting. I was disappointed by the ending but I was very thankful for such a thrilling journey until that point.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

When William Mandella and Marygay finally ended their military service at the end of the Forever War (some thousand years after it began), the people of Earth had evolved into a cloned group mind called Man. Veterans were provided a planet where they could live as they used to without Man's interference. But they're not entirely happy with even that, and William, Marygay, and some of their friends hatch a plan to use a converted battleship to travel near the speed of light and then come back - spending ten years aboard the ship while 40,000 years passes on the planet. Something goes wrong on the ship and they're forced to return only weeks after leaving. Their trip to the future becomes a search for the unknown.

I was surprised by the small scale of this book, especially following The Forever War. It read quickly and was interesting enough, but didn't leave me wanting to read more of the universe or characters. It seemed like a lot of time was spent setting everything up and just spending time with William, Marygay, and company during everyday life. Until about 60% of the way through when something weird happens, and then they continually discover the extent of the damage for 100 pages before the last 15 pages introduce a crazy universe altering conceit (an actual God) and then the book is over. I guess my issue is that nothing seemed like it really mattered. I was on board with seeing how their world would change after 40,000 years and how they spent their time stuck on the ship, but then that isn't relaly the book, despite all that build up. Seemed sort of deus ex machina to me. ther wasn't enough actual exploration of higher power to make it worthwhile or meaningful and instead everything pretty much just goes back to how it was. I guess it might have assuaged William's unhappiness with their situation and living alongside Man (or as Man's genetic experiment/safety net), but since the book is just over at the point we don't really hear about it. He finds something to do with the rest of his life? I don't know. Unsatisfying in the end, and not in that "I have so much to ponder" way.
Maybe this is better when preceded by Forever Peace.

[Ignacio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Si La guerra interminable recreaba la visión de un excombatiente de Vietnam trasladando a un entorno de ciencia ficción toda la experiencia de Haldeman en el conflicto, el inicio de La libertad interminable funciona como una evolución de dicha perspectiva. A través de su narración en primera persona veinte años subjetivos después del fin de la guerra, se profundiza en la visión de Mandella como un reaccionario incapaz de aceptar el progreso y el camino que ha tomado la especie humana. Incluso conserva un sentimiento de homofobia caracterizado por el pavor a que su mujer retome su relación con una antigua pareja femenina, y mantiene con su hijo mayor el típico desencuentro generacional. El comportamiento esperable de un “fósil” viviendo en un mundo que ya no es el suyo.

Lamentablemente pronto se abandona este rumbo, quizás agotado, para convertir La libertad interminable en una errática sucesión de historias: relato de acción, la descripción del viaje en una nave espacial, historia de misterio y de primer contacto. Incluso, llega a tener su pseudo reflexión metaliteraria. Todo con mucho orden, que Haldeman sabe imponer una jerarquía a sus narraciones, pero sin ningún tipo de concierto. Alguna de ellas resulta particularmente aburrida (los primeros días del viaje hacia el futuro), alguna de extremada vergüenza ajena (el primer contacto). Este batiburrillo produce una pésima impresión, como si el escritor no supiera adónde llevar una historia y unos personajes que sólo funcionaron mientras se mantuvieron en un entorno bélico o postbélico.

Tiene su punto doloroso observar la sima hoyada por este libro. Donde, además, cualquier atisbo de su pasada depuración narrativa queda sepultada en un relato en primera persona descuidado, incongruente con el narrador de la primera novela. Si le sumamos al panorama la tradicional edición fea de narices de Edhasa, y un precio inapropiado para una novela en rústica de estas características, se entiende la nula repercusión que ha tenido en España. Afortunadamente.

[Tom O'Brien · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brave, strange and experimental book shares the same cover as a conventional and perhaps even plodding book. Most of the book until maybe the last 10 per cent moves at a stately, in interesting, if not entirely thrill packed pace. The ideas, mechanics and musing are familiar from The Forever War, as are a few of the characters and although the plot to steal what a amounts to a time travelling space ship is intriguing enough,[spoilers removed]When quite a few pages are spent detailing a health and safety audit that even the protagonist finds boring, I was beginning to lose the will.

