| Product: |
The Forever War - Joe Haldeman |
| Date: |
11/05/07 (143 review reads) |
| Rating: |
 |
Advantages: Easily accesible style of writing, some wonderful concepts
Disadvantages: Not for those who prefer more action packed novels
Even from an early age, I've always been fascinated by science-fiction, starting off with various television shows and movies, before eventually moving on to read any and every sci-fi novel I could get my hands on. It was with some delight then that I recently stumbled across the 'SF Masterworks' series, which is a growing collection of novels from the past sixty or so years of science-fiction writing, by various authors, spanning a whole range or sub-genres that all full under the umbrella title 'Sci-Fi'.
'The Forever War' is the first book of the series, written by Joe Haldeman. It was originally published in 1974 and has won various awards, including both the Nebula and Hugo awards.
Before I go any further, I think a little about the author might be useful. Joe Haldeman was born in 1943 and served as a combat engineer in Vietnam between 1967 and 1969. He was conscripted into the war after studying physics and astronomy at college, (or university as it would be in the UK). He has written various other novels, but many consider 'The Forever War' to be his 'magnum opus'. Haldeman openly admits that the novel was written about his thoughts and feelings of serving in Vietnam, (indeed, some of the character's are actually veterans of that war).
'The Forever War' begins in 1996 and is the story of a young recruit, Private William Mandella who is drafted into the military at twenty-one in order to fight an interstellar war with another species called The Taurans, a race that at the beginning of the war so little is actually known about that no-one has ever actually seen what one looks like. Men and women are enlisted because of their high levels of intelligence, as well as their physical health and strength and therefore they're selected in order to form an Elite corp of soldiers.
Due to the nature of how these soldiers travel to the various battles, a few months "tour of duty" equates to many years back of Earth, possibly even centuries depending on how far they have had to travel.
As they are fighting on far off planets, the recruits have to train to fight and move in armoured suits that protect them from inhospitable environments, (their training for example takes place on the dark side of a planetoid called Charon, in near sub-zero temperatures). As well as protecting them, the suits also increase their strength and reaction times.
The book is divided into several sections which follows Mandella moving through the ranks, eventually becoming Major Mandella in 2458 by Earth's calendar, although relatively speaking he has only been in the army for a few years.
On a slight side note and, perhaps, slightly off topic for a moment, anyone familiar with the X-Box game 'Halo' will more than likely notice a marked similarity between certain concepts, especially the battle suits that the soldiers wear. Though I can't verify it, I would be truly amazed if 'The Forever War' was not used as inspiration behind several of the ideas found in 'Halo'.
I found the writing style of the novel to be easy going and accessible for many different types of readers. The language used in this book is quite a direct, as is Haldeman's method of story-telling, so he doesn't layer his paragraphs with nuances or subtle clues that need to be picked up on. Even if you consider yourself a poor reader, I don't think the majority of people would struggle to follow it from a linguistic or plot point of view with this novel. Nor is the book overly heavy in terms of its science and, again for the majority of people, I doubt anyone would really struggle with the concepts presented. That said, whilst the concepts might be fair easy to understand, this is in many ways a typical science-fiction novel and as such if space-flight, alien creatures and other such things aren't to your taste, you might not be able to getting into this book at all.
I felt the characters throughout the book were believable a well written. Whilst I've never been in the army myself, it struck me that the thoughts and feelings Haldeman describes in the novel would be those of recruits within any army, with Mandella's thoughts towards his commanding officers very probably the same thoughts many soldiers have. I also suspect that Haldeman has given a lot of himself to the main character Mandella and so is expressing his own thoughts and feelings by proxy, though I never felt his intention was to preach to people his own thoughts about the rights or wrongs of war.
I thought the character of Mandella was engaging, as his actions, reactions and motives were always clear and easily understood. One thing I did think was missing was the development of certain other characters, in particular Marygay Potter who is Mandella's love interest throughout the book. I thought a little more time could have been spent explaining her character, as her motives didn't seem quite so obvious as Mandella's at times. Whilst the lack of back-story works well for people such as Sergeant Cortez and Captain Stott, (both of whom are Private Mandella's seniors), I thought given Potter's role throughout the book, she could have been given a little more depth.
Something some people may not enjoy about the novel is that the plot is a little one directional. As already mentioned, the writing style isn't littered with subtleties and so there aren't really any twists or turns that some people enjoy in a novel. I myself found that by centring the story around the experiences of the main character, rather than the events that happen to him, the book was still entertaining. The book is in no way a roller-coaster ride and some people may find the lack of distinct action a little boring - if you're more interested in action packed novels than you may find 'The Forever War' a little understated. For myself, I found the plot played out at a steady pace which I never got bored of and I thought the ending was rewarding, with things tied up neatly enough not to leave any big questions, but equally not too neatly tied up as to feel like the story simply ending there.
One of the most interesting aspects to this novel is how the returning veterans have to try and adapt (or not as the case may be) returning to an Earth where, although they've only been away for a few months relatively speaking, years have passed, