I started reading The Forever War because it saw that a lot of people viewed it as Haldeman's answer to Heinlein's Starship Troopers, which I enjoyed but disagreed with the philosophy of. I was aware going into it that the book was informed by Haldeman's experience in Vietnam, but didn't know much else about what to expect.
Holy shit, this was a good book. Mandella's increasing levels of isolation from those around him as he continues to be thrown forward in time by the effects of traveling at relativistic speeds is heartbreaking. He's continually surrounded by people who might as well be aliens because of how different the world they've grown up in was. Throughout it all, his one touchstone to his own world is Marygay. When they are given orders to different parts of the galaxy, they know that time dilation will prevent them from ever seeing each other again. The reveal at the end that Marygay is waiting of him on a ship circling a planet at near light speed so that she's effectively frozen in time was an unexpected and beautiful one.
Also, the tragedy of this pacifist getting swept up in a war he didn't agree with and getting his life so thoroughly upended that he enlists again when his first tour is over is incredibly written. The fact that the war lasts nearly a millenium and is exactly as pointless as he always felt it was is incredibly poignant and the fact that this is revealed with all the subtlety of a rhinoceros in a nitroglycerine warehouse is amazing.
I thought the story wrapped up so well that I'm hesitant to pickup the next book in the series. This feels like one of the most complete stories I've ever read and I'm worried that the sequel will detract from it.
Anyone else feel the same way? Can anyone weigh in on whether or not the sequels are worth reading? Any recommendations of similar books?
by Wolfhound1142
45 Comments
I enjoyed this book FAR more than Starship Troopers. Troopers was very bland for me, and I never really felt connected to any of the characters. I was very invested in Mandella, though. It was very well written, and I loved the concept. I might actually pick up the next book because I didn’t even realize there was more than one!
I loved it! I didn’t think the sequels were nearly as good, but I love his other books!
The bit when the go back to earth with the farm and such was amazing. Just the world building and the culture shock.
I read it decades ago and all I can remember is the microwave near the end of the book. It haunts me still.
It’s one of my favourite sci fi novels.
The dry style reminded me of Starship Troopers (the novel) for the Vietnam generation. Definitely highlights the futility of war in the modern era when the real conflict is holding things together back home. Got a kick out of all the future gay people bullying the protagonist.
Also tripped me out when I watched Light-year shortly after reading it. Some shared DNA there.
Yeah I need to read this one again.
The graphic novel adaptation is amazing as well. It’s so close to the original that Haldeman is credited as the writer, and the art really captures the visceral fear of the characters’ fear and awe.
Time dilation and suspended animation is my jam. Loved it but I thought the ending was definite enough.
Altered Carbon series has kind of that lost in time type vibe but it isn’t really anything like The Forever War.
Listened to the audiobook last week (currently all three books are available in audible UK plus catalogue!)
I thought The Forever War was fantastic! It kept me engaged through to the end, and I loved the time slips and the adjustments the main c had to make when finding himself in societies that had progressed a couple hundred years after each deployment. I particularly enjoyed when they went to earth the first time before re-enlisting again with Mary.
“Forever Peace” I feel is also a great book, same author, not exactly the same world but also brilliant, no real connections but I think he just used his world from book one as a sandbox. However I would completely avoid Forever Free. I gave it a shot, as generally I don’t read reviews etc and I liked the other two, but ugh. Ruins the characters from The Forever War imo.
Read it when it came out. You summarized it nicely. One thing I remember is that through the effects of time dilation they never knew who started the war.
Going on memory here. At the end peace comes because the majority of humanity has melded into a collective mind. That leaves Mandella and the humans who remain from fighting the war as outcasts. They are given a reservation which is pleasant and they can live fulfilling lives but they will never fit in again. It’s a metaphor for all those who have had to go to war and can’t share their experiences.
His other books are not as good.
You sound just like me when I first read the forever war! <3 it was a very profound experience for me and I still absolutely adore the book. I also felt it was complete and didn’t even find out about the sequels until way later. They are not bad, but honestly – don’t read them now. Give yourself some time and read something else in between if you want to read the sequels.
I mean you pretty much summed up all my feelings on the subject right there. It was a beautiful and haunting book. Using time dilation to explain the culture shock that veterans feel when they get home was really clever. Obviously a big piece of this book was heavily inspired by Haldeman’s own experiences with Vietnam, and his relationship with his wife who is named Mary Gay. It’s a really wonderful book.
I decided not to read the direct sequel Forever Free, which was published like 20 years later simply because I didn’t feel like I wanted more from the original. I would note, however, that the book Forever Peace, while named similarly, is actually not a sequel and not even in the same universe. Probably worth reading that one if you liked Haldeman’s writing. It won both Hugo and Nebula awards.
Armor by Steakley is also good.
I agree, one of my favorite Science Fiction Books I’ve read. The social commentary is great, the anti-war sentiment, I love the descriptions of the space battles and the ground action. I’m in the same situation with the sequal, I bought it but have yet to read it because I’m worried it can’t measure up.
