Rating: 
Summary: Worst Deus Ex Machina Ever?
Review: The book centers around a premise that should warm the heart of anyone who was a fan of 'The Forever War'. William Mandela and company have grown tired of living under the blandly-oppressive thumb of Man, so they steal some fighting suits from a museum and hijack a space ship. Haldeman's writing style is excellent, and Forever Free is filled with interesting characters and intriguing plot twists. Haldeman's quirky sense of humor crops up often; I actually laughed out loud a few times. Unfortunately the story ends so ridiculously that the book's positive points are overshadowed, leaving the reader wondering if the book was supposed to be some sort of big joke. Most of the story centers around the characters trying to find an explanation for the bizarre events that are taking place around them. I won't spoil the ending in this review, but the eventual explanation has absolutely no logical connection to anything else that had happened in the story. It's really hard to overstate how bad this book's ending is. I've read quite a lot of fiction, and this is probably the worst ending that I have ever seen in a novel. I would happily have given this book 4 or 5 stars had Haldeman managed to offer a satisfying resolution.
Rating: 
Summary: Okay, so it became time to END the story...
Review: It is great to see familiar characters from a truly engaging story. Having Marygay and William back, twenty years later "subjective time," well, there's a lot that can be done with that. And Haldeman really appears to enjoy doing it, telling the story of how arriving into this bizarre descendant-of-man culture has affected these people. But then, suddenly, 90% of the way through the book, it seems Haldeman lost his interest and just decided, okay, it's time to end this story and wham! Out of nowhere comes a hard and fast deus ex machina ending. Seriously deus ex machina. Like, the epitome of deus ex machina. It was so disappointing. However, the ride getting there was so much fun. If you just don't bother to read the resolution it would be a 5.
Rating: 
Summary: Despite what most people say it's quite good
Review: Nothing could top haldeman's first book but this comes close for me. Many say that the slow pace and rather random plot majorly detract from the book. However I thoroughly enjoyed this novel for that very reason. It's an inventive way to answer the story's question; What will they find 40,000 years in the future? I was expecting something strange but this end twist was wholly unexpected. Willaim's life on middle finger and his relationship with his family is also quite good. We are left thinking happily ever after when really William's new life isn't so wonderfully amazing. AMybee it's just me but this is one of my favorite reads.
Rating:
Summary: Okay, so it became time to END the story...
Review: It is great to see familiar characters from a truly engaging story. Having Marygay and William back, twenty years later "subjective time," well, there's a lot that can be done with that. And Haldeman really appears to enjoy doing it, telling the story of how arriving into this bizarre descendant-of-man culture has affected these people. But then, suddenly, 90% of the way through the book, it seems Haldeman lost his interest and just decided, okay, it's time to end this story and wham! Out of nowhere comes a hard and fast deus ex machina ending. Seriously deus ex machina. Like, the epitome of deus ex machina. It was so disappointing. However, the ride getting there was so much fun. If you just don't bother to read the resolution it would be a 5.
Rating:
Summary: Not nearly on par w/the original
Review: Regardless of what happened in it, I *was* looking forward to this sequel to one of my all-time favorite novels, THE FOREVER WAR. William Mandella is one of my fave characters. But in FOREVER FREE, he is turned into Mr. Everyman -- he is no longer the "beat-the-odds-beyond-all-imagination" soldier from the first book. He spends his days fishing, staying warm on perpetually cold Middle Finger, chewing the fat w/Marygay, his children and friends, and -- oh yeah -- eventually he decides he hates his life (imposed by "Man") so he wants to hijack a spaceship, spend a decade in it at virtual light-speed, and come back to Middle Finger (or Earth) some 40K years later objective time. The plot to nab the ship is believable enough, and executed fairly well, but it is not very suspenseful. The journey does indeed go awry, and when the crew heads back to M.F., there are no traces of civilization anywhere. Ditto for Earth. Wha-a-a...? The "answer" seems so hastily put together as to evoke a big "AW, C'MAHN!!" I actually *liked* the premise, but Haldeman could have spent more pages developing *it* instead of the boring existence of M.F. Or the stealing of the spaceship. IMO, if you liked (loved) FOREVER WAR, this *may* disappoint, but it is nevertheless a fairly interesting read on the continuing life of the WAR's survivors.
