War is never a pleasant thing. And in a 1200 year long war, the odds of survival are close to zero. Beginning in 1997, the war with the Taurans drags on century by century. Spanning the stars at faster-than-light speeds, the troops in The Forever War age only months as the centuries zip by on earth—an earth that becomes increasingly unrecognizable with each return visit.
Private Mandella starts out as a foot soldier in this deadly conflict and ends as a reluctant major. He comes to know the futility, frustration and danger of combat with a brilliant and dangerous enemy. Joe Haldeman has a reputation of one of the very best new science fiction story writers. His work has appeared in Analog and a number of other magazines. In The Forever War he combines his recognized imagination and skill as a story-teller with his personal experience as a combat veteran …
War is never a pleasant thing. And in a 1200 year long war, the odds of survival are close to zero. Beginning in 1997, the war with the Taurans drags on century by century. Spanning the stars at faster-than-light speeds, the troops in The Forever War age only months as the centuries zip by on earth—an earth that becomes increasingly unrecognizable with each return visit.
Private Mandella starts out as a foot soldier in this deadly conflict and ends as a reluctant major. He comes to know the futility, frustration and danger of combat with a brilliant and dangerous enemy. Joe Haldeman has a reputation of one of the very best new science fiction story writers. His work has appeared in Analog and a number of other magazines. In The Forever War he combines his recognized imagination and skill as a story-teller with his personal experience as a combat veteran of the Viet Nam war. This is his first full length novel, and it is a brilliant and powerful debut.
The first review of The Forever War sums up the quality of this novel: "This war is the opposite of the one Heinlein glorified in Starship Troopers—bloody, cruel and meaningless. This is a splendid, thoughtful adventure."
—Kirkus Service
A man is drafted into the space army and shipped around the galaxy fighting for galactic supremacy. He doesn't exactly love the war, but he doesn't seem to have many particularly strong opinions about most things. Pitched to me as the anti-war antidote to Starship Troopers, the main thing I took away was that Starship Troopers wasn't exactly pro-war either, only the protagonist was. Still, it was interesting to read both!
Review of 'The Forever War (The Forever War Series Book 1)' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
An allegory for the Vietnam war via alien encounters and the human consequences of near-light travel that tells more about the concerns of the seventies than about the future. It's a good piece of scifi but it's dated, and should be read, I think, as a historical document. Otherwise you'll get really annoyed about the homophobia implied in the future of mandatory homosexuality.
