Wednesday, 11 July 2012 10:59 am
Book Review: The Forever War
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deckardcanineFinally, another sci-fi that relies on more than imagination! Joe Haldeman used his Vietnam War experience and even started his story shortly enough into the future that Vietnam vets could participate. He later admitted (in the foreword of my edition) that that makes it kind of funny now, but I'm quite used to sci-fis set in what's no longer the future. Of slightly more concern is the cover art, showing a soldier in a Vietnam-esque jungle that doesn't turn up in the story.
The first sentence, a quotation, drew me in: "Tonight we're going to show you eight ways to kill a man silently." From there we get the informal, sometimes profane first-person narration of William Mandella, possibly the only man who sees the war from start to finish. Yeah, not an entirely accurate title. Oddly enough, nobody within the story ever says "Forever War," nor does anyone openly predict even in jest that it will last forever.
Why does the war take so long? Because the human soldiers have to travel light years to fight the Tauran race interfering with their colonization. There actually isn't a whole lot of fighting, tho the battles that do come are as exciting as you may expect.
It turns out that aliens are not the scariest thing Mandella faces. They're mysterious but rather predictable and seldom powerful enough to incite despair. Almost as many soldiers fall victim to hostile planetary conditions as to the designated enemy.
No, arguably the most nightmarish aspect -- albeit the kind of nightmare from which I as a reader was not eager to wake up -- is what the human government does, both inside and outside the military. Soldiers are treated as resources with little regard for individual feelings, sometimes shocking even the hardened Mandella with short-sightedness -- or rather long-sightedness, as the higher-ups plan in terms of centuries. Thanks to relativity (which herein works a little differently from present RL theory), one year in Mandella's frame of reference can be much longer on Earth, and the changes he learns of mostly perturb and alienate him.
What changes? Well, for a hint, think what happens when we desperately send all our best and brightest away. Also consider how dependent the economy becomes on the war. And despite this obsession, people back home learn very little of what goes on in space.
It's clear that religion has declined in this future; in fact, I recall very few mentions of anything religious aside from exclamations. Overpopulation becomes such a problem that the enhanced bureaucracy (which leads to a severe uptick in crime) encourages and then mandates conditioning for "homolife," which Mandella does not fully tolerate. We never do learn why they don't take the military approach of sterilization instead. Incidentally, from the beginning, soldiers represent the genders quite equally and regularly practice promiscuity at bedtime. Mandella nevertheless finds romance in a favorite partner, but of course their jobs don't make it easy to stay together.
The part that most strains credulity, tho still not that much for the genre, comes at the end. All things considered, it's surprisingly happy after so much cynicism. And that's fine by me. I'm relieved not to see another Stranger in a Strange Land-type "happy" ending.
For my next read, I picked something much longer than my last several books: Frank Herbert's Dune. I've been putting it off partly because I'd seen the lame David Lynch movie, but the first 20 pages tell me I'll enjoy the book more.
The first sentence, a quotation, drew me in: "Tonight we're going to show you eight ways to kill a man silently." From there we get the informal, sometimes profane first-person narration of William Mandella, possibly the only man who sees the war from start to finish. Yeah, not an entirely accurate title. Oddly enough, nobody within the story ever says "Forever War," nor does anyone openly predict even in jest that it will last forever.
Why does the war take so long? Because the human soldiers have to travel light years to fight the Tauran race interfering with their colonization. There actually isn't a whole lot of fighting, tho the battles that do come are as exciting as you may expect.
It turns out that aliens are not the scariest thing Mandella faces. They're mysterious but rather predictable and seldom powerful enough to incite despair. Almost as many soldiers fall victim to hostile planetary conditions as to the designated enemy.
No, arguably the most nightmarish aspect -- albeit the kind of nightmare from which I as a reader was not eager to wake up -- is what the human government does, both inside and outside the military. Soldiers are treated as resources with little regard for individual feelings, sometimes shocking even the hardened Mandella with short-sightedness -- or rather long-sightedness, as the higher-ups plan in terms of centuries. Thanks to relativity (which herein works a little differently from present RL theory), one year in Mandella's frame of reference can be much longer on Earth, and the changes he learns of mostly perturb and alienate him.
What changes? Well, for a hint, think what happens when we desperately send all our best and brightest away. Also consider how dependent the economy becomes on the war. And despite this obsession, people back home learn very little of what goes on in space.
It's clear that religion has declined in this future; in fact, I recall very few mentions of anything religious aside from exclamations. Overpopulation becomes such a problem that the enhanced bureaucracy (which leads to a severe uptick in crime) encourages and then mandates conditioning for "homolife," which Mandella does not fully tolerate. We never do learn why they don't take the military approach of sterilization instead. Incidentally, from the beginning, soldiers represent the genders quite equally and regularly practice promiscuity at bedtime. Mandella nevertheless finds romance in a favorite partner, but of course their jobs don't make it easy to stay together.
The part that most strains credulity, tho still not that much for the genre, comes at the end. All things considered, it's surprisingly happy after so much cynicism. And that's fine by me. I'm relieved not to see another Stranger in a Strange Land-type "happy" ending.
For my next read, I picked something much longer than my last several books: Frank Herbert's Dune. I've been putting it off partly because I'd seen the lame David Lynch movie, but the first 20 pages tell me I'll enjoy the book more.
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I've read Forever War a dozen or so times; I don't think I agree with you on all points, but I may have seen details through repetition.
One scene left out of my copy of the novel that was in the original version was a scene at the end, when Man tries to recruit Mandella to be cloned, in case Man needs a warrior again. Mandella refuses and tells him to try the other returnees. Man tells him that they had all said No, too, he was the last choice for the warrior reserve. Was that in your copy?
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened in, say, the Punic Wars, if it had been possible for two sides to say "Why did you start this thing?" "Who, me?"
I've re-read Dune even more times than Forever War, but my advice would be to read it and ignore the sequels, prequels, and the rest of the industry that it generated. YMMV.
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Judging from the sheer size of Dune, I won't read anything else in the series anyway, even if I love it.
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no subject
What Sleepy John said regarding Dune.
One more book to add to your reading list: Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. The sequals Green Mars and Blue Mars are weaker, IMHO, but still good.
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