The Forever War by Joe Haldeman Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $5.00 You Save: $9.95 (67%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $1.95 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Forever War
Book Review: Brilliant and Disurbing
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Forever War" is a well-written and thought-provoking science fiction novel by Joe Halderman. It was written in the early 1970s, and its premise of a war being launched with misinformation and continuing for centuries bears a strong resemblance to the Vietnam War, and more recently the Iraq War. The main character is part of an elite strike-force unit. Due to the relativistic properties of near-light-speed travel, the world he knows advances several centuries with each apparent year of his life. Halderman has created several future societies that are cleverly creative and plausible. His science is fascinating and equally plausible.
This book is a compelling science fiction story with a strong anti-war message, all the while maintaining a distinct human touch. The violence is realistic enough to be disturbing, but is not overly graphic.
My only complaint is the cat. It's pretty gratuitous to begin with, but it is described as being a male calico. Calico cats are always female.
Book Review: Brilliant!
Summary: 5 Stars
Beyond a great story ,this novel is a true inspiration and a thoroughly captivating. An innovative , unpretentious, masterful work of art. The author convincingly predicts how a future of advanced technologies combined with mankind's still primitive basic self serving and self indulgent instincts could look. A vision of our future which 30 years later still looks all too possible. Anyone who gives this work a rating of less than 5 stars is a complete idiot totally ignorant of visionary and creative writing.Book Review: CERTAINLY NOT THE BEST, BUT NEVER-THE-LESS A FUN READ
Summary: 4 Stars
I must admit to having read better SiFi, on the other hand, I have certainly read worse. The overall premise of this work is good and certainly has a lot of potential. Wars, futile wars, lasting for centuries, are not all that far fetched. The sillyness of the war here is not all that much different than some of our past wars. This work gives you something to think about. I did enjoy many of the characters in this work, although their developement could have been better at times. This is one of those works that I am glad I read, but I doubt if I will give it a second read. Recommend this one with reservations, it may not be everyones cup of tea.Book Review: Can be matched - but never beaten
Summary: 5 Stars
Is it even possible to write a better science fiction book than this? Nuff Said.Book Review: Classic Groundbreaking Military SciFi - Enjoyable Read
Summary: 4 Stars
This book was first published in 1974, and while a lot of the short-term predictions of technological advancements that were forseen to have taken place by the late 90's and early 21st century were either overly optimistic (interstellar travel by 1997), or fall short of the mark (lame computer technology), the story is so enjoyable to read that it is easy to see why it won the Hugo Award in the mid-1970's.
The military SciFi themes and technologies that were introduced in this book show up in a lot of SciFi books published over the last three decades, so this book was definately a groundbreaker. Even though most of the technologies have been "done better" in more recent books, the fact is that this book blazed a lot of new trails, and has to be considered a classic.