Unlock Now Bitmeyen Savaş Designed By Joe Haldeman Released Through Publication
I'm ready for some hard science fiction!
Look! I got my glasses on all seriouslike.
Conscripttobrutal bootcamptofarawayalienwar. Countless novels have followed this story structure, aping Heinleins Starship Troopers with mixed results,
Like me, you might be getting tired of encountering this storyline, Tired of reading what too often turns out to be Full Metal Jacket In Space Minus The Social Criticism.
If thats the case, borrow twenty bucks, get to a bookstore and order a copy of The Forever War.
This is militaryflavoured bootcamptowar Science Fiction in its finest form, as refreshing and thought provoking as it no doubt was when it was released in.
Like Starship Troopers, this book is a template for the lesser works that have followed it,
The story is a simple one, William Mandella is conscripted and sent to fight in a brutal, bloody war with an alien species, The battles he must fight are so far from Earth that the timedilation effect of highspeed space travel turns his subjective months at war into years on Earth, his years into decades.
Each time he returns to Earth human society has changed further, and Mandellas is less and less able to fit in, to feel welcome, to feel at home.
From this simple premise Haldeman spins a story of real insight and empathy, an extended allegory for Haldemans own war Vietnam and the tragedy of soldiers who return from conflicts to find both society and themselves changed so much that the only place they really belong is back on the front lines.
This isnt a typical blazingbeamcannons military SF novel, Haldeman doesnt obsess over laser wattages or projectile calibres, instead focusing his keen writers eye on the impact war has upon its participants.
Haldeman has explored this territory a number of times, most successfully in All My Sins Remembered and some of his short stories theres a real pearler A Mind of His Own in a collection of his work called Infinite Dreams, and he brings an authentic and sensitive voice to his SF.
When I found out after reading this book that Haldeman was badly wounded in Vietnam I wasnt surprised he writes war in a way I have very rarely seen in SF, less pewpew!/Kaboom!, and more understanding of the pain and suffering, both physical and otherwise, that soldiers go through.
Haldemans novel equals Heinleins classic in its social observations and intellectual heft, but in my opinion The Forever War is a more empathetic work, engendering genuine pathos for Mandella and his comrades.
It really is a landmark classic of Science Fiction,
With the anniversary of DDay being just a few days ago, this was timely reading, Joe Haldemans book, “The Forever War” is engaging, wellwritten, and meaningful, originally published in, It was a Hugo and Nebula winner, I read an edition published inwhich Haldeman identified as the definitive edition, I read the first edition back in college in the mideighties, While I remember greatly enjoying the book in college, this reread was much more impactful, I dont know if that is due to my naivety back then, or the changes in editions,
The story is written in firstperson from the perspective of Private William Mandella, Haldeman effectively pulls from his personal experiences from Viet Nam, He tells a very readable story and successfully conveys several themes:
Solders in wartime, often return disconnected from their personal relationships and have challenges in reconnecting with family and friends.
Solders are also often faced with culture shock, losing touch with changes in society and face difficulty integrating into everyday life after living through wars horrors.
Countries and economies can become dependant on war, limiting incentives to find peaceful solution,
War can escalate, losing touch with its original objectives, Certainly, for many solders, after being caught up in a life and death struggle and attempting to protect and save their fellow soldiers, are often left with a void, when considering, “what was it all for”
Haldeman uses science fiction including time dilation to magnify these themes.
He also creatively tells of some drastic culture shifts which the MC faces when returning from duty, This book is a masterpiece, both as a straightup science fiction story, but also as an allegory for the horrors and hopelessness of war.
Every November for the last few years I try to read at leastbooks with a military theme, This year I chose the Forever War which I had read before but did not remember, The Forever War is the much reputed analogy of the authors experience in the Vietnam War through a "space opera lens".
So first, I'll put in the disclaimers, I read this as a war novel not a scifi novel, Of course the scifi elements are inescapable and in truth do detract from the book, but for me what Haldeman was saying about war was far more compelling.
Private William Mandella has been drafted, He knows very little about the enemy nor the reasons for the war, The book follows him from basic training throughout his tours of duty in the war, The story chronicles the dangers, violence and destruction of war as well as the changes in society whenever he comes into contact with it.
The scifi elements come into play because space travel to these various campaigns takes centuries, The war wages on, society changes but to the soldier very little time has passed,
I found the premise/plot to be compelling, An allegory for the unseen impacts of war both on society and the soldiers, Haldeman clearly hates war. The war in this novel is The seemingly eternal issue that leads to war, Misunderstandings: Cultural. Linguistic. Physical. Geographical. History. And the actual treatment of soldiers is vicious from the very beginning, The indoctrination into the culture of war, The sacrifices. The requirement to turn off your critical thinking, The constant threat of danger, The violence. The fear. The muting of empathy. The acceptance of the new reality, A reality that creates a soldier but attacks their humanity, A fighting mechanism that doesn't question the effort, just reacts to survive, These soldiers exist in a bubble, The only real humans that exist to them are their fellow soldiers, They've lost connection to their communities and families, So much so, that when they return home, they feel like they no longer belong there, These elements are magnified in the book because space travel involves the significant passage of time, So a solder gone for a year or two is actually gone for decades to the community, A twenty five year old soldier comes home to anyear old mother and a world that has changed significantly over the decades.