Then things take a turn for the odd and then they keep going that direction. I would have no argument at all with anyone who jumped ship at that point. That's pretty much the deal with speculative sci fi anyway. There is almost always a point at which anyone can say 'I can't buy into this' for whatever reason and at that point the magic is gone.

The magic stayed working for me. It's potentially daft, there's a hell of a lot of talking and characters roll along with the apparently impossible happening around them with alarming ease but even so, there are some great ideas here and they are expressed with welcome clarity. They are also what stop this being just a short story and give it the heft to be called a novel.

As peculiar a sequel to an action novel as I can imagine but one of the reasons I rarely read series is that it can all get a bit samey over time. This, eventually, swerved around that pot hole/collapsar, what have you.

[Charles Dee Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Haldeman waited twenty-five years to write this sequel to his 1970's classic The Forever War. I don't like having to insert spoiler alerts into reviews, so I am just going to say this. Read The Forever War first. Not only is it a genuine SF classic, it provides invaluable background for enjoying this short and very entertaining followup. We take up the story of William Mandella, the retired military officer from the first novel who is now, thanks to the unique properties of FTL travel, possibly the oldest human being in the galaxy. He lives out an early middle age with a loving wife and two nearly grown kids on a planet set aside for veterans like himself, men and women who have trouble adjusting to the radically changed human civilization that developed while they fought an 1100 year war against an enemy with whom mankind is now at peace. But he is one old soldier who has not only never died but has also hatched an ingenious plan for not fading away.

Haldeman writes an entertaining story of military veterans who have endured unimaginable dangers and are ready to risk more for chance at a life they may find more worth living than their present existence as free citizens of a barely hospitable world where their main function may be to produce potential genetic variation for the cloned society that is now humanity. But the adventure they embark on runs into problems that find an unexpected resolution in Disneyworld, one of Earth's institutions that like William Mandella, has lasted a millennium.

[Lis Carey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a direct sequel to The Forever War. Twenty years have passed since William and Marygay were reunited on Middle Finger, the "garden planet" where Man resettled the heterosexuals at the end of the Forever War. They've raised a son and a daughter, and they are restless, unhappy with Middle Finger (which has very long, very cold winters), and unhappy with Man. With some of the other war veterans, who are now a small minority of the population on Middle Finger, they plot to steal the ship that served as the time shuttle to reunite separated couples after the war. (It's still in orbit around Middle Finger, after a forced sale to Man, who has never done anything with it.) They have some excitement in the process, and make the interesting discovery that Man has more individuality amongst its members than Man would prefer to have anyone believe. And then the weird stuff starts happening. Disappearing antimatter. Whole populations vanishing. As in, whole populations of planets, such as Middle Finger and Earth.

Unfortunately, the explanation for the weirdness turns out to be not one deus ex machina, but two. This was an enjoyable visit with an old friend, but if you're expecting a story with any substance or punch, you will be disappointed, and might endanger breakables and small animals with a high-speed book.

[Little Timmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Haldeman wrote the "Forever War" he planned it as a standalone book. Now 2 sequels later he is still writing fantastic military SiFi. As a veteran myself I find myself identifying with much of the attitudes and actions of the main characters. Haldeman's military experiences clearly come through in his writings. Highly recommended.

[Mauricio Martínez · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would only recommend this to a fan of the first book, and only if it doesn't bother you if things get silly. The premise is great, and very well presented, but the last pages fell a little bit rushed.
I didn't mind that much and enjoyed it, but might not be for everyone.

[Gerard · Rating 1 out of 5]

Begins with interesting setup and capitulates with Deus Ex Machina plot "resolution."

[Massimo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decisamente non all'altezza delle aspettative. Dopo la parziale delusione del secondo atto della serie "Guerra eterna: ultimo atto", questo libro doveva essere la degna conclusione della serie. Purtroppo la trama è stata adeguata fin verso la metà (anche se un pò lenta e noiosa), per poi degenerare in qualcosa di assurdo. La conclusione è troppo forzata e non adeguata, con l'intervento di un Dio che risolve e chiarisce ogni cosa. Ma era veramente necessario? Peccato, forse era meglio chiudere con il solo primo libro.

