The Forever War

by Joe Haldeman

Paperback, 1990

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Publication

Orbit Books, Futura Publications (1990), Paperback, 240 pages

Description

Private William Mandella is a hero in spite of himself -- a reluctant conscript drafted into an elite military unit, and propelled through space and time to fight in a distant thousand-year conflict. He never wanted to go to war, but the leaders on Earth have drawn a line in the interstellar sand -- despite the fact that their fierce alien enemy is unknowable, unconquerable, and very far away. So Mandella will perform his duties without rancor and even rise up through the military's ranks . . . if he survives. But the true test of his mettle will come when he returns to Earth. Because of the time dilation caused by space travel the loyal soldier is aging months, while his home planet is aging centuries -- and the difference will prove the saying: you never can go home.… (more)

Media reviews

I got to re-reading it last night (for the first time in nearly 20 years) and couldn't put it down.

User reviews

LibraryThing member lunacat
When William Mandella is conscripted, he is forced to realise that his life is over. Not only is the war an interstellar one, against an unknown force called the Taurans, the severity of the conditions they are fighting in are just as dangerous as the enemy. But that's not all.

Relativity means
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that a campaign lasting just a few months in space equates to years back home on Earth. Even if he makes it back, he is unlikely to recognise the world he is fighting for, and those he loves.

An epic novel condensed into 271 pages, I never expected to be as affected by this as I was. Initially, I feared being overwhelmed by the physics and science involved, but I soon realised that the only essential knowledge was the idea that centuries are passing on Earth while a couple of years pass in space.

But not only does it have this intriguing plot, it also looks at the futility of war and the disregard for loss of life in the line of 'duty'. The passing of time element also allows the impact of war on the individuals involved to be highlighted. Mandella isn't one of those who dies, but because of the situation he is forced into he loses everything anyway, a realisation that isn't at all alien to any people forced to leave their homes and fight.

This was also a surprisingly emotional book, given the sparseness of the writing, the technology involved and the stereotypical outlook of a common soldier with orders to kill. The ideas within are far reaching and, even though the book is 36 years old, haven't aged a bit. I stayed up till 2am to finish it, and it was worth it.

For some, this will be too much sci-fi and war to enjoy, but I found it deserving of the accolades and attention it has received over the years, and would encourage you to try it if you are at all interested. In spite of the science, the machines, the aliens, it is an inspired and emotionally charged look at humanity from a unique perspective. I was in tears at its end.
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LibraryThing member DanThompson
I always felt badly that I had never read this classic book, that I was somehow not really an SF fan because of it. Eventually, guilt or shame brought it to the top of my in-pile, and I dove in. Now part of me wishes I had simply left it there.

The premise is that humanity of early 21st century is
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at war with a far-flung alien race. We’re not quite sure how it started, but it looks like they shot first. The only FTL is via some kind of wormhole, but there is plenty of slower-than-light travel to and from, and much of that travel is at relativistic speeds.

So, rather than leaving it as a pure space-navy war, we decide we need some boots on the ground. So who do we recruit as our cannon-fodder? Only the best and brightest will do. So we skim off the cream of our intellectual crop and send them off to battle. If only their commanding officers were as smart.

Which is leads me to the main complaint about this book. The people in charge were always extremely short-sighted and downright stupid. I recognize that to some extent this is a screed against the U.S. political/military leadership from the U.S.-Vietnam war, but it got really annoying as to just how stupid they were making these folks.

How stupid? Well, they planned their training with the expectation that half of the trainees would be killed or permanently maimed during the training. They also sent them on missions over the years (in fact, centuries) where the expectation was an average of 66% casualties per mission. But it’s not like we were stuck in the jungles, trying not to kill too many civilians. Nope, we were fighting over deserted rocks. What part of orbital bombardment did they miss?

And then there was the whole Malthusian situation back on Earth. I know there was a lot of concern about the rapid rise of population back in the 1970’s, but even growing up with that, I was never all that worried. The concern, as originally laid out by Thomas Malthus in the late 1700’s, was that our population would outstrip our food production, and that the only ways to combat this were draconian birth control of the less desirable or poorer populations or outright war and starvation to bring the population back down to a manageable level.