This has been one of my favorite scifi novels for as long as I can remember. My dad had a copy that I read as a boy, then transfixed by the science and the tech, but reading it as an adult I connect more strongly to the themes of social and cultural alienation and the preciousness of relations and friendship, across time and space. I don’t understand why this has never been turned into a movie, but perhaps it’s for the better; it’d get screwed up beyond recognition like Asimov’s Foundation.
I don’t see it as much a response to *Starship Trooper* as much as a different perspective on war. An intimate and personal perspective. I absolutely love the book and I can easily see why it belongs in the holy trinity of old school Military Sci-Fi (*Starship Trooper, Forever War, Armor*). In *Starship Trooper*, the war is more background and Johnny felt more like those kids who signed up when the Iraq War first began after 9/11. All ideologies and trust in the system. *Forever Wars* feels more grounded and brings more than “war is hell” . It also shows how different each generation views a protracted war, how out of touch or dumb the system can be, and how society can change enough to leave many servicemen behind. I guess it feels like one book is from the perspective of an enlistee and one is from that of a draftee.
Also, as a note, the sequels are not really sequels, but new stories that bring further commentary of war.
Now you gotta read the other book from the trinity, [*Armor* by John Steakley](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armor_(novel)). This one further touches into the psyche of soldiers and how some lose the pains of being a man by being a beast (or as the character in the book calls it, “the Machine”). Where Johnny is straight lace, Will is nonchalant, Felix is broken. A man who does anything to survive impossible odds.
A series I read a while back that kinda touches all three I always recommend is the [Orphanage](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/395738.Orphanage) series. Definitely a homage to old school military sci-fi. When reading, you will quickly recognize the tropes, but further along in the series, it slowly becomes its own thing.
It’s important to remember the context in which the book was written too, which is basically a commentary on the Vietnam War and its pointlessness, and its destruction, and lack of knowing why you were killing the people you were tasked to kill. Add in the mind-bending effects of time dilation, it was incredible.
Reminds me of the last book of the Three Body Problem where the protagonist is basically skipping like a stone across the flow of time.
Can’t recommend this book enough, it was tight, compelling, and meaningful.
Haldeman has a somehow very clean style that’s just exemplary. Man can write.
>!When I found out (with Mandella) that Marygay wasn’t perhaps lost to him after all…I don’t mind saying I misted up a bit.!<
“Sequels” or homages … Forever Peace is a different playbook entirely, instead of the enhanced armor suits the protagonists are more or less ‘drone pilots’ in simpods safe back home while their teleoperated ‘bodies’ do the fighting. Other than that I won’t spoil it for you. I don’t see it as a sequel, but an alternate take in a way.
Forever Free is the direct sequel. I would say yes, it’s worth it. It takes you in a different direction entirely, engages in the larger question of how we and the Taurans even came to be in conflict in an unexpected way. While it has a side-element that sort of didn’t fit as well to the main story (to me at least), …I don’t think it detracts from the original as a sequel.
I need to re-read this book apparently! I remember really enjoying it. Thanks OP!
I started March off reading Forever War and finished Forever Peace last night. Absolutely loved both of them.
Have you read Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes? I worked in a bookstore little over 10 years ago and I read the ARC before it came out, fantastic.
Also, you could try Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers… not based on the war in Vietnam but instead Iraq War
I enjoyed it but I feel its a bit rapey with the compulsory sex – especially the scene where the three female soldiers had to service a contingent of 20 or so men who had been without their own war wives for a while. It seems like something that flew well when scifi was an all male audience for the most part but is a very alarming attitude nowadays. I have a hard time rereading it.
Terrific book, one of my favorites
I really enjoyed it and also have only read the first book. Curious to see what people think of the next 2.
I read it decades ago and really enjoyed it. So many interesting ideas..
I loved it but I really wish the last chapter just… didn’t exist. The tacked on happy ending made possible by soft science fantasy gobbledygook coming totally out of left-field really undermines the rest of the book.
Great post, have you read The Stars, My Destination? I feel I liked them for similar reasons.
Skipped the spoilers, bought it on your recommendation.
Loved it. Thought I’d really dig Haldeman’s work and got a lot of the mass market paperbacks. Turns out I didn’t jive with it though.
SLIGHT SPOILER BELOW
The whole “everyone is gay” turn towards the end always did feel….odd to say the least.
I loved this book. I read it several times. I thought it was interesting how meaningless the war was and how time dilation just amplified the meaninglessness. Of course that was Joe’s point in writing the story.
I have never read any of the sequels. I find very few sequels improve the story and as you said – this story seemed finished.
I love Forever War, and as a veteran it felt like a very authentic and relatable war novel. I actually guessed that the author was a veteran and looked him up after I finished reading to find that he served in Vietnam.
My partner thought it was boring, so I’ve wondered how other non-veterans enjoy this book. I really felt for the Sergeant that the protagonist served under.
The fact that the doctor that delivered the baby at the end was the same doctor that was with them since near the beginning of the story made me oddly happy.
