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sidneyua's review against another edition
Мабуть, зараз не найкращий час для того, щоб читати воєнну фантастику, тим паче що вік книжки дуже сильно дається взнаки: від дивного акценту на куріння маріхуани до ідей примусового проміскуїтету.
todd_bissell's review against another edition
5.0
One of my top 10 book ever, sci-fi or otherwise! //TB
ramsfan1963's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Deeply affected by the Vietnam War, the author has created an anti-war military novel classic. While it was probably unrealistic to have one character survive from the start of the war until the end, which due to relativistic physics meant he had lived for hundreds of years, it gave the story a current viewpoint to how the Earth was changed when the soldier returned centuries later.
mandoreviews's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
8.5/10
I thought this was a great sci-fi war novel. It questions war’s purposes by showing its inadvertent effects.
#MandoReviews
I thought this was a great sci-fi war novel. It questions war’s purposes by showing its inadvertent effects.
#MandoReviews
bperl's review against another edition
4.0
Haldeman pulls from his Vietnam war experience to weave a compelling story of brutal training, hellish combat, and an eternally changing homefront - all in the context of space travel and battle. His use of time dilation is the main selling point, as it well should be. His soldiers are sent to the farthest reaches of the galaxy at the speed of light; they age very little, while earth goes through decades and centuries in the same time period. Fascinating? Absolutely. Chilling? For sure. Worthwhile? Definitely.
sashapasha's review against another edition
2.0
It was a Forever War to get through this book (heh). In large part because it Did Not Age Well.
So many of the predictions for the future were absurd and/or colored by prejudice.
From a purely technological standpoint, I was distracted by things like the fact that humanity had invented space travel but no one had figured out how to remotely detonate a charge, which resulted in trainees getting blown up by accident.
But the socio-political predictions were worse.
I was severely skeptical of the military's mandatory promiscuity -- everyone had to take a different sexual partner every night and there didn't seem to be the option of taking a night off. This was particularly uncomfortable when the marines arrived on a remote base and the male to female ratios became skewed and all the men on the base were apparently waiting to sleep with a small number of exhausted (and presumably uninterested) women. There was no mention of dissatisfaction or the suggestion that it might not have been okay with the women, and the lack of concern about enforced sex came off as a thoroughly male-dominated viewpoint. The whole situation struck me very much as something that would primarily (read: only) appeal to men and only occur to a male author to write with no consideration for, or exploration of, the issue of consent.
When the protagonist returned to Earth, it became clear what the author believed the future would look like: everyone was gay or lived in a nudist farming commune, and the world was essentially some kind of violent dystopia where the chances of getting shot or attacked on the street were incredibly high and the government regulated literally everything in the most nonsensical way possible.
The employment situation was beyond ridiculous — the government handled all job assignments and distributed them based on need, which forced people to implement a system of leasing and subletting jobs until like five different people were all pretending to be one person doing one job, and apparently no one noticed. Maybe such a system could work if everyone was capable of doing every job and no job was dependent on teamwork, interpersonal relationships, knowledge, experience, or really brainpower of any kind, but obviously real life doesn't work that way. This scenario kind of felt like it was written by some Uber-conservative who was deathly afraid that the government would take over the workforce and abolish the free market.
The switch to calories as currency was also absolutely idiotic since not all calories were worth the same (the same number of calories in steak were more valuable than in bread, for example) and people ended up paying in caloric values that didn't add up to the calories in the food they were purchasing, not even considering how that factored for non-food related items. At that point you might as well just use a regular currency that has no symbolic meaning.
But one of the biggest issues with this book was its approach to homosexuality. Such a large part of the book focused on it and you could tell it was something the author was deeply uncomfortable about, with numerous scatterings of homophobic and intolerant comments throughout. In Haldeman's vision of the future, humanity turns to mass adoption of homosexuality as a form of population control. He initially writes about homosexuality like it’s this strange decision that society collectively makes, but then later suggests that people can be (and are) psychologically conditioned into it and that the conditioning can be reversed so people can return to "normal". He made it seem like both a choice and something that could be fixed, and his distaste was made clear via his protagonist's prejudice. For example, the protagonist was shocked and horrified by the discovery that his mother had a female lover, and he somehow thought that it was his business to know his mother's private life and that her lover should have to justify their relationship to him.
