I've been meaning to read 'The Forever War' for many, many years. I finally started it yesterday. It is as good as everyone said that it was.
This is Joe Haldeman's website:
http://home.earthlink.net/~haldeman/
These are a few book reviews:
http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/forever.htm
http://www.scifan.com/titles/title.asp?TI_titleid=3629
http://tatooine.fortunecity.com/leguin/405/fl/joeh.html
When I've finished I'll post my own comments.
Edit: Finished already.
William Mandella is a conscripted Physics graduate in an 1143-year-long interstellar war against an unknowable and unconquerable enemy known as the Taurans (because ‘Aldebaranian’ was a little hard to handle). The reluctant hero tells the story as the only grunt to live through it all, from the first engagement to the final mission. The book begins with a great description of his basic training, and it is an obvious parallel with Vietnam, but as the author says in his prologue “it’s mainly about war, about soldiers, and about the reasons why we think we need them.â€
I guess it wasn’t just a coincidence that I’m reading this book on the day that Bush declares war on Iraq. “The evidence they presented for the Taurans’ having been responsible for the earlier causalities was laughably thin. The few people who pointed this out were ignored. The fact was, Earth’s economy needed a war, and this one was ideal. It gave a nice hole to throw buckets of money into, but would unify humanity rather than divide it.â€
It is once the relativistic effects of the collapsar jumps (the original collapsar is known as ‘Stargate’) kick in that the book really shines. Relativity means that for every few months’ tour of duty centuries have passed on Earth, isolating the combatants ever more from the world for whose future they are fighting.
The middle section of the book, a novella also called ‘You Can Never Go Back’, I found interesting, considering it was removed from the original published version of the book. On his first return home, William finds that his aged mother is without any hope of the rationed medical care. Actual jobs themselves are bought, resold and sublet through illegal dealers. Homosexuality is actively encouraged to keep the world’s population in check. Urbanisation, corruption and violence are destroying the planet, and he finds that even the currency and language has changed while he was away. The population of Earth resent the high taxes for a war to fight a threat that seems very distant. He is a Millionaire but has little left to spend it on. The longer he is away the more things will change. It reminded me of the book ‘The Sleeper Awakes’ by HG Wells, which is the only other book I’ve read that touches on these aspects of ‘time travel’. Unable to cope with the changes he re-enlists in the Army.
With every campaign he finds that the military and medical technology has advanced, yet a victory over the aliens seems even more remote. “And as with any engagement, because of time dilation there was no way to tell what weaponry they would have. They may have never heard of the stasis field. Or they might be able to say a magic word and make us disappear.â€
Somehow, as the only heterosexual male remaining, apart from the ships cat (and that is neutered); and the only person not born out of a ‘test-tube’; and with a psych profile that shows him as a failed pacifist, and a poor leader, he continues to be promoted, simply due to his ability to survive the conflicts, albeit with cybernetic replacement limbs.
When Marygay, his partner, is given different posting orders to him, they might as well be given a death sentence. Their chances of survival are pretty slim anyway, but because of time dilation even if they returned minutes apart, one could be centuries older than the other. And he isn’t just losing a lover, but his only remaining tie to real life and the Earth time period he left.
It even has a good happy endin. Peter F. Hamilton describes it on the cover as “a book that’s near perfect.â€
This is Joe Haldeman's website:
http://home.earthlink.net/~haldeman/
These are a few book reviews:
http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/forever.htm
http://www.scifan.com/titles/title.asp?TI_titleid=3629
http://tatooine.fortunecity.com/leguin/405/fl/joeh.html
When I've finished I'll post my own comments.
Edit: Finished already.
William Mandella is a conscripted Physics graduate in an 1143-year-long interstellar war against an unknowable and unconquerable enemy known as the Taurans (because ‘Aldebaranian’ was a little hard to handle). The reluctant hero tells the story as the only grunt to live through it all, from the first engagement to the final mission. The book begins with a great description of his basic training, and it is an obvious parallel with Vietnam, but as the author says in his prologue “it’s mainly about war, about soldiers, and about the reasons why we think we need them.â€
I guess it wasn’t just a coincidence that I’m reading this book on the day that Bush declares war on Iraq. “The evidence they presented for the Taurans’ having been responsible for the earlier causalities was laughably thin. The few people who pointed this out were ignored. The fact was, Earth’s economy needed a war, and this one was ideal. It gave a nice hole to throw buckets of money into, but would unify humanity rather than divide it.â€
It is once the relativistic effects of the collapsar jumps (the original collapsar is known as ‘Stargate’) kick in that the book really shines. Relativity means that for every few months’ tour of duty centuries have passed on Earth, isolating the combatants ever more from the world for whose future they are fighting.
The middle section of the book, a novella also called ‘You Can Never Go Back’, I found interesting, considering it was removed from the original published version of the book. On his first return home, William finds that his aged mother is without any hope of the rationed medical care. Actual jobs themselves are bought, resold and sublet through illegal dealers. Homosexuality is actively encouraged to keep the world’s population in check. Urbanisation, corruption and violence are destroying the planet, and he finds that even the currency and language has changed while he was away. The population of Earth resent the high taxes for a war to fight a threat that seems very distant. He is a Millionaire but has little left to spend it on. The longer he is away the more things will change. It reminded me of the book ‘The Sleeper Awakes’ by HG Wells, which is the only other book I’ve read that touches on these aspects of ‘time travel’. Unable to cope with the changes he re-enlists in the Army.
With every campaign he finds that the military and medical technology has advanced, yet a victory over the aliens seems even more remote. “And as with any engagement, because of time dilation there was no way to tell what weaponry they would have. They may have never heard of the stasis field. Or they might be able to say a magic word and make us disappear.â€
Somehow, as the only heterosexual male remaining, apart from the ships cat (and that is neutered); and the only person not born out of a ‘test-tube’; and with a psych profile that shows him as a failed pacifist, and a poor leader, he continues to be promoted, simply due to his ability to survive the conflicts, albeit with cybernetic replacement limbs.
When Marygay, his partner, is given different posting orders to him, they might as well be given a death sentence. Their chances of survival are pretty slim anyway, but because of time dilation even if they returned minutes apart, one could be centuries older than the other. And he isn’t just losing a lover, but his only remaining tie to real life and the Earth time period he left.
It even has a good happy endin. Peter F. Hamilton describes it on the cover as “a book that’s near perfect.â€