Absolutely DO NOT pick up Forever Free. Its one of the worst books Ive ever read. It’s second half is just spent rendering the ideas of the first book irrelevant. It’s so terrible that it can’t be considered canon imo.
I read it maybe 20 years ago and remember enjoying it quite a bit. But I don’t remember the specific details about the novel other than the effects of a war fought across time due to time dilation.
Man, Forever War was really great and kind of surprised to see it discussed so much here given that old school sci-fi doesn’t get as much attention these days. But yeah I agree it is a great book along with really doing well at encapsulating the veteran outside of his time. On the one hand, this book is very much a product of it’s time when it comes to the “free love” hippy culture of the 70s and predicting a world where heterosexuality somehow becomes counterculture vs the norm. It was one of the weaknesses of the book but also very much a product of it’s time and where people might have seen the “free love” movement going. But I also think it did really well at portraying the alienness of surviving the time jumps and culture shocks. To me I’ve very much seen it as an anti-war love story and one of the best of it’s kind.
I read it a couple weeks ago for the first time (I’ve been reading scifi for about 45 years). I picked it up because it gets recommended so often and it got Nebula and Hugo prizes. I don’t usually read military scifi.
Maybe my expectations were set too high, but I think it is overrated.
The year it won nebula (1975) it beat “dhalgren” and “The Mote in God’s Eye” . IMHO both of these are far better books.
To me even “The Computer Connection” (also nominated that year) is better, but then I am a Bester fan, so there is that.
So out of the books nominated that year I have read 4, and of those 4, “The Forever War” was my least liked.
I understand the Vietnam war was a big factor at that time, which is probably why it did so well, but it has not dated well (sex obviously), the author seems to think sexual preference is wholly determined by nurture as opposed to nature.
I have also recently re-read “Catch-22” and this still stands up. I think as antiwar books go, I’d rate “Catch-22” or “Slaughterhouse 5” above “Forever War”, and those two are both older books.
I read it years before I joined the military and deployed overseas. I found it to be amazing.
Not sure I could get through it now.
I absolutely adored this book. I’ve read some of his other stuff and it’s also good, but this one is absolutely the magnum opus.
I like the book. The profound feeling of coming home and nothing is the same. War becomes your home because war is unchanging.
Also pragmaticly gay earth is a fun twist.
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Have you read the Rama series?
Brilliant novel. Captures the struggle of trying to come home to a world that’s unrecognisable, that doesn’t value you or relate to you anymore.
Seeing a lot of military sci-fi fans have issues with it but I think FW is really Lit Sci-fi disguised and Military sci-fi. Haldermans interest in war is impact on the individual not the details of war and strategy so expect an emotional journey rather than military epic.
The spiritual sequel is even better. Forever Peace is a exceptionally ahead of its time in it’s depiction of our new relationship with war. Removed, disinterested and unable to affect events yet still being drained and warped by it.
I thought it was very good, but I didn’t care for the ending. There shouldn’t have been a happy or even hopeful ending at all.
My father, who was in the army during Vietnam, lists this book as his absolute favorite. He talked about it for years before I finally read it myself, then gave him a copy as a father’s day gift.
I read it as a teenager and it really shook me. It says so much about humanity and war and the future, while keeping it so very human and personal and not heavy handed.
Top shelf sci Fi from the genre’s Golden age.
I just finished it in a couple of days and enjoyed it a lot – it was quite engaging and I was entertained by the author’s vision of what future society would be like (when Mandella is back on Earth, it’s basically nowadays). He misses the mark by quite a margin in terms of technology – nobody back in the 70s seems to have been able to predict mobile phones, but gets some societal developments right, e.g. the normalisation of homosexuality. I was amazed at his prescience when at one point it was revealed that new pronouns have been made up (even though in a different context than our present-day situation). I also found the bits about hypnotic and chemical indoctrination more than a little disturbing.
However, the book struck me as more of a deliberate commentary on the Vietnam war than as an attempt at accurate prediction or complex storytelling. When you take a step back and look at the plot as a whole, it’s more or less quite simple (the last twist notwithstanding) – a series of prolonged descriptions of unexciting activities interspersed with some action. That’s kind of the point, though, I guess – getting across how dull and pointless military life is (“Mostly boring,” I said automatically. “When you aren’t bored, you’re scared.”).
Some elements I found unrealistic – for example everybody just blindly obeying orders instead of mutinying and deserting. When the disgruntled first-wave veterans got to command positions, why didn’t someone just commandeer a ship and settle on some planet away from it all? In addition, I couldn’t really believe that a war would go on for a thousand years without anyone attempting to communicate with the other side. Haldeman explains that it was because the Taurans were only able to get through to another cloned race, but at the same time sort of acknowledges the weakness of this plot device – Mandella thinks “it sounded a little fishy, but I was willing to accept it.”
All in all, a good book, though. Can’t yet make up my mind whether to give “Forever free” a shot – some comments here suggest it’s fine, others say they’ve purged it from their mind :D.