[Jeff Walker · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is either a very badly written sequel, or the biggest "Middle Finger" to all of the readers I've ever seen. As some one has already stated in the reviews "What the fuck did I just read?"

Oh my, dear Joe....why the hell did you write this book? Not only was the beginning bland, slow and down right boring at the get go - but it built up to an absolute nothing at the end. Was this a joke? Where you forced to write it due to fan pressure? Was the publisher shoving money at you to make another? Or maybe, did your agent feel it was a "good idea" to make the perfectly fine one shot book into a series of them?

*Sigh*

I've never heard so much description about cooking (big on roasted chickens and fish are you?) and hating winter weather then in this....this travesty of a sequel. I hope the hell you did not win an award for this, cause that wasn't even good enough to warrant one.

*Spoilers coming for those who haven't read it yet, so don't read beyond here!*

I was so looking forward to what you had in mind of what 40,000 years further into the future would be like for you, but - instead of that - we got 24 years later, with some shape shifting aliens/angels and.....God? You threw in God to fuck the ending up even further? Not to mention, blowing up people like a Michael Bay movie or Scanners throwback...what the fuck is that? Sweet mother, was that the best you could come up with at the end?

Not only did you portray God as some sort of "wing ripping" kid that just wanted to fuck us up, but you also managed to demoralize every moment by having William thinking about a hard on for your character's wife's former lover after returning to life just after she blew up infront of them all. Nice.

There's something seriously wrong with you, sir. I could accept the overly starved sex officers from your first book (The Forever War) because it fit the times and genre, but this one was just so needlessly porn crazy it made me wonder about your mental state. Even when his son, Bill, was gone...the character barely showed any emotion or turmoil about the loss....what father would seriously just go..."oh darn, there goes my son. What's for dinner?"

Forever Free is a free for all into writer oblivion. Please, I urge you not to make any more of these books. Stop and let the first one be your legacy. It was almost as bad as a sci fi movie throwning a zombie in for no reason at all. Instead.....you threw in God.

May the nameless grant mercy on your soul for this rubbish.

[Tomislav · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel is a direct sequel to Haldeman's award winning The Forever War. Don't be confused by his similarly titled Forever Peace - the plot of that one is completely unrelated.

The 1200-year-long Forever War turned out to be a misunderstanding, and now a handful of surviving veterans are settled on the frontier world MF. William and Marygay are among the few who can even remember so far back as the twentieth century, but they have been propelled into the future by the effects of their time-dilated interstellar war experience. They and a few others chafe under the governance of "Man", the hive-mind future descendant of humanity, and plot to escape into the very distant future. I really enjoy Haldeman's writing, perhaps identifying just a little too much with his characters at times. But this book misses some of the ironic punch of The Forever War, some of which also surfaces in Forever Peace, to be just an interesting story about some characters I've met previously.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Classic-period Haldeman that I somehow missed, back in the day. Nominally a part of the Forever War series, it's rather orthogonal to the previous two, and takes a very strange, Gnostic twist at the end that many readers don't like. Haldeman's done this sort of thing before, notably in "The Hemingway Hoax," perhaps his masterwork. This book isn't on that level, but I enjoyed it. It's a short novel that moves briskly to an unexpected climax. 3.4 stars.

The best spoiler-free review here is Michael's, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... and I refer you there for a plot summary.

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decidedly odd sequel to The Forever War

I love The Forever War and have long looked forward to reading the sequel - it is decidedly odd. It wouldn't make much sense for it to be a military sci-fi epic like the first book, but this one veers off in some VERY unexpected directions! Nevertheless, the writing is superb and the story is brilliant, and as deeply philosophical in its own way as the first book. This book's ultimate point and end are somewhat absurd, from a certain point of view, but I enjoyed them in the spirit in which they were intended - but a warning that this book is not really going to please everyone who enjoyed the Forever War seems in order!