The Forever War

Rating:
Summary: Simply one of the finest books about war or SciFi imaginable
Review: This excellent book is the history of a future war from the viewpoint of a grunt - one of the very first enlisted. Due to the nature of faster than light travel, the thousands of years long war is encompassed within about eight years of the narrator's lifetime, giving not only a fascinating story of space and soldiers, but also of the future Earth he returns to every several hundred years.
This book is an enlightened commentary on the military-industrial complex, the nature of society, and human folly. I keep it next to Gulliver's Travels as an outstanding work of social commentary embedded within an outstanding work of literature.
Finally, ignore everything I just wrote about society etc. This is a ripping good story!

Rating:
Summary: WOW
Review: This book was originally published in 1977 as an allegory to the Vietnam War. A reluctant soldier comes home from a never ending war without winning to a changed world he no longer recognizes. For this alone, this book is worth reading. However, the story stands on its own feet and he does a remarkable job. This book is part "Starship Troopers" and part "Armor". The reader actually feels for the soldiers who survive an unsurvivorable war only to find their world they left has changed and not for the better in their eyes. Much of the change has to do with worm holes and time dialation. Haldeman does a good job explaining the concept without getting to lost in the science which is not needed here. The enemy is not expanded upon and left shadowy except to explain that they are tough fighters and their tactics make no sense. This helps heighten the frustration of the soldiers and is a nice touch. The end of the story is rather abrupt, although ingenious and it certainly left itself open to a sequel. Highly Recommended

Rating:
Summary: A remarkable work which addresses universal issues
Review: I first read this book as a teenager and stayed up all night, unable to put it down. I have reread it many times over the past 15 years and my appreciation for the work has only grown.One of the remarkable aspects of the book is its incredibly realistic feel, doubtless the result of the fact that the author fought in Vietnam (the subject of his novel War Year). The book also has facinating parallels to Robert Heinlein's far inferior work, Starship Troopers, which is a rather obvious and heavy handed book about the battle against the "menace of communisim," (represented by Heinlein as a race of hive insects with no individual will). In contrast to Heinlein's worship of war, warriors, and their technology (in the form of battle armor in both books) in Forever War the war is pointless, the commanders venal, the soldiers dissatisfied and abused, and the technology faulty and overrated (sound familiar). In Forever War the enemy is a race of clones, sharing a group conciousness and a peaceful society (at least until they meet humanity). The cause of the war is the political leadership's lust for power. This is the exact opposite of Heinlein's utopian view of war and its leaders.Forever war represents an extrordinary use of the Science Fiction genre to address universal issues.

Rating:
Summary: OK, at best
Review: I'm begrudgingly giving this book three stars because it truly only deserved two, but after I resolved myself to completing it, the book improved over the second half. After searching through the long list of Nebula and Hugo Award winners, I came across the Forever War and read a brief bio on its author, Joe Haldeman, a Vietnam Vet. While this novel succeeded in informing the reader of Haldeman's own issues with war and the military hierarchy, mostly through allusions to his experiences in Vietnam, it lacked imaginative sci-fi concepts and ideas that draw most people to this genre to begin with. Unfortunately, Haldeman was a victim of his own predictions for the future, most of which would be considered anachronisms even in the present, and the others being technological advances that are not even close to coming to fruition. The two combined simply didn't work. The battle scenes were concise, but lacked excitement or any sense of success or failure. Perhaps this was Haldeman's intention, given his own war experiences, but it didn't work in this book and left you hoping the story would pick up the pace and move on. I'd pass on this book and stick with classics by Asimov or Clarke.

Rating:
Summary: one of the finest!
Review: One of the finest science fiction novels I have ever read! Usually, even the best of science fiction writers struggle with creating great characters, but Haldeman handles it with ease. One trick he uses is to create compelling situations that automatically flesh out the characters rather than having long and sometimes pointless exposition to develop the characters.
There have been many comments to say that this dates itself to the Vietnam war. We are still living the vietnam war. The names may have changed but the concepts are the same. This book is as fresh and as important today (if not more so) as it was when first written. It deserves every accolade it gets and more. My only complaint is the overly happy ending. While it leaves you with a feeling of hope it almost contradicts the brilliant themes and commentary that is the rest of the book. Please note that this is just a small comment to an otherwise terrifying and brilliant read.

Rating:
Summary: Good... but is it a classic?
Review: Haldeman's "Forever War" is one of the most respected alien war books ever written. However, I think much of that comes from its Vietnam parallels. Now that the millennium has dawned, it's hard to see his aliens as Viet Cong or the military brass as US politicians. What's left is a good story that falls a bit short of its own reputation.

This edition does restore the middle of the book detailing the protagonist's stay on Earth after his first tour of duty. It's good to have it back, but it doesn't even compare with books that have tackled this subject better such as Stanislaw Lem's "Return from the Stars."

In summary, if you must read a book about alien warfare, read "Enders Game" or - the one that started it all - "War of the Worlds" before "Forever War." Haldeman's classic is good just not classic.


