The Forever War (The Forever War, #1) in The Sword and Laser

May 02, 2015 Silvana rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: space-the-final-frontier, sci-fi, series-i-abandoned, military-sf, dick-lit

3.5 stars, to be precise.

Should have been a four-star book, but the lame epilogue (sigh) ruined it. I actually like this so-called military scifi classic. I always like an army/navy/whatever where females are allowed to be in combat. The book's military/scientific babbles, I did not really understand them but what makes Forever War interesting is its vast coverage on social issues: societal development, wars, sex, gender, famine, technology and its side effects and most of all, the concept of f ...more

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Oct 17, 2009 Stephanie Griffin rated it liked it

THE FOREVER WAR, a science fiction novel written by Joe Haldeman in 1974, is a pretty unremarkable book. I suppose it created a few waves when it was first published, but the themes of compulsory compliant females, and required homosexuality are not even titillating these days.
Descriptions of war strategy, armaments, and time travel through ‘collapsar jumps’ are the other main themes, with a few political statements thrown in.
The story follows Private Mandella as he quickly rises to Major Mande ...more

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Jan 17, 2011 Adrienne rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: first-person, military, library, science-fiction

I thought this book raised a lot of interesting concepts but didn't do them justice in the end. The main character, William Mandella, joins the army and, having barely aged due to relativistic effects, returns to an Earth thirty years later. Obviously, things have changed.

The novel continues in this vein; we see how the society changes over long periods of time. But William doesn't have much time to react to these changes due to the aforementioned relativistic effects. I also disagreed with the ...more

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