Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by sophiaforever
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
I loved this book and it is damn near perfect for what I look for in a sci-fi: Fantastical concepts of the impossible, allegory for real life struggles, deeply engaging writing that makes you FEEL what the character feels. The only reason I call it "damn-near" perfect and not just perfect is because I'm pretty sure the author (at least at the time of the book's writing) is a cartoonish level bigot.
Okay so the book is an allegory for the Vietnam War but it could work just as well for any of America's imperial wars. A bunch of kids are sent off to die in some war they don't care about and doesn't mean anything and come back to a home they don't understand.
The author does a really really good job of showing that the aliens we're fighting aren't the real enemy. I can't remember a single on-page death that is attributed to the aliens we're at war with until you get near the end of the book but there's all kinds of death and dismemberment from equipment failure and human error. Meanwhile, the audience's point of view is completely through the protagonist who has been so thoroughly indoctrinated (literally brainwashing) that he really holds no ill will for the army despite them constantly making his life worse. On the surface this is a defensive war but read between the lines and that statement is at the very least questionable.
Something real world soldiers report upon returning home is this sense of feeling disjointed from time. They were in combat for several years and life at home moved on without them. The way the author does this with the book is great because there's no ftl but they're traveling at relativistic speeds, they have to deal with time dilation. After their first tour of duty, they've aged only two years but twenty have passed back home. They get back to Earth (in the futuristic year of 2007) and it's a dystopia: food rationing, crime is so out of control that you need a body guard to go anywhere, and worst of all is almost unspeakable in how they've dealt with over population... (here's where we get to the cartoonish bigotry and minor spoilers to explain it) To deal with over population the UN has managed to successfully convince a whole third of the population to be... Home. Of. Sexual!
Dun duh DUUUNNNN!!!!!
Sorry for the dramatics but that's genuinely how the book treats it. And like, it ends up being kinda hilarious with how much the book wants you to be on board with this as a bad thing and just expects you to agree with it's conclusion that it is. He does another tour and by the 2400s EVERYONE is HOMOSEXUAL (humans are grown in vats) and he's just like "I'm the only normal human left" and it's like, you expect him to at least explain it but if you were to have a conversation with a book it would go like this:
"Everyone in the future is a homosexual."
"Well in the future we mostly just say gay, but alright."
"And that's bad."
"Oh?"
"Real bad."
"Doesn't seem like it would be that bad."
"No it's awful."
"Why?"
"Because it is!"
Like, I've read other books by bigots before and they at least try to explain to you why you should hate the way they do but he's so up his own ass about it that he just EXPECTS you to agree with him that it's as bad as letting old people die because of medical rationing. Anyway, as a certified homosexual, I found it funny because the rest of the book is so good so why is this part so glaringly awful?
Like, if the bigotry parts were written with as much skill as the rest of the book I would be offended but he's so inept at it that I'm just laughing at him.
Okay so the book is an allegory for the Vietnam War but it could work just as well for any of America's imperial wars. A bunch of kids are sent off to die in some war they don't care about and doesn't mean anything and come back to a home they don't understand.
The author does a really really good job of showing that the aliens we're fighting aren't the real enemy. I can't remember a single on-page death that is attributed to the aliens we're at war with until you get near the end of the book but there's all kinds of death and dismemberment from equipment failure and human error. Meanwhile, the audience's point of view is completely through the protagonist who has been so thoroughly indoctrinated (literally brainwashing) that he really holds no ill will for the army despite them constantly making his life worse. On the surface this is a defensive war but read between the lines and that statement is at the very least questionable.
Something real world soldiers report upon returning home is this sense of feeling disjointed from time. They were in combat for several years and life at home moved on without them. The way the author does this with the book is great because there's no ftl but they're traveling at relativistic speeds, they have to deal with time dilation. After their first tour of duty, they've aged only two years but twenty have passed back home. They get back to Earth (in the futuristic year of 2007) and it's a dystopia: food rationing, crime is so out of control that you need a body guard to go anywhere, and worst of all is almost unspeakable in how they've dealt with over population... (here's where we get to the cartoonish bigotry and minor spoilers to explain it) To deal with over population the UN has managed to successfully convince a whole third of the population to be... Home. Of. Sexual!
Dun duh DUUUNNNN!!!!!
Sorry for the dramatics but that's genuinely how the book treats it. And like, it ends up being kinda hilarious with how much the book wants you to be on board with this as a bad thing and just expects you to agree with it's conclusion that it is. He does another tour and by the 2400s EVERYONE is HOMOSEXUAL (humans are grown in vats) and he's just like "I'm the only normal human left" and it's like, you expect him to at least explain it but if you were to have a conversation with a book it would go like this:
"Everyone in the future is a homosexual."
"Well in the future we mostly just say gay, but alright."
"And that's bad."
"Oh?"
"Real bad."
"Doesn't seem like it would be that bad."
"No it's awful."
"Why?"
"Because it is!"
Like, I've read other books by bigots before and they at least try to explain to you why you should hate the way they do but he's so up his own ass about it that he just EXPECTS you to agree with him that it's as bad as letting old people die because of medical rationing. Anyway, as a certified homosexual, I found it funny because the rest of the book is so good so why is this part so glaringly awful?
Like, if the bigotry parts were written with as much skill as the rest of the book I would be offended but he's so inept at it that I'm just laughing at him.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Gun violence, Rape, Violence, Medical trauma, War, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Homophobia
The book pretty much just openly says "being gay is bad." Like as a literal quote. I don't want that one thing to dissuade you from reading the book because it's about a paragraph worth of material sprinkled in throughout the novel and it's so stupid and ham fisted that it's hard to take seriously and the rest of the novel is just amazing but you should know it's there.