Blogs

WilliamReidBooks.com

Reid's Reads: The Forever War

The Forever War
By Joe Haldeman

I am going to make a bold statement.

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman is one of the best novels I’ve ever read. Not just one of the best science fiction novels… one of the best books, period. It is one of the finest works of science fiction ever to be put on paper, and I enjoyed it with the same fervor as other better-known works of literature like To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men. It doesn’t quite reach the unassailable level of The Lord of the Rings or One Hundred Years of Solitude, but it’s right up there.

The Forever War follows the soldier William Mandella through an interstellar war against a seldom-seen and barely-understood enemy. In the far-flung reaches of space, to reach the enemy takes decades, even centuries… but thanks to Einsteinian physics, time dilation at near light speed ages Mandella only a handful of months. The story thrusts him through literally a millenium of war, which he subjectively experiences as a few years. He loses everyone he knows and loves to death, either through war or time, and suffers changes in government, the military, sexuality, and even language every time he returns home. And each and every time he returns, he is promoted, told he must serve for one more mission, and sent out again to a pointless war that claims the life of almost every soldier that fights in it.

The first great piece of this book is Mandella. He starts out as a private in the 1990s, and by the end of the book a thousand years later, he’s a major after only two or three years of subjective time and a total of four actual battles. He’s a war hero, the only surviving soldier from the war’s beginning, and often a quaint, eccentric relic of centuries past. The last thing he wants to be is a hero or a leader; at his heart he is a pacifist. However, the one time he gets out of the service and returns to Earth, society has changed so much that he re-enlists because he can’t adjust. His sexual orientation adds complications along the way; at many points in history, homosexuality is either condoned, encouraged, or mandated for population control, and he has to adjust to those attitudes each time he returns. Mandella is a fabulous character to shove into this situation, and is a great filter to show this war to the reader.

Haldeman does a fabulous job of handling the science in the book. He HAS to, since time dilation is the major underpinning of the plot. One of my favorite scenes in the book involves a ship traveling at near-light speed toward a base they are supposed to attack and making defensive maneuvers along the way. Not only do years pass outside between each turn the ship makes to avoid enemy missiles, but the missiles themselves improve with each shot. The enemy has had years of technological breakthroughs for every few minutes the ship is in flight. When the ship is finally hit, no one even knows WHAT has hit them since it’s so advanced. This is hard science fiction at its best.

The best part of this book, though, is its commentary on war and society. It was written in the 1970s, right when the Vietnam War was coming to an end. The war in Forever War is even more pointless than Vietnam. Fighting a thousand-year war against an enemy you have never talked to, never even met except on the battlefield, with battles happening decades apart, is as close to stupidity as anything I can think of. This is the true power of good science fiction: it is an examination of what is happening in our society today. Science fiction can accentuate, extrapolate, and exacerbate any situation or idea or philosophy, and in an otherwordly context expose the true ludicrousness, value, or meaning of it. I see parallels in The Forever War to our current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and this book was written thirty years ago. It’s just as poignant now as it was then.

The only detraction I have from the book is its cheesy ending. I may change this opinion on further reflection; it may be that I think it’s cheesy because it’s relatively happy, in contrast to the dour, depressing, and nearly hopeless tone the bulk of the book has. After eating rocks for several courses of dinner, a dessert of Vegemite is downright delectable. I’m sure if it was the ending of a more lighthearted book, it wouldn’t have bothered me as much, and even in this book, its effect on my opinion is hardly noticeable.

Reidability rating: 97%
Plusses: Great main character, awesome hard science fiction, powerful statement on the current age
Minuses: Slightly cheesy ending
Pirate Bonus: Not even a Space pirate!!!

Reidability rating uses a baseline of 50% as a take-it-or-leave-it “eh” book. Anything below 50% gets a “don’t read” recommendation with varying vehemence; above 50% is worth a “read” recommendations of varying enthusiasm.

Any book gets an automatic +5%, included in the total Reidability, for having a pirate in it.