Review—The Forever War

I’ll start by plagiarizing a meme (if that’s possible) and say:

The Forever War is the granddaddy of today’s Military Scifi genre. Change my mind.

Of course, you’d say, ‘Well, there’s Heinlein’s Starship Troopers.’

And I’d reply:

Starship Troopers is the great-granddaddy of today’s Military Scifi genre. Change my mind.

I’ll cover Starship Troopers in my next Classic Review. Today, it’s going to be The Forever War.

First, a little history. I bought this book in paperback twice. Once back in the 80s because I loved the title, once in the 90s because it had a different cover, and I didn’t realize it was the same book. Unfortunately, I used to buy a lot more books than I had time to read them (that really hasn’t changed), so I never read either until much later. At the time, I thought it was a fantastic book.

The copy I purchased this time around was the audiobook, and that’s what I’ll be reviewing here.

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A little about the narration:

The audiobook was recorded in 1999, and to me, the audio quality sounded just a tad substandard. Perhaps that was all in my imagination. It didn’t, however, inhibit my ability to understand the narrator at all. He read clearly, with excellent diction. He was just a tad dry for my tastes. I did, however, listen at 150% speed. Was that the narrator's style, or the story making me want to hurry it along? I can’t say. But at 150%, it worked for me.

On to the story: I loved it the first time I read it.

I’ve recommended the story to my friends for years. This time around, I thought it was thoroughly okay.

It is Military SciFi, but it is not a high-action story. Of course, there are space battles, even the big climactic throw-down at the end—very satisfying. But, the military action is a bit sparse when compared to many of the more modern books I’ve read in the genre.

So, what do you get instead of rock’em-sock’em war?

Well, you get a lengthy newbie soldier training sequence. That’s a pretty standard trope in many military stories before the hero(es) goes off to war. You also get a heaping helping of world-building, a world that needs to get built and rebuilt several times because the author chooses to tell his story in a hybrid FTL universe.

What I mean by this is that one of the things authors have to consider when they sit down to write a space opera of any sort, is whether faster than light (FTL) travel occurs in their new universe. The choice carries significant implications for the story that develops. In The Forever War, Haldeman employs ‘collapsars’ the same way wormholes are employed in more modern fiction, as gates through which space travelers can jump from one area of the galaxy to another. For journeys in areas where no collapsar is in the vicinity, travelers in Haldeman’s books move at some significant fraction of the speed of light. Hence, time dilates. So, soldiers go off to battle and come back decades or centuries later. Haldeman squeezes this set of circumstances for lots of pretty interesting chapters, many of which have to do with explaining a world a hundred or several hundred years in the future.

Overall, it’s a good book — worth a read.

A few notes I should mention, however: Haldeman, through his character’s voice, does offer up an editorialized point of view on many of society’s changes. Perfectly fine, we all do it. That’s part of the fun of being an author. However, a few points arise in the book, one where female soldiers were required to sexually service their male counterparts, and one where homosexuality was portrayed as a choice, not a genetic outcome. He presents both of these without the irony that his character seems to view nearly everything else. That seemed a tad odd to me, as though Haldeman were presenting both as natural beliefs. I don’t agree with any point of view where such things are natural, at the same time, I’m not one to get offended by much. But if you, as a reader, are, then beware, there may be a few other pitfalls for your sensibilities wrapped into the text of the story.

Bobby Adair

* If you feel like I’ve been unnecessarily harsh on a masterpiece, or too easy on a terrible POS, please read my Disclaimers, Caveats, and Excuses page before you flame me.

Bobby Adair is a former programmer, with a long-lived passion - and only recently fulfilled desire - for writing. He is the author of the Freedom Fire series, the Slow Burn series and the Ebola K series.

One of Bobby's favorite quotes:

“It’s not just about me and my dream of doing nothing. It’s about all of us...Michael, we don’t have a lot of time on this earth! We weren’t meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about about mission statements.”
- Peter Gibbons, Office Space

You can follow Bobby on Facebook, Twitter and his website.