Some of offshoots of this back on Earth during the Forever War were an economy based entirely on calories. Then there were some civil wars and lawlessness that brought the population down. And then we had enforced and universal homosexuality. Maybe it’s because I now live in a world where most demographers realize we are not headed towards a Malthusian catastrophe, but frankly, I found most of this to be ridiculous.

Perhaps it’s unfair of me to lay these criticisms on Haldeman’s 1970’s book, but its repetitive message that our leaders are stupid and we are all doomed was very tiring. I prefer more optimistic futurists because instead of complaining about all the insurmountable problems facing us, they tend to propose the solutions that actually solve those problems.

And my final complaint about the book was that the resolution of the war was very much deus ex machina. After centuries, humanity transformed into another form that was able to communicate with the warmongering aliens. No, we can’t explain to you how the communication works, but now that it does, everything is just fine. The war was a silly misunderstanding, and now everyone can live happily ever after. We thank you for your centuries of pointless sacrifice.

About the only thing I did find worthwhile in the book was the realities of relativistic travel, of skipping forward into the future. Friends and family age and die. Technology and society march on in unexpected directions. The realities of life, death, and injury change from one trip to the next. That, at least, was interesting.

But by and large, I did not enjoy the book.
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LibraryThing member santhony
This excellent science fiction novel is a joint 1976 Hugo/Nebula Award winner and deservedly so. It has been, along with Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein, identified as the best military science fiction novel in existence.

The author, Joe Haldeman, is a Vietnam veteran, and his experience in
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that conflict can easily be seen in this novel chronicling a never ending conflict between Humans and Taurans, driven more by economics and the military industrial conflict than by any animus between the two species.

Of particular interest are the technological advances throughout the term of the conflict and interpersonal relationships, made more fascinating by the time continuum that results in vast differences in the passage of time between starship travelers and others. The method of travel, the weapons used, equipment, medical advances and interesting Tauran characteristics all display outstanding imagination.

Labeled by most as an anti-war work, it certainly demonstrates the futility of this particular conflict, which is conceded by the author to be an allegory for the Vietnam conflict. However, the book is at its core, simply fascinating without beating the reader over the head with its political message. Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member Strider66
Pros: : clear, concise writing, hard SF, relatable protagonists, interesting worldbuilding, exposition was limited and was worked into the story

Cons: We’ve already passed the book’s future.

Reviewer's Note: This review is of the author's preferred edition of Forever War, published in
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1997.

Forever War follows the military career of draftee William Mandella after aliens attack an Earth space ship outside a collapsar jump. Collapsar's allow long range space travel, and Earth refuses to give up the use of them. The best minds, both male and female, are drafted to fight this exhorbantly expensive war the rest of Earth must pay for. But as the years pass on Earth due to special relativity, and only months pass for the soldiers who survive combat, Mandella starts to wonder if he'll recognize home when his tour is over.

Forever War does for Vietnam in science fictional terms what Alexander Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich did for the Russian gulag: allow regular people to experience it. Mandella's career is exceptional, as the author uses him to explore all aspects of the war, from training on earth and Charon, to witnessing combat, returning home and realizing he no longer belongs, reinlisting, getting medical treatment, becoming an officer, and more. Through his eyes we experience fear, love, PTSD (in minor ways) and more.

The novel packs an emotional punch and covers an amazing amount of information, given it's size. Haldeman's prose is clear and concise, a pleasure to read.

As the war progresses over the centuries, Haldeman occasionally explains how the Earth has changed to face the circumstances. The most detailed of these passages comes when Mandella's first tour ends, 2 and 27 years after he enlisted. Earth is a cross between Harry Harrison's Make Room, Make Room and the later part of Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower. In other words, Earth is overcrowded and violent. His exploration into sexuality as it pertains to population control is interesting, espcially considering the current controversies over gay marriage. For a book that's 38 years old, it's surprisingly relevant.

This is a hard SF story, meaning the planetery battles are short while the battles in space are long and drawn out with very little action. Mandella's a physicist, so most of the info dumps are via conversations he has with others, where he either explains the scientific concept, or has new concepts discovered while he was on a mission explained to him. Like the rest of the writing, these passages are short, to the point and integrated properly into the story. This reviewer has limited physics knowledge and had no problem following the novel, even though most of the science went over her head.

