The Forever War

272 pages

English language

Published Aug. 10, 1996 by Eos (HarperCollins).

ISBN:
978-0-380-70821-5
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
23708235
Goodreads:
117897

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(135 reviews)

The Forever War (1974) is a military science fiction novel by American author Joe Haldeman, telling the contemplative story about human soldiers fighting an interstellar war against an alien civilization known as the Taurans. It won the Nebula Award in 1975 and the Hugo and Locus awards in 1976. Forever Free (1999) and Forever Peace (1997) are respectively, direct and thematic sequel novels. The novella A Separate War (1999) is another sequel of sorts, occurring simultaneously with the final portion of The Forever War. Informally, the novels comprise The Forever War series; the novel also inspired a comic book and a board game. The Forever War is the first title in the SF Masterworks series.

45 editions

A Decent Book for The Most Part

A man is drafted into the space army and shipped around the galaxy fighting for galactic supremacy. He doesn't exactly love the war, but he doesn't seem to have many particularly strong opinions about most things. Pitched to me as the anti-war antidote to Starship Troopers, the main thing I took away was that Starship Troopers wasn't exactly pro-war either, only the protagonist was. Still, it was interesting to read both!

Review of 'The Forever War' on 'Storygraph'

THE FOREVER WAR is a story about a never-ending war against a barely-understood enemy, fought by soldiers who are removed from their own time and can never really come home again.

Mandella begins as just one of a hundred men and women (evenly distributed), tapped for an off-planet tour of duty. He’s casually intimate with the whole group, partly because of an assigned bedmate rotation, though he’s a bit closer with Marygay Potter by the time the story starts. The change in their level of emotional intimacy is apparent when he switches from calling her “Potter” (as he does in the beginning) to “Marygay” as he does starting from their brief return to Earth and lasting the rest of their time together. After their attempt to return to civilian life goes badly in the early 2020’s, they gradually become each other’s only connection to the 20th century, as everyone around …

Review of 'The Forever War (The Forever War, #1)' on 'Goodreads'

I wanted to like this book. The premise is great: the consequences of galactic warfare with the use of wormholethingies and the time-differences that causes. The impact that has on soldiers who return to Earth, after what has for them been just an few months or years, but for Earth hundreds of years.
It could have been a fantastic story. Epic, dramatic, poignant. But it isn't.
Instead we get a convoluted, chaotic plot (which, I understand from reviews of the sequel books, will only get worse) written from a very sexist viewpoint.
Clearly this book isn't for me, as I'm not a 16 year old macho male.
It gets one star for the fact that I managed to read the entire book and didn't throw it out in disgust (even though at times I rolled my eyes and shouted at it). It gets another star for the premise and the …

None

Haldeman's "Forever War" is often compared with Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" but I think the similarity is superficial and both stand in their own right.

In "Forever War" the characters have a very jaded and weary look on life, military service and the war they are involved in, something probably influenced by Haldeman's own experiences in Vietnam.

I find Haldeman a little hit-and-miss sometimes, but overall "Forever War" is one of his best. Good characterization, good central theme and uses the consequences of time-dilation to great effect.

reviewed The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (The Forever War, #1)

Review of 'The Forever War' on 'Goodreads'

Recently re-read this book. It's considered a classic of military science fiction for good reason. The effects of "future shock" from time dilation on both military strategy and tactics, and the individual soldier, is brilliantly portrayed by the main "A plot" of the story.

Spoiler Alert

The reason I haven't rated this higher is the sociological "B plot" dealing with homosexuality. This "B plot" portrays human society becoming completely homosexual as a result of government programs to control population.

On my first read through the book this bothered me, but I wrote it off as just some element of minor homophobia on my own part being bothered by the idea of a completely homosexual society. Much like the protagonist is obviously bothered by it despite his protestations of tolerance.

On my second read I realized that wasn't what really bothered me. What really bothered me was that for the described …

Review of 'The Forever War' on 'Goodreads'

A classic that has aged decently, but not perfectly

Parts of this (mostly the homophobia) haven't aged well, but most of it (as Scalzi's intro says) is timeless. Not really up to the standards of prose or character development we expect out of modern great scifi, but still a classic.

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