My library hold for The Devils was taking longer than expected, so I took the opportunity to catch up on an older Hugo and Nebula Award (and lots of other awards) winner. A book that is featured on so many “best of all time” lists that I almost felt odd not having read it yet. The Forever War was a surprisingly quick read that offered a lot of surprises for me. Both good and bad. My main take away, sadly, was: This is it?
THE FOREVER WAR
by Joe Haldeman
Published: Gollancz, 1974
Paperback: 241 pages
Audiobook: 9 hours, 18 minutes
Series: The Forever War #1
My rating: 6/10
Opening line: “Tonight we’re going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man.”
The Earth’s leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand—despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy that they would oppose is inscrutable, unconquerable, and very far away. A reluctant conscript drafted into an elite Military unit, Private William Mandella has been propelled through space and time to fight in the distant thousand-year conflict; to perform his duties without rancor and even rise up through military ranks. Pvt. Mandella is willing to do whatever it takes to survive the ordeal and return home. But “home” may be even more terrifying than battle, because, thanks to the time dilation caused by space travel, Mandella is aging months while the Earth he left behind is aging centuries.
This novel was written in response to the Vietnam War, and while that shows, it wasn’t as obvious as I had feared. Feared because it would date the book significantly. But it turns out war, no matter during what time period, is always equally absurd to some degree.
William Mandella is in the army and they are fighting an alien race called the Taurans. Due to the time dilation, his disconnect to “home” is a lot stronger than a regular army vet’s disconnect would be. I’ve read war novels before and one of my favorites was All Quiet on the Western Front, specifically because it shows that coming home doesn’t feel like it should. It’s not all joy at being reunited with loved ones, having a comfy bed to sleep in and not having to walk in ill-fitting boots all day. There’s a psychological line drawn between the war and home and Joe Haldeman describes this very well in his book. He turned it up to eleven.
When Mandella returns home after a couple of years at the front, Earth has moved on not just those two years. A lot more time has passed (relativity, and all that), so Mandella literally returns to a place that no longer feels like the one he left. Technology has changed, the people he knew have aged more than him (or died), and society as a whole just works differently.
These were my favorite aspects of the novel because they demonstrated what war does to a person, how it takes away their sense of “home” entirely. The choices made to show how society has changed were a bit odd, though.
I was completely shocked by the way sexuality is handled in this book. And yes, I am aware every person and every book is a product of its time, but what’s with all the weird ideas about sexuality?! In The Forever War, at some point homosexuality becomes a thing. This was offensive, first of all, because it’s treated like it’s a choice. You can just decide to be homosexual and enter a gay relationship. The reasons stated are controlling population or some such bull. Which still wouldn’t make a straight man able to fall in love with another man by snapping his fingers. I have no idea what it was like reading this book when it came out, maybe it even helped with the acceptance of queer folk, though I doubt it.
Add to that that our protagonist Mandella never gets comfortable with the idea. At least not when we’re talking about two gay men (or men pretending to be gay):
I’d gotten used to open female homosex in the months since we’d left Earth. Even stopped resenting the loss of potential partners. The men together still gave me a chill, though.
Much more interesting and less creepy were the various other changes to society. The way money and social insurance were handled, the way Mandella wants to quit the army but can’t because Earth has moved to a place that makes it necessary for him to go back. I loved (you know how I mean it) how a regular life on Earth becomes hopeless, leaving Mandella no choice but to go back to war.
The war itself and the various battle scenes were not for me. I simply don’t enjoy reading about the diameter of this bomb or the time it takes to launch that rocket. It was all fairly technical and never touched me on an emotional level.
Which is mostly due to the flatness of the characters. We get to know Mandella a little bit, but I honestly couldn’t tell you what kind of person he is, just how he handles certain situations during war. His friendship/romance with Marygay could have been truly great, and it was actually the only thing that made me feel something in the later parts of the book. He and Marygay lose many friends during their long – looooong – time at war, but they somehow always end up surviving. At one point, they are among the last of their company, the last humans who first left Earth during their time, who still know the culture and language the way it was then. So in a way, she’s his anquor, and he is hers. Getting sent on different missions, or one staying behind on Earth while the other goes off on another space trip, feels gutting!
I would have enjoyed more information about the aliens, more side characters that I can get to know and care for so their deaths actually have meaning, and definitely more focus on the relationship between Mandella and Marygay. I’d trade those any day for the long battle descriptions, even though some of the technology involved was pretty cool.
The ending managed to squeeze a couple of brownie points out of me, because it manages to hit that emotional mark I had been missing for so long. It would have hit even harder had the characters been more developed, but still, it was a nice way to end the book.
My overall impression, though, was: Is this it? Why did everyone freak out over this book? Am I missing something? Is it really just because it’s old and I live in a world too far separated from the one Joe Haldeman wrote this in? I won’t ever find out, but I can only judge the book from my time. And from where I’m sitting, it’s an okay book. It has a few cool ideas, it does the whole coming home from war to a different world really well, but other than that, I don’t see what’s the big deal. It was alright.
MY RATING: 6/10 – Good (I’m being generous because the ending was so nice)
