The Forever War is a science fiction novel written by Joe Haldeman. It tells the story of William Mandela, a unwilling soldier forced to fight a war against humanity's future enemies. However, due to time dilation, William is aging months while Earth is aging centuries. The ultimate struggle he faces is his own identity between a war he fights, and the strange and foreign home he returns to.
This book is a pure allusion upon Joe Haldeman's experiences in the Vietnam war. The book is generally anti-military, painting the government construct as a soulless automaton that fails to serve the best interests of humanity at large. It can only wage war in a thinly veiled lie of self preservation, while the only true motive is found in avoiding self contradiction.
The novel seems to be written for science fiction fans, but influences them by showing how a military abuses its soldiers. In the end, pacifism is the main moral of the book, as humanity is blamed for starting the war. Trigger happy nationals were what caused the forever war, showing that the government cannot control its human nature when it is most important.
This book could also appeal to Vietnam veterans, for it shows that they are not alone in being exploited as tools. With their morality destroyed by fighting against their will to survive, Haldeman shows that true comfort, no matter how desperate, can be found in the presence of comrades.
Haldeman's true purpose is to expose readers to the exploitation of soldiers in a petty war. It shows this by detailing scenes of death in a passive and vivid way:
"It grazed the top of his helmet and disappeared with a faint pop. He took one step backward and toppled over the edge of the crater, trailing an arc of blood and brains. Lifeless, spread-eagled, he slid halfway to the bottom, shoveling dirt into the perfectly symmetrical hole where the bubble had chewed through plastic, hair, skin, bone, and brain" (p.72).
It is through these scenes of death and destruction that we revolt and feel disgust for the situation and sympathy for the soldiers. The reader is forced to feel more and more sympathetic to William, as he is continuously subjected to worse and worse situations. All the while, he is perfectly aware of it all.
One example is the implemented memories that William has triggered during combat. He knows what is being done, and we can only feel sorry for him:
"My mind reeled under the strong pseudomemories: shaggy hulks that were Taurans (not at all what we now knew they looked like) boarding a colonists' vessel, eating babies while mothers watched in screaming terror (the colonists never took babies; they couldn't stand the acceleration), then raping the women to death with huge purple members (ridiculous that they would feel desire for humans), holding the men down while they plucked the flesh from their living bodies and gobbled it (as if they could assimilate the alien protein)...a hundred grisly details as sharply remembered as the events of a minute ago, ridiculously overdone and logically absurd" (p.71).
Scenes like this appear all over the book, with William fully aware of the situation he is subjected to. Again, it is the sadness we feel in his observations that we learn not to envy the glorified version of war, merely to only observe it with disgust. The thinly veiled prospect of the science fiction setting does little to hide the true nature of the book.
Haldeman writes in this style throughout the book, making it familiar to the reader. At times it is highly pessimistic and depressing. Other times, readers can find the context extremely amusing. There are certain jokes that are inserted at various points in the book that distract the reader in sympathetic fun:
"Actually, she was the one with the new trick. The French corkscrew, she called it. She wouldn't tell me who taught it to her, though. I'd like to shake his hand. Once I got my strength back" (p.32).
The tone of the book likes to sporadically switch in accordance with the current setting of the scene. However, this is done very subtly to avoid confusion. It is done very successfully, and cannot be noticed by those not specifically looking for it. This no doubt contributes to making The Forever War Haldeman's most popular book.
Compared to other science fiction novels, The Forever War remains a classic. It is one of the very few modern space operas that lay the foundations for trends found in other novels today. Its primary achievement is the explanation of fictional science.
Most early science fiction novels describe a machine or concept purely with observation. The Forever War changes this by going deep into the fiction, explaining the concept with numbers and figures:
"'It's not as though we'd actually be lost,' he said with a rather wicked expression. 'We could zip up in the tanks, aim for Earth and blast away at full power. We'd get there in about three months, ship time.' 'Sure,' I said. 'But 150,000 years in the future.' At twenty-five gees, you get to nine-tenths the speed of light in less than a month. From then on, you're in the arms of Saint Albert'" (p.203).
This is important because it distinguishes between letting a reader use their imagination, giving the reader a vivid sense of what has already been imagined, or doing both. This choice allows an author to decide how a story is made to appeal to the reader. It is their choice on how to make a book captivating.
This trend setter has since been used to great effect in modern science fiction novels, such as the Halo series of books. Even though they are written by different authors, they retain the unique quality of explaining the fictional sciences in various depths. This serves the purpose of immersing the readers in a unique way, depending on the author's original intent.
The Forever War is a pure anti-war book at heart. Even though its thin disguise hides a darker reality of the Vietnam War, it still serves as a fun and light novel. If you can get past the obvious themes and allusions, it becomes one of the most memorable books you have ever read.