Here's one quote among many that showcased the homophobia:
Throw in one final scene of dubious sexual consent and you've got a thoroughly intolerant, bigoted book characteristic of a male viewpoint from the 70's. I can't even say I really liked the thesis of the book -- it was presented in a way that lacked emotional depth and my reaction to it can be summed up as a shrug and a "meh".
So many of the predictions for the future were absurd and/or colored by prejudice.
From a purely technological standpoint, I was distracted by things like the fact that humanity had invented space travel but no one had figured out how to remotely detonate a charge, which resulted in trainees getting blown up by accident.
But the socio-political predictions were worse.
I was severely skeptical of the military's mandatory promiscuity -- everyone had to take a different sexual partner every night and there didn't seem to be the option of taking a night off. This was particularly uncomfortable when the marines arrived on a remote base and the male to female ratios became skewed and all the men on the base were apparently waiting to sleep with a small number of exhausted (and presumably uninterested) women. There was no mention of dissatisfaction or the suggestion that it might not have been okay with the women, and the lack of concern about enforced sex came off as a thoroughly male-dominated viewpoint. The whole situation struck me very much as something that would primarily (read: only) appeal to men and only occur to a male author to write with no consideration for, or exploration of, the issue of consent.
When the protagonist returned to Earth, it became clear what the author believed the future would look like: everyone was gay or lived in a nudist farming commune, and the world was essentially some kind of violent dystopia where the chances of getting shot or attacked on the street were incredibly high and the government regulated literally everything in the most nonsensical way possible.
The employment situation was beyond ridiculous — the government handled all job assignments and distributed them based on need, which forced people to implement a system of leasing and subletting jobs until like five different people were all pretending to be one person doing one job, and apparently no one noticed. Maybe such a system could work if everyone was capable of doing every job and no job was dependent on teamwork, interpersonal relationships, knowledge, experience, or really brainpower of any kind, but obviously real life doesn't work that way. This scenario kind of felt like it was written by some Uber-conservative who was deathly afraid that the government would take over the workforce and abolish the free market.
The switch to calories as currency was also absolutely idiotic since not all calories were worth the same (the same number of calories in steak were more valuable than in bread, for example) and people ended up paying in caloric values that didn't add up to the calories in the food they were purchasing, not even considering how that factored for non-food related items. At that point you might as well just use a regular currency that has no symbolic meaning.
But one of the biggest issues with this book was its approach to homosexuality. Such a large part of the book focused on it and you could tell it was something the author was deeply uncomfortable about, with numerous scatterings of homophobic and intolerant comments throughout. In Haldeman's vision of the future, humanity turns to mass adoption of homosexuality as a form of population control. He initially writes about homosexuality like it’s this strange decision that society collectively makes, but then later suggests that people can be (and are) psychologically conditioned into it and that the conditioning can be reversed so people can return to "normal". He made it seem like both a choice and something that could be fixed, and his distaste was made clear via his protagonist's prejudice. For example, the protagonist was shocked and horrified by the discovery that his mother had a female lover, and he somehow thought that it was his business to know his mother's private life and that her lover should have to justify their relationship to him.
Here's one quote among many that showcased the homophobia:
“We ticked off the things that bothered us: violence, high cost of living, too many people everywhere. I’d have added homolife, but Marygay said I just didn’t appreciate the social dynamic that had led to it; it had been inevitable. The only thing she said she had against it was that it took so many of the prettiest men out of circulation.”
Throw in one final scene of dubious sexual consent and you've got a thoroughly intolerant, bigoted book characteristic of a male viewpoint from the 70's. I can't even say I really liked the thesis of the book -- it was presented in a way that lacked emotional depth and my reaction to it can be summed up as a shrug and a "meh".
abeier's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
masser's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No