The Forever War by Joe Haldeman Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Forever War
Book Review: A great 'Hard Sci Fi' book for almost anyone!
Summary: 5 Stars
This was my first 'Real' hard sci-fi book. I normally read fantasy and have branched out occasionally for lighter scifi fare but I had heard such good things about this book from the reviews that I moved it up my queue.
First of all, it isn't a long book, only about 240 pages (depending on the edition) so it isn't intimidating to someone who might be new to the genre. The book is told from the point of view of a new soldier in the late 1990's who is training for space combat (this was written in the mid-1970s). It chronicles his experiences of combat training and fighting an alien race, as well as a glimpse of war and the military from his perspective. From what I understand the author is a Vietnam war vet, and many of the personal experiences those men must have had is correlated here (such as having culture and society change sometimes radically while you're away and the difficulties with reintegrating into that society). The book also touches on the politics of war without beating the reader over the head with any ideology, though some of the points are clear.
Secondly, the science. Sometimes its my experience that some authors get carried away with this part of a 'science-fiction' novel, by really hammering away at detailed, and often confusing jargon about the mechanism of the world they write, that the actual story gets lost (and I'm a scientist!). But this story utilizes the science to support the story. It is there maintaining its status in the scifi realm, but without overwhelming the reader or letting the point of the story get buried.
I found the story to be highly engrossing, and the science conceptually intriguing and reallying fitting to the characters and story. I'm sure many people say this about many books, but I feel that Forever War really sticks with you and keeps you thinking. Its interesting to see correlations between some ideas illustrated in a scifi book from the '70s to the current war being waged today.
I highly recommend the book to anyone though there is some darker images and sexual content if you're looking for a book for a younger teen and you are censoring these things.
Book Review: A masterpiece blend of military satire and future history.
Summary: 5 Stars
War is hell, and this book is yet another proclamation of this self-evident truth. What makes this book interesting are the strange societies in which poor Mandella returns to, after the time-slowing passages in the collapsar holes. Some hypotheses may be a bit quaint or dated, but they make, on the whole, a very convincing nightmare. At the end, I'd be going to "Middle Finger",too!I loved, though, that society where heterosexuality was considered an "emotional dysfunction" that could nonetheless be "cured". Ironic, if that would ever come to pass somewhere or somewhen, don't you think?
Book Review: A must read for any science fiction fan or anyone!
Summary: 5 Stars
Two words describe this novel absolute excellence. It's been one week since I got it and I've read it five times cover to cover! I haven't felt this way towards a book since I read Orson Scott Card's book Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow the books that got me back into reading. The characters seem so real and the twists and ending is crazy (I won't ruin it for you).Book Review: A very average book
Summary: 3 Stars
The great ratings and awards made me think this would be one of the best sci-fi books I ever read, so I bought the book. I was very disappointed, it's not a bad book, but it's not a classic either. I can't imagine how this book got so many 5 star ratings, those reviewers must not read much.
The military aspects of the book don't seem to be impressive at all. I would chalk this up to the fact that it was written in the 70's, but Heinlein wrote much better stuff in the 50's. The descriptions of the training and of the instructors seemed pedestrian and cliché. The writing in many parts of the book was average at best.
I did like the changes humanity went through during the hundreds of years the character was away, as well as the characters reaction to them. This is a short book at only 288 pages, and it does have something to offer. I don't regret reading it, but I would never give it 5 stars.
There are a lot of sci-fi books out there which are a lot better, such as...
Childhood's End (Del Rey Impact)
Dune, 40th Anniversary Edition (Dune Chronicles, Book 1)
Foundation
Healer (The LaNague Federation, Book 3)
Old Man's War
Book Review: A war novel written by an actual veteran.
Summary: 5 Stars
It took Joe Haldeman a dozen publishers to get this, his first book, onto store shelves. I bet those first eleven kicked themselves after "Forever War" won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards for best sci-fi in the year 1976. Haldeman has since gone on to win numerous awards for other novels.
Haldeman originally wrote this tale as a metaphor for Vietnam War, in which he served. A hesitant soldier caught up in a battle that never seemed to end, while the world he left behind changed irreversibly.
The Story:
Collapsars, a strange physics phenomenon appearing in space, allow modern man to travel across space and time. No sooner has humanity began to use them, than it is attacked by an alien race referred to as the Taurans. The male protagonist, William Mandella, tells the story from his perspective, starting at his draft followed by dangerous training missions before finally engaging the enemy. The Taurans turn out to be a bug-like species with ostensibly low intelligence. At the outset of the conflict, these insect type humanoids do not know how to fight, however they do know how to hyper jump through space similar to humans.
During his initial mission, Mandella develops an interest in one of the female soldiers he bunks with, Marygay. Time dilation caused by moving at near-light speed velocities means that when they return home 27 years have passed away. Earth is enveloped in chaos and is not the type of place were either of them wants to live. When Mandella and Marygay find that they cannot readjust to Earth (after being gone so long)they reenlist, only to find themselves shuttled endlessly from battle to battle. This arduous process is repeated numerous times. Subsequently, Mandella and his colleagues age a few months at a time while centuries on Earth pass by, thus isolating them further from the world they once knew.
All the while, the Taurans are learning to do battle as the humans do and may even surpass them, meaning death for the human race. Mandella, after centuries, is one of the only remaining soldiers still alive from the beginning of the war. Therefore, his commanders feel that alone is enough to aualify him as a leader (this is an obvious attack on the military promotional system). Now a commander of high rank Mandella struggles to make leadership decisions while racing towards the inevitable final confrontation.
Comments:
Haldeman transformed his experiences of alienation and hostility after returning home from Vietnam and morphed them into one of the greatest "anti-war" novels of contemporary literature. At first reading, you would not think this was about Vietnam if only because the story takes place on planets far from earth and in a more and more distant future. Mandella travels close to the speed of light to and from battle. Because of this, every time he returns to earth everything has changed, making him a living anachronism. It is easy to see how a Vietnam veteran could feel the same way.
I have read many novels on Vietnam, both fiction and non-fiction. The battle scenes depicted in Forever War are realistic in the fact that Mandella typically stays alive due to luck, which is the case in most Vietnam non-fiction that I have read.
This is a great read and I could not put it down. I would highly recommend this to any sci-fi or Vietnam enthusiast and if you liked this, you may want to check out his other award-winning novel "Forever Peace" along with his many new works. Also, beware; there are two versions of Forever War in circulation. The complete version is ISBN 0060510862; the older version is severely edited.