Rating:
Summary: Sullen Draftees In Space!
Review: There is much good in this book. Unfortunately, the good is seriously harmed by some of the author's bizarre viewpoints.

In the 1970s, Joe Haldeman was a pretty angry guy. In the late 60s he was forced into military service after completing a physics degree. The military leadership trained him to be a combat engineer and sent him to Vietnam where he was eventually wounded. He decided to get back at the Military Industrial Complex by writing this novel.

Well, thats a good background for the bad parts. Haldeman takes the Vietnam War fact patterns as he sees them and places them on a future space war. The main character, William Mandella, seems to represent Haldeman. While studying physics in college, he is drafted after aliens known as Taurans attack Earth colonists. He goes through a training program he believes to be inappropriate. Its always either too harsh or not harsh enough. Haldeman has similar complaints about his own training but has admitted it helped keep him alive. So whats the problem, Joe? All military leaders placed above Mandella are portrayed as barbarians or cowards. Then there is the enemy (or should I say "enemy"?). The Vietnamese Communists.......I mean the Taurans are a highly advanced clone civilization. They are so peace loving, they are unable to fight back during the first human raid which degenerates into a futuristic My Lai. The war goes on for about 1000 years until the Americans.....oooops! I mean humans evolve and begin to understand the moral superiority of the enemy. From reading more recent discourse from the author, he still holds this same world view. I think the author could do with a little education on this subject. Or should I say re-education? In any case, Im shaving off two stars for sympathizing with the bad guys when they dont deserve it.

Once you get past Haldeman's political mindset, there are many great aspects to this story. The author does not shy away from relativity issues. Each battle lasts at least 27 years and human society becomes stranger and stranger each time Mandella comes back from campaigning. Haldeman's characterizations of these future human societies are compelling and detailed. The combat sequences are also intriguing and have a realtistic feel (once one gets beyond massacres). The main character, like the author, is seriously wounded at one point. The medical healing process Haldeman describes is also great.

I normally eviscerate books where the author promulgates similar politcal viewpoints. In my humble opinion, the apolitical aspects of this story go a long way in rehabilitating it.


Rating:
Summary: An antidote to Heinlein
Review: I didn't read this anti-war novel until recently. It is an antidote to Heinlein (who never saw combat) and his "Starship Troopers" mentality. I found the first part of the book better than the second part, which in its various depictions of Earth falls apart. Actually they're a bit ludicrous. And the whole book is a bit dated. Still, for all its flaws, it's one of those SF novels that, if you like SF, is an essential read.

Rating:
Summary: Good and Hard SciFi
Review:
Here's the premise: It's the mid 1990s (written several decades ago) and humanity has discovered far-space travel with help from "collapsars" - the equivalent of the now-cliche wormhole. An exploration crew is supposedly destroyed by an alien vessel, and war ensues.

However, this is a realistic war for this universe. Assuming we all believe in Special Relativity, Einstein told us long ago that we massive bodies cannot travel at relativistic velocities without suffering the consequences of time dilation. Popping out of a collapsar leaves a ship with lots of momentum, coasting along at 0.9c. Moving about in a star system usually involves acceleration and deceleration at these velocities, and as a result, every crew only ages a few months while the rest of the universe ages by years.

There is much more to it than that, but the reader should pick up the book and make these judgements for him/herself. There is an aroma of the Vietnam conflict in this book, and there is an underlying criticism of the human tendency to fight with itself.

All in all, this book has everything. Hard sci fi, some really good shoot-em-up scenes, a hardened hero with a love interest, and an interesting perspective on far-future humanity. I was so into this book that I started to read it at 4 pm and was finished by midnight. Highly recommended for fans of good old-fashioned science fiction with a military edge.

Rating:
Summary: Great Sci-Fi Adventure
Review: The book, The Forever War, is about a man,
William Mandella, who is drafted into a special
branch of the army. His branch is a group of
specially picked people who are going to be sent
to fight aliens who are thought to threaten
Earth. People have discovered things in space
called collapsars, which are like wormholes in
the way that they can instantly send anything to
different parts of the universe if it goes
through the collapsar. Mandella is among the
first group sent out to find the Taurens, the
aliens, and destroy them in 1996-97. He survives
the first campaign, but when he gets back home,
he realizes that trips through the collapsars
alter time in a way, so he had aged months, while
Earth had aged decades! To find out more about
Mandella and the war, read the book!

I really loved this book. It suits my likes
perfectly. It is a great sci-fi book and it has
lots of action. I could barely put it down! There
are a lot of bad injuries, curse words, and
implications of sex, so this book would not be
good for people under 12 or 13. But other than
that, it is a book that I think everyone should
read. The ending of this book was perfect. He
married the love of his life and the war ended,
so I felt happy once I had finished the book. I
really got involved with the characters and
connected with them. This is probably the best
sci-fi book I have ever read, and I recommend it
to anyone who likes action and sci-fi. FROM FLAMINGNET
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