The only 'complaint' with the book is that it's dated. Meaning, the aliens attack in 1996, which obviously didn't happen. This is very easy to overlook and shouldn't detract from anyone's enjoyment of the book. There's some talk of hippies, but none of the sexism the word 'dated' tends to imply when it comes to older science fiction stories. In fact, this is a remarkably feminist work, with women and men treated equally in the army (though more men then women end up in positions of command as far as Mandella's experience is concerned).

If you haven't read this yet, you should. And if you're hesitant to read hard SF, this is a good introduction to the subgenre.
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LibraryThing member antao
I remember when I read Haldeman's "The Forever War"; it was considered a critique of "Starship Troopers". I have heard an anecdote that Haldeman attended an event where he was going to be on a panel with Heinlein and was dreading the meeting, fearing Heinlein would take him to task. Instead,
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Heinlein thought Haldeman's book was a great read and take on that theme, much to Haldeman's relief. I don't think Heinlein thought "Troopers" was a bible for creating a utopia, but he was laying down some philosophical markers with it.

It's nothing of the sort (an utopia that is).

I already wrote a review of sorts of “Starship Troopers” per se. This a review of “The Forever War” using “Starship Troopers” as counterpoint.

I've read through “Starship Troopers” a few times, and to clarify: technically in his vision of the future the world IS NOT ruled necessarily by military veterans; it is in fact a world where only people who served AT LEAST two years in service to the government: this service could be the military, it could be labor such as mining, it could be scientific test subjects, or any other service deemed significant by the government (which is democratic). Heck they even say in the book that a chance to serve is a RIGHT, so technically someone could roll into the recruitment office in a wheel chair with both lets missing, one hand and blind in one eye and as long as the person can understand his responsibilities, the government is required to come up with some kind of job for that person to do for two years, even licking envelopes at the post office!

Also: the protagonist is even TOLD OUTRIGHT in officer training school that being a veteran DOES NOT make you smarter or more disciplined than non-veterans, it is established that they keep their system (which AGAIN IS NOT a military dictatorship but a highly centralized republic) simply because it works. The military dictatorships of Hitler and his cronies have NOTHING to do with the world of “Starship Troopers”, because they ARE NOT a dictatorship!

It's kind of ironic that even knowing Heinlein's intention, I've always read “Starship Troopers” as an anti-utopia, as a picture of a fascist state, something to avoid and abhor.

We should say that a history of military dictators debunks Heinlein's message is completely incorrect. Firstly in “Starship Troopers” they don't have the right to vote while they're in the service meaning even a long time general didn't have the right to control civilian society. There really is no comparison to a dictatorship because the problem with dictatorships isn't that individuals are innately evil but rather that it's an unbalanced and unchecked system. Also even though the book seems to push for military intervention and war it's important to remember that the governing body is made of individuals who understand the gravity of war and military engagement better than anyone else.

As a guy who never did military service, I don't think Heinlein's ideas about public service were too far off. If you're invested in society, you're much more likely to take a keen interest in what politicians do. (That's definitely something to consider in America where less than half the population votes; the same happens in Portugal: in the last May Elections for the European Parliament around 70% didn’t vote; I know, I know, the weather was terrific as it usually is at this time of the year). I do have a beef with his notion that veterans as a whole would make a government brisk and orderly like a military organization. Those types of military organizations, despite desperate PR from the military worldwide say, do not exist. Only fake veterans and general officers believe they do.

I might add that Heinlein never said in “Starship Troopers” that violence was the preferred way to resolve problems. He denounced a Pollyanna sentiment current then and now that "violence never solves anything." And cites historical fact to back to back it. Certainly as a Naval academy guy he was OK with it. But he never said he preferred it. Also, while the state in “Starship Troopers” was clearly authoritarian and militaristic. But it wasn't, near as I could tell, fascist. There was no dictator, Committee of Public Safety or God Emperor Figure to pledge allegiance too.

I'll go to bat for Heinlein's book but not for Haldeman's. And I think MOST people who read it and analyzed it (ironically including the military) underestimate Heinlein as a writer and as a thinker. A good chunk of that book was written AS SATIRE. It intentionally goes past the point of reason and shows its failings time and again to demonstrate the absurdity of an absolutist position. The movie was actually a great representation of the book in that it made the cheesy militaristic propaganda satire even more apparent so a wider audience could "get it." And if people think the movie is being serious then...they need to have their head examined.