Rating:
Summary: I loved the first two and this one broke my heart.
Review: The first book, "The Forever War" was great. The second, "Forever Peace" was almost as great. This one was terrible. It started out fine as a sequel to both the first and second even though they weren't related to each other. The ending was a disaster, and my secret hope is that it was tacked on by someone other than Haldeman. You know those endings where the main character wakes up and realizes everything that happened was a dream? That's not what happened, but what did happen was equally unsatisfying.
Rating: 
Summary: Worse Than Auto-Necrophilia
Review: Some SF and fantasy authors, having penned a classic or having set a popular series in motion, can't seem to resist the economic allure of returning and graverobbing a bit. The usual results are severe mediocrity trending towards active badness--see for example Robert Silverberg's utterly ho-hum, ponderously inflated sequels to his Valentine books, or Anne McCaffrey's continuing misadventures in tedium on the world of Pern. Haldeman's Forever Free is another matter entirely. It's one of the strangest, most complete misfires I've ever read. I knew it wasn't well-regarded by SF readers (as opposed to press reviewers who gave it a thumbs-up based on Haldeman's reputation alone, it seems), but I didn't realize just how bad it actually was until I finally got around to reading it. About the first 2/3 of the book is a slow-paced but modestly adequate exploration of William Mandella's life on Middle Finger and the restlessness that leads him and some of the other veterans to want to escape being a genetic reserve for the clones who ended the Forever War. There's an interesting emotional conflict regarding Mandella's children, in particular. And then the bottom drops out. The last third is so staggeringly bad, that it reads roughly like a 10-year old SF fan was asked by Haldeman to complete the manuscript. In very short order, we get a new alien race introduced with stunning casualness and lack of imagination only to have them be a red herring for the introduction of God, or something closely approximating Him. It's weird, it's dumb, and leaves you with a sense of disgust that goes far beyond the ordinary "Wow, that was a waste of my time" feeling that usually accompanies a bad book. Something very strange happened to Haldeman when he was working on this, that's for sure.
Rating:
Summary: What a let down!
Review: I read "Forever War" 20-odd years ago and thought it was a complete masterpiece. I have also read many of JH's other titles and enjoyed them all. So, when "Forever Free" came out I read the other reviews and thought "It can't be as bad as the reviews make out". Boy, was I wrong! The story starts out with the heroes from the last book living stale lives on a frozen planet, trying to eke out a living. They are constatly harrassed by Man, who are now a group mind like the Taurans (the previous book's bad guys). So they decide to steal a starship and use relativity to their "advantage" and skip 40,000 years by flying off very fast for 10 years or so. Something goes wrong and they are forced to abandon the trip and come back after twenty-odd years. I won't spoil the story (it manages that all by itself) but what they find and the explanation for it is absolutely dire! If I came back to earth after being absent for so long, the LAST place I would go would be Disneyworld!!!!! Where the Omnis came from and what their purpose is is a complete mystery. The intervention of God is completely ludicrous. It seems that JH was on a tight schedule and couldn't be bothered to think up a decent ending for the book and so came up with something that would make a 10 year old's descriptive essay look good! If you are looking for something wacky, then read The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, at least Douglas Adams makes the story interesting and amusing. He actually answers life, the universe and everything (the answer is 42 by the way). This is utter drivel. William Mandella has been a fictional hero of mine for 20 years - come on Joe, he didn't deserve this!!!! Sorely disappointed........
Rating:
Summary: Frank Herbert did this better
Review: And in fewer words, in his short story "Rat Race", which you can find in his collection /Eye/. Skip it unless you're a huge Forever War fan.
Rating:
Summary: Deus Ex Machina of doom
Review: Okay, it's almost a good idea, except that it doesn't make any sense, and what might have been a moderately interesting premise is destroyed byt an embarassingly poor ending. In fact, it's the worst ending of any book I've read in a long long time. It makes Star Trek V look like great art. It's nonsensical and even somewhat insulting. It's just dumb. Do yourself a favor and skip this one. Go reread "The Forever War" again or something.
| 
