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A review by davesag
Peace and War by Joe Haldeman
3.0
As a kid I used to spend a lot of time hanging out in the SciFi section of bookshops, browsing, reading, and occasionally even buying books. The Forever War was one I picked up in a shop and read the first 20 or so pages of, then put it back. It didn't grab me back then. Many (maybe 40) years later I came across the whole three books (I didn't even know there were three) in one volume and figured, well it's a classic and even though I gave up on it, aged maybe 8 years old, maybe 58 year old me would grok it.
And look it's not bad, but it doesn't stand up these days. When it was written, back in the 1960/70s, sexual politics was barely a thing. Everyone, even those of a pretty hard left-wing persuasion, was, by today's standards, pretty conservative. There were no gay rights back then and it really shows. It's a huge plot point in the book that the UN forces everyone to be gay in order to control population growth. It's so weirdly specific and ridiculous with hindsight, and alas not in an ironic or comical way. It seems that, back then, people didn't see homosexuality as something someone is, but something someone chooses. The author goes to great pains to reassure his readers of his hero's macho hetro ways, and the angst he suffers as he discovers he's one of the few straight people left in the galaxy. It's actually laugh out loud in some points.
The first book, which kicks off in the far future of 1997, is pretty good fun (above mentioned sexual hangups aside), and works well as an analog of the plight of soldiers returning from Vietnam to discover how much society has changed, how much they don't like it, and thus they return to the battlefield. The Forever War uses relativistic time dilation as a plot device to really drive this point home. This is the real basis for the book's reputation as a classic of sci-fi.
The second book is a direct sequel to the first and, while kind of fun, is mostly silly. Still that said it clearly influenced a lot of other writers, Adrien Tchaikovsky and John Scalzi come to mind specifically. But it's not a patch on the first book alas. Tho it does end, um, interestingly.
The final book was clearly written maybe 20 years later and tells the story of how humans became 'Man' - the hive mind that humanity becomes while our hero is away fighting his wars. It's okay but drags a bit, and, much like the first book and the gays, this one has some curious racial politics that feel very out of place now.
If I was scoring each book individually I'd give FW 3.5 stars, FF 3 stars and FP 2.5 stars. Still fans of science fiction should be conversant with at least the first book as it was massively influential and has some interesting ideas.
And look it's not bad, but it doesn't stand up these days. When it was written, back in the 1960/70s, sexual politics was barely a thing. Everyone, even those of a pretty hard left-wing persuasion, was, by today's standards, pretty conservative. There were no gay rights back then and it really shows. It's a huge plot point in the book that the UN forces everyone to be gay in order to control population growth. It's so weirdly specific and ridiculous with hindsight, and alas not in an ironic or comical way. It seems that, back then, people didn't see homosexuality as something someone is, but something someone chooses. The author goes to great pains to reassure his readers of his hero's macho hetro ways, and the angst he suffers as he discovers he's one of the few straight people left in the galaxy. It's actually laugh out loud in some points.
The first book, which kicks off in the far future of 1997, is pretty good fun (above mentioned sexual hangups aside), and works well as an analog of the plight of soldiers returning from Vietnam to discover how much society has changed, how much they don't like it, and thus they return to the battlefield. The Forever War uses relativistic time dilation as a plot device to really drive this point home. This is the real basis for the book's reputation as a classic of sci-fi.
The second book is a direct sequel to the first and, while kind of fun, is mostly silly. Still that said it clearly influenced a lot of other writers, Adrien Tchaikovsky and John Scalzi come to mind specifically. But it's not a patch on the first book alas. Tho it does end, um, interestingly.
The final book was clearly written maybe 20 years later and tells the story of how humans became 'Man' - the hive mind that humanity becomes while our hero is away fighting his wars. It's okay but drags a bit, and, much like the first book and the gays, this one has some curious racial politics that feel very out of place now.
If I was scoring each book individually I'd give FW 3.5 stars, FF 3 stars and FP 2.5 stars. Still fans of science fiction should be conversant with at least the first book as it was massively influential and has some interesting ideas.