I don't think, for example, that one has to be an "apologist" to feel he makes some valid points in Starship Troopers. And the political failings of militaristic dictatorships does NOTHING to subvert Heinlein's assertion that veterans can act from a point of view of service -- HE was talking about people who VOLUNTARILY placed themselves at the service of the state, NOT draftees who did NOT choose. Finally, why, oh why, would you use an image from that horrible movie version of “Starship Troopers”? The armor didn't look like that, the bugs didn't look like that, etc. I always appreciated Heinlein's logic even while recognizing it's practical limitations (people are not logical and when they are they are rarely happy about it) in the real world. He was writing fiction after all. Did he really intend these stories to be statements about the world around him or were they simply stories for their time?

I see the parallels to the cold war (and even WWII) in “Starship Troopers” but really never considered that saying something like "Any breed which stops its own increase gets crowded out..." was at all the same as saying "Any group of anatomically and culturally similar people that stop their own increase...". For now at least, it seems morally OK (even right) to be a humanist and exercise our privilege over other animals and life on the planet. We make them our tools, playthings, and food without any regrets at all. If chimpanzees became powerful enough to be our enemies, would we really have any compunction against killing them? How long would it really take for us to see them as people? Then again the lines between species is oft blurred. Hardly anyone ever gets this right: In "Starship Troopers" military service is not the only way to get a vote. It's service of ANY sort, military or non-military. You volunteer to serve, and the state MUST accept your service, no matter what you are capable of, and you must accept the service offered once you have volunteered. You might be sent to do medical research, or might be sent to build infrastructure in the wilderness, or if you are healthy, young and they need soldiers at that moment, well, you probably will get sent to the military. But it isn't "serve in the military or you can't vote"!

What about "The Forever War"? It pales in comparison. I like the concept but it sounds like it was an utter failure. Several of the concepts seemed neat to me. Like even the idea of a future where homosexuality is the norm; it would be interesting to see a straight character deal with that. But then to make the entire population into some halfhearted cliché.... It was this clichéd, and then to have a character undergo treatment to be straight in the end like it was some kind of happy ending didn't sit right with me at all. But the concepts were excellent. In a way that makes it even worse because it could have been great. It just didn't do it for me. I’ve got another bone to pick with the story; I will say it comes off as a little misogynistic as there's a law that states the female soldiers have to screw the men so that they can let off steam, but that's off-set by the fact that in terms of ability, intellect, and overall development the women are portrayed as equals to the men.
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LibraryThing member suzemo
If I were a guy, or younger, or at least less feminist inclined, I probably would have liked this book a lot more.

The Forever War is incredibly dated. It's not just old ("old" sci fi, even with dates we have already lived through isn't necessarily dated), but feels dated and almost irrelevant.

It is
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heavily influenced by the Vietnam War, which the author took part in, and it's almost the Vietnam War In Space. The war lasts forever, it was pointless, lots of good people and resources are wasted. In the end a "peace" is declared, but the war is never won, and you don't get the satisfaction of anyone "beating" anyone else.

The main character, William Mandella, is drafted (along with many others) because he has a high IQ, into the military for training and to be shipped out to fight aliens which have attacked humans, and are seen as a threat.

Due to time dilation effects, the war is sloppy and slow. It takes years for the military to get anywhere (and back home, and back out again), so Mandella ages normally while time flies by. After his first tour, he comes home to an Earth society drastically changed, only to re-enlist and get trapped into another tour. He again comes back to another time, a different society, and this cycle happens repeatedly. In the end, he gets a "happily ever after" ending, which I would have enjoyed more if the author had cut it shorter (his companion, who has been with him through all of these time dilation effects, has chosen to use spaceflight and relativistic effects to 'wait' for him to come back to her).

Several things were very good about this book. While I'm too young for the Vietnam war, I grew up with family and around those that were involved, and many of the things/feelings/over-arching situations in the book rang true.

Unfortunately, the author's bizarre focus on sexuality (and homosexuality) in particular were just odd and felt forced. While there is an interesting (and enlightened) take on the forces that society can place on what it considers "normative" behavior is awesome, the fact that he makes state sponsored rape A-OK doesn't sit well with me (women were required by law to give in to sexual advances, at least in the military).