Coming back to a world he no longer recognizes, Mandella reenlists and as a grizzled war veteran, finds himself promoted in the military after surviving each campaign.
A situation that I interpreted to imply that in the military in times of war, you sometimes get the leadership positions based upon those who survive, not those who are the most qualified, intelligent or skilled.
And the nature of the campaigns were consistently escalated, They became more dangerous and more futile for humans, As the war rages, Mandella becomes more jaded but also more reticent, He has never had the desire to kill, So the conversion to soldier is never quite complete,
Haldeman's vision of the future was rather bizarre and is strangely intertwined with his understanding of love and sex.
The future in this book reveals much more about Haldeman than it enhances the plot, At this point, I am wondering what the heck went on out there in the jungles of Vietnam.
All in all this was a strange but compelling brew, A war novel bristling with a kind of unintended toxic masculinity but at the same time mocking it, Haldeman displays a hatred for war and for senseless killing, Interestingly, I did not pick up on a disdain for the military, Just that it was misused, All of this wrapped up in a kind ofs sensibility which in my view worked for this novel.
A bit of a unicorn I'd say, I actually liked the novel quite a bit, I will eventually pick up the sequel sitelinkForever Free,
Stars
Listened to Audible, George Wilson was outstanding!! I've not fared super well reading the scifi classics over the years but thisNebula andHugo and Locus award winner was one of the few scifi classics I still had high expectations for since I enjoyed reading Joe Haldeman's More Than the Sum of His Parts short story in a Lighspeed collection years ago.
The good news is this book did live up to my expectations and was pretty good! It is probably not quite so good as More Than the Sum of His Parts but there is no shame in that as that short story is one of my all time favourite short stories.
The Forever War was an excellent scifi and well worth its accolades, It is the very best sort of scifi tale in that it provides both an entertaining and engaging story while also offering a lot of thought provoking ideas!
The plot was an intriguing one.
Young physics teacher William Mandella has been reluctantly conscripted into the army, The enemy are a mysterious alien race known only as the Taurans, The twist on the average military scifi tale is the fact that a combination of portal jumping and near light speed travel meant that this galaxy spanning conflict resulted in a lot of time dilation for the participants.
Willian might have been fighting for humanity but what did that truly mean when his stints in space travelling from battle to battle resulted in time on Earth passing a lot more rapidly for the people there than it did for him!
I thought it was a fascinating and engaging tale.
Willian had his flaws but it was mostly easy enough to empathise with his plight and to root for him over the course of his journey through both space and time.
Haldeman's story touched on a number of different themes the horrors of war and those of personal traumatic injury, loneliness, alienation, loss, cultural indoctrination, and societal change over time and a ton of cool scifi stuff like time dilation, bionics, futuristic weapons, and cool scifi tech that kept the humans alive in the hostile environment of space and alien planets!
I was not at all surprised to learn this story was heavily inspired by Joe Haldeman's own experiences as a conscript in the Vietnam War and his difficulty returning to civilian life afterwards.
It was a major part of the story we got here that Willian struggled to adapt to the changing world he found himself in after each time jump.
In general I think the book also provided a strong antiwar message and did a decent job of
not glorifying the action scenes.
I could go on and on about the cool stuff Haldeman touched upon as it was that sort of book but instead I'll mention the fact that I've read a few updates and reviews over the years that hinted that this tale might contain a bit of racism, homophobia, and misogyny.
Since this was published in the mids I was actually expecting a lot of that stuff! That said, I never got that impression from the tale myself.
This was actually fairly liberal for a mids book, Sure Haldeman used a few outdated terms here and there that are considered offensive nowadays but there was very little in the way of active racism, homophobia, and misogyny.
There were a few moments but considering the cultural context of the tale I was expecting a lot more and on the whole I felt like the story actively highlighted all those things as bad.
Despite portraying quite a vaguely dystopian and economically crippled lates "future" society this was wrote in the mids as the starting location for the tale Haldeman was actually a bit too optimistic in his portrayal of where he expected/hoped society would be when it came to issues like race and gender as women where treated as equals and race seemed to have little significance to the characters.
As time passed in the story those things mattered less and less! The use of sexuality as a major indicator of notable cultural change in society over time was a little weird but it was interesting in a number of different ways and despite how it made William feel it felt to me that the message Haldeman was trying to convey with the flipped sexuality was one of tolerance as the reader got to experience what it was like for William to be viewed as the one with the minority opinion on the issue.
Not overly subtle for sure but this book was being marketed to as audience!
This book did have a few flaws.
The storytelling style was a tad too detached for me to fully emotionally engage with the happenings and the characters but despite that it did still manage a few emotionally engaging scenes and Haldeman's writing style is pretty engaging so the story held my attention from start to finish.
Some of the actual science may have gone over my head but I did not feel like that overly hurt my enjoyment of the story.
I'd have preferred if Haldeman had explored his bionics story arcs a bit more but what we got was fun enough.
Sometimes Haldeman only touched upon some topics or concepts briefly but some of those ended up being quite fun parts of the story.
I especially liked the way society kept changing over the years and was engaged by the way hypnosis and drugs were used to control people.
All in all this was a really good scifi classic and still something that is a relevant and fun read even today! This book felt like a stand alone story but I enjoyed it so I'll probably try the sequels at some future point.
Rating:.stars. I'll round up because it is not often I get to rate any classicstars!
Audio Note: George Wilson did a good job with the audio.
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