Not as good as it's made out to be; lacks depth.

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	• The Forever War Joe Haldeman Eos, 2003 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 295 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Not as good as it's made out to be; lacks depth.

It's one of those books that's talked about as though it's a masterpiece of Sci-Fi but it falls a bit short. To cut to the chase, the characters were not well fleshed out and I didn't really care enough about their lives to be concerned for their well-being. I still didn't know much about the protagonist even after I had read the entire book.

The changes in society that occurred, while the people off fighting the war barely changed due to relativity, were not explored in any real depth. You barely were told about any significant changes except the one he endlessly drummed on: homosexuality gradually becoming the rule. That's really the ONLY thing that powered the 'revolutionary' shift in the society. That's almost all that was described to the reader and the rest was vague and secondhand in comparison. His physical descriptions of the alien race they were fighting were semi-adequate but that's all.

This wasn't any grand statement on the Vietnam War like it's made out to be. It's only average/fair.

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Good in parts, contrived ending

I have been trying to round out my sci-fi reading repertoire, "The Forever War" was an important missing hole of mine.

I was expecting a great work as befitted the Hugo and Nebula awards, and in many ways it satsified. Haldeman's handling of the time shifting and out of place-ness of Mandala was very well portrayed.

The culture twists were a bit contrived but helped place Mandala in a position of solitude.

The battles were good enough.

My real problem is the moral-high-ground/plot-device dropped on us at the end. Clearly reflects the era in which it was written. I mean peace could have been achieved in the end, fine, but to arbitrarily portray the entire war as an evil pointless act...well ok then...thanks for your opinion Joe, I guess it's your book and you can do what you want with it.

Oh one more thing, the ludicrous description of society in 2007 was hard to read, skimmed it until they left the planet again.

On the whole a good book, I enjoyed it mostly. Would I recommend it...yeah. Just prepared to be "messaged" at the end.

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Action, Romance, Politics... and a page turner!

I read this book 25 years ago as a young teen, and it blew me away. The sexuality, graphic action, sci-fi tech and simple literary style made the book a wonderful treat. What a surprise that a book my father recommended (he was a Vietnam Vet) was so darn entertaining. I was a tough teen, but I cried at the ending.

I read it again about 5 years ago, and it blew me away. But for entirely different reasons. The sex and violence is nothing compared to an episode of anything on TV, but that is not what interested me. The main character is real and engaging. I saw through his eyes, and was empathetic to his emotions. While the story creates a natural message against war, it is more about the natural strength of human character. I cried at the end... again.

How can I recommend this book any more? It works on multiple levels, and is one of the most deserving Hugo Award winning novels I have ever read.

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War Without End

Joe Haldeman's The Forever War is a fast, gripping science fiction novel that tries to figure out what the costs are when war never ends, and what that might mean in outer space. The action takes place on various space ships traveling throughout the galaxy at relativistic speeds, so when the characters return to Earth or their command posts, a hundred years may have passed, though they have aged only a couple years subjectively. The protagonist, William Mandella, suffers all the agonies that you can imagine someone enduring over his centuries of military service, watching himself become ever more alienated from humanity as it changes and evolves into something new entirely -- and he remains fundamentally a 20th century man.

This novel was published in 1974, and it would have been impossible to read it back then without being reminded of Vietnam. U.S. veterans of that war often returned home to find their fellow Americans much different than they had been when they left, and that sense of dislocation is palpable throughout the book. From the moment it begins, the characters removed from the comforts of Earth, this novel shows you the world that interstellar travelers (military or otherwise) would experience and asks what implications it might have for their humanity.

When you're done with The Forever War, read Old Man's War, by John Scalzi. Deals with many similar themes, updated for our times, though he finds a way to get around the time dilation factor.

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Sci-Fi At Its Best

This book is simply sci-fi at its best. The world that Haldeman creates is simultaneously complex and beyond human comprehension, but yet completely understandable.

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