In the end, it's always good to read an award winning book, but I was thankful and happy it was relatively short and a quick read.
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LibraryThing member ssimon2000
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
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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.
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LibraryThing member jclark88
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.

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
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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 what happened back on Earth - although we are told and it does play an important part in the story.

I had a hard time not comparing many facets of the story with Starship Troopers since many elements of the story were similar. I didn't really see the anti-war, anti-Vietnam elements that so many people talk about. I understand why they say that, but I didn't think it was nearly as bad as I was led to believe from other reviews.

I'm not exactly sure what the author was trying to say with the homosexual element although (depending on his message) it could be just as relevant today as it was when it was first written. Some may find it offensive, though I didn't really feel the author was outlandishly homophobic. In the context of the story it seemed to work okay - but like I said, it's hard to see why he decided to add that element to the story exactly.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. I read the entire thing in my spare time over one weekend. I look forward to the two sequels.
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LibraryThing member ispeaknerd
In the distant future (1997), the government conscripts the best and brightest young men and women to fight a SPACE WAR against mysterious aliens. Without knowing any of the publishing information about this book, you’d still be able to tell it was written by a Vietnam vet in the mid-70s. The
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government is preposterously Machiavellian, the military is utterly inept, and the war is completely arbitrary. Think of The Forever War as a less subtle, less funny, less meaningful sci-fi version of Catch-22.

That being said, this novel is a good read. Though the basic plot is the same thing you see over and over again in militaristic science fiction, Haldeman adds a few elements to keep it interesting. The science, in particular, I found very engaging. In this universe, it turns out Einstein was completely right and time starts to do very strange things when objects travel near the speed of light. As a consequence, personnel on starships come back from their missions decades and decades after they first set out, even though it has only been a few months from their perspective. This also means that when the soldiers encounter an enemy, they have no way to tell what “time” those aliens come from; they could be from hundreds of years in the past and have antique weapons, or they can be from the future and possess unheard of technology.

Haldeman uses relativity as a brilliant plot device to trace human and cultural evolution over the course of thousands of years. The protagonist is in a constant state of future shock because whenever he arrives back at base or Earth, what he finds is unrecognizable.

I’m more than a little iffy about how Haldeman treats women and homosexuality in this text. They have a presence at least; hurray! Women are part of the military and no one seems to think this is exceptional or strange. Sexuality is out in the open and encouraged; also hurrah! For a while, I was very pleased. However, then Haldeman drops this bomb:

“… then unleashed Stargate’s eighteen sex-starved men on our women, compliant and promiscuous by military custom (and law), but desiring nothing so much as sleep on solid ground.”

Now, it is possible that Haldeman is trying to critique this policy, but I certainly could not find any evidence. He uses the protagonist as a mouthpiece to rail against all the injustices the government and military commits, and he says only positive things about this law. Therefore, it makes me wonder if Haldeman actually doesn’t see anything wrong with that arrangement.

Secondly, after the protagonist returns from a long journey, he finds out that the government has conditioned (via suggestion) everyone into being homosexual in order to control population. There are some homophobic comments from the protagonist, but he eventually accepts them as essentially no different from himself. What I really objected to here is the implication that there is some “gay switch” that can easily be flipped on or off in people’s brains.

But unfortunately these are things you have to deal with when reading books from the 70s.

The prose in this book is terrible: really choppy writing and no style. Also, there are a ton of grammar errors and a bunch of just straight-up typos. I know I read a first edition, but COME ON.

Overall, I still recommend this book. It is definitely part of science fiction canon and after reading it I can see this work has inspired many imitations.

… this review got a lot longer than I meant it to be. OH WELL.

4/5 misunderstood aliens
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LibraryThing member NTKova
What can I say? Read it! I mean, drop everything you’re doing and read The Forever War by Joe Haldeman .

I can go on about the fantastic short writing style, the visceral subject matter, or the fact that I actually cried reading it, but all of those would be superficially inadequate reasons.

This
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book is now my #1 by such a high margin that it’s sitting on top of mount Everest, while the other books in my list haven’t even gotten to base camp.

Even if you don’t like sci-fi, even if you don’t like “war” books, even if you don’t like reading, you need to read this book.

And if you don’t believe me, William Gibson (author of Neuromancer) said “to say that the forever war is the best science fiction war novel ever written is to damn it with faint praise.” And I whole heartedly agree.

Read it!

I mean it.
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LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
The best Time Dilation story ever! The secondary part of this deals with the great divide between those who have been shot at and those who have not! Those who have not, could be a great deal more modest. Read it, and decide about the amount of weeping necessary.
LibraryThing member tikitu-reviews
It's often cited as a science fiction classic, and I can see why. It's a book about war, but that neither glorifies it nor rants about its awfulness. In fact, very little of the narrative space is spent on the battlefield -- the stance it takes is instead the terrible waste of lives and potential,
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shown sometimes in the deaths of characters significant to the protagonist but just as often in a quiet sad awareness of the things his fellow-soldiers would be achieving if they weren't being trained and sent out to battle.

There's also some pretty hokey future-culture extrapolation going on, making use of the relativity effects of waging an interstellar war to highlight the alienation of a soldier returning after a tour of duty.

I must admit, it seems pretty dated to me. But maybe a simplistic "war is difficult and painful not just when you're fighting" message is a good antidote for the more strident "war is hell" and "war is necessary" voices we tend to be more familiar with.

Recommended, but partly historically, because it's an acknowledged classic.
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LibraryThing member Iceform
I think that the only reason this book ever won a single award was because it spoke to the mood of post Vietnam America.

it is poorly written with no character developement and silly notions. Women being forced to have sex with multiple men, men becoming homosexual as a form of birth control, the
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collective species that 'man' becomes...

I believe that the only reason this has high ratings today is people are either intimidated or hyped by the awards on the cover. I looked at a few of the other low star reviews and found in a few cases at least people felt the need to apologize for giving a multiple award winning book a low star review.
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LibraryThing member andreablythe
Military stories are usually not my cup of tea, but The Forever War is compelling from a number of angles. It begins with the main character Mandela drafted into a war against an alien species, though it’s unclear how the war started or why. The training is almost as brutal as the war itself as
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the soldiers learn to handle harsh conditions on alien worlds in specially designed battlesuits. We see Mandela face battle and then deal with the return to Earth.

The most fascinating aspect of the novel, for me, is how space travel and its associated time dilation, which means that though only a year or two of a battle campaign may pass for Mandela, decades and sometimes centuries have passed on Earth. Thus, Mandela and the readers get to see a glimpse into the dramatic technological and social changes that occur to the human race.

Mandela remains the “everman,” standing in for the reader experiencing these strange new realities. Throughout all the horrors and accidents and death he witnesses on his journey, he holds on to himself and his own sense of what it means to be human. The ending was perfect and left me thrilled to have read this book.
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LibraryThing member aketzle
Surprised at how boring this book was. I'm almost done and I feel like nothing has happened the whole book. I'm quitting this and moving on to something else.
LibraryThing member fyrefly98
Summary: Private William Mandella may be a Midwestern boy, but he's been enlisted as part of an elite military group that is being sent to fight the newest threat to humanity: an alien race known as the Taurans. Not much is known about what the Taurans look like, what their capabilities are, or
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where they live, but Mandella and his unit must prepare to fight them regardless. But before they can fight, they have to get there, using new technology to travel vast interstellar distances nearly instantaneously, but there's no way of knowing what they'll find when they get there, or, given the relativistic speeds they're travelling, what they'll find on Earth once they get back.

Review: I can see why this one's a classic, but it just didn't really do it for me. I will say that I certainly didn't actively dislike this book, and it had some cool ideas that I quite enjoyed. But military sci-fi just isn't really my thing, Old Man's War notwithstanding, and the story never really pulled me in. I should have learned that lesson with The Lost Fleet, but alas.

Actually, my reactions to The Forever War and The Lost Fleet were pretty similar. Best things first: I think the idea of relativistic speeds and interstellar distances and how they affect things like battles and wars and soldiers and veterans is a really, really neat idea, particularly for someone who grew up watching Star Trek, where they routinely blithely ignore that part of physics. I loved the concept that by the time you'd traveled to engage your enemy, it had taken you months but they'd had centuries, so your technology would always be hopelessly outmatched. I also thought this was a really nice treatment of the "can't go home again" problem of relativity, where you come back the same age but all your loved ones are 10, 20, 50 years older than when you left... or more. There's obviously a clear parallel to veterans here, not only in the war parts of the story but also in the idea of returning home to a world you no longer recognize. (Given the time frame, it's clearly supposed to be a Vietnam allegory, but I think it would probably be applicable to veterans of various combats - not that I have any personal military experience against which to judge.)

However, on the other hand, I didn't find the story part of the story particularly compelling. The writing is smooth enough, but it's fairly episodic - battle sequence, techy spacesuit stuff, travel, some interpersonal bits, some economic bits, more travel, more techy stuff - and doesn't feel like it connected terribly well. Worse, I had zero connection with the main character, and even the more interpersonal bits totally failed to spark any emotional resonance. Intellectually, I was interested in the concepts, but viscerally, I didn't really care whether or not Mandella found the Earth too different to deal with, or whether he and his girlfriend would be separated forever or not. Also, I get that attitudes towards homosexuality, particularly in military contexts, were probably very different in 1974, but there's a distinct homophobia about Mandella (and thus about the book as a whole) that bugged. 3 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: If you're a fan of military and/or classic sci-fi, or stories about soldiers, or are very interested in the practicalities of near-light-speed travel, then it's probably worth checking out. There are plenty of people out there who would enjoy it, and it's not bad, but it wasn't for me.
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LibraryThing member electrascaife
Follows a soldier in a future war from private through major, a career that spans centuries due to all the stargate-jumping. A cool take on the idiocy of war (without at all being preachy) and the culture shock of living through so many social changes. Slightly dated, but still a good read.
LibraryThing member Griff
Apparently viewed by many as a science fiction classic, but I was underwhelmed. The dialogue was wooden and cliched. The story (not only the war) seemed interminable. Sorry, but I'm not sure what all the fuss was about. Maybe I should have read it years ago???
LibraryThing member Darrell.Newton
The most intriguing aspect of this story is not in the fighting at the beginning but towards the end when Private William Mandella returns home to a world that has changed over a millennia. It really is no longer his home since the culture has transformed so much as to almost be as alien as the
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aliens he’s been fighting. It is the is “Rip Van Winkle” trope that I believe the story has its greatest value.
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LibraryThing member nandadevi
I read this as it originally came out, piece by piece, in Analog Magazine in the 1970's. It was a lot more startling then, but also far more relevant. It is clearly a piece that reacts to the Vietnam war, at a time when Analog was just emerging from a long period of editorship by Joseph Campbell.
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Campbell was a great liberal, but Haldeman was not quite what we were used to. I remember that it caused quite a stir. Having read the book recently, and having given my collection of Analog to an avid science fiction fan some years ago, I can't say if the stories were brought forward exactly as they were originally written. I have to say they seem less 'edgy', but the passage of nearly 40 years has affected everything. One of the things that the original stories had of course was an extended period between the appearance of each. Reading the 'whole story' in one sitting doesn't allow the same suspense and surprise to develop. Would I recommend this? Well not if you can access the original Analog's, but failing that, it's good to see this still in print.
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LibraryThing member suzemo
If I were a guy, or younger, or at least less feminist inclined, I probably would have liked this book a lot more.

The Forever War is incredibly dated. It's not just old ("old" sci fi, even with dates we have already lived through isn't necessarily dated), but feels dated and almost irrelevant.

It is
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heavily influenced by the Vietnam War, which the author took part in, and it's almost the Vietnam War In Space. The war lasts forever, it was pointless, lots of good people and resources are wasted. In the end a "peace" is declared, but the war is never won, and you don't get the satisfaction of anyone "beating" anyone else.

The main character, William Mandella, is drafted (along with many others) because he has a high IQ, into the military for training and to be shipped out to fight aliens which have attacked humans, and are seen as a threat.

Due to time dilation effects, the war is sloppy and slow. It takes years for the military to get anywhere (and back home, and back out again), so Mandella ages normally while time flies by. After his first tour, he comes home to an Earth society drastically changed, only to re-enlist and get trapped into another tour. He again comes back to another time, a different society, and this cycle happens repeatedly. In the end, he gets a "happily ever after" ending, which I would have enjoyed more if the author had cut it shorter (his companion, who has been with him through all of these time dilation effects, has chosen to use spaceflight and relativistic effects to 'wait' for him to come back to her).

Several things were very good about this book. While I'm too young for the Vietnam war, I grew up with family and around those that were involved, and many of the things/feelings/over-arching situations in the book rang true.

Unfortunately, the author's bizarre focus on sexuality (and homosexuality) in particular were just odd and felt forced. While there is an interesting (and enlightened) take on the forces that society can place on what it considers "normative" behavior is awesome, the fact that he makes state sponsored rape A-OK doesn't sit well with me (women were required by law to give in to sexual advances, at least in the military).

In the end, it's always good to read an award winning book, but I was thankful and happy it was relatively short and a quick read.
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LibraryThing member Unkletom
Bloggers have said that The Forever War and Heinlein’s Starship Troopers are the prime examples of military science fiction. I read and enjoyed Starship Troopers in high school (centuries ago) but have just now gotten to this one, and I have a serious problem with it. For starters, it’s
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seriously dated. I know it was written in the 1970s but can we really take someone seriously who believes that microfiche and faxes will still be a thing in the 34th century?

That is a minor issue though. My biggest problem is that Haldeman spent a considerable share of the book sharing his views on the increased participation of gays in the military and society and his attitude is anything but favorable. When the main character refers to his doctor as a ‘flaming mariposa’ and Haldeman posits a world where heterosexuality is outlawed, there is no way he can be let off as non-judgmental. His views have passed their sell-by date and should be relegated to the scrap-heap of history.
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LibraryThing member DianeGia
Listened to this on audio and loved it. It was more technically oriented than Scalzi's Old Man's War series, but the characters shared the same flavor. Can't wait to read another by Haldeman!
LibraryThing member N.W.Moors
William Mandella is a soldier in a space war between Earth and an alien race, the Taurans. He travels from planet to planet, creating bases and fighting battles with a brief tour back on Earth as a civilian. Because they travel through collapsar jumps which means that years can pass while Mandella
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only ages in days or months. There's a lot of military jargon which the reader would expect from a military space opera book.
The author is a Viet Nam veteran and in some ways, this book is reflective of his experiences there told through a science-fiction lens. How Mandella is treated on his return to Earth parallels what many Viet Nam vets went through on their return home. Other reviewers have noted how some of the sexual views in the book seem dated; future populations on Earth have become homosexual due to population explosion and eugenics.
I'll be honest. Military Science Fiction is not my usual read, but I did enjoy this book and found it interesting. It's a Science Fiction classic and certainly deserves its accolades.
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LibraryThing member baswood
Published in 1974 this novel about a seemingly perpetual interstellar war with an alien race is highly thought of in the science fiction genre and the version I read was published in 1997 in the SF Masterworks series. There is an authors note that serves as a preface in which Haldeman talks about a
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middle section of the book that was left out of the original publication and which is now reinstated in the new version. He then talks about the fact that he had envisaged the interstellar war beginning in 1996 and he reminds us of course that this did not happen and asks his readers to imagine a parallel universe. Well I thought I might be in a parallel universe when I could not find the so-called reinstated section, but instead found eight previous chapters repeated. I am ready to be cast adrift by some science fiction (I hardly ever understand the hard science stuff) but not quite like this.

Haldeman’s experiences in the Vietnam war has given his writing about combat situations some edge as the story follows one of the first conscripts to the war; William Mandala’s path to its conclusion. There are Stargates and Collapser portals that make the war a battle over time millenniums as well as interstellar space and in the year 3143 Mandala has been a major for centuries. A feature of the book is the re-adjustment that war veterans have to make when their periods of service are completed and they return to civilian life. They may have aged only a few years, but because of time shifts decades have passed when they return home.

Haldeman concentrates on three military service periods which involve actual combat for Mandala and he is lucky to survive, but finds it equally difficult to negotiate the periods when he is not actually fighting. The parallels with the Vietnam war would have been obvious back in the early 1970’s when the novel was first published. Very much of it’s genre and no literary masterpiece but there is still enough here to make this a good read 40 years on and so 3.5 stars.
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Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

1974

Physical description

240 p.; 17.4 cm

ISBN

0860078825 / 9780860078821

Local notes

Omslag: Ikke angivet
Omslaget viser et par rumskibe i kamp
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi

Pages

240

Rating

(3059 ratings; 4)

DDC/MDS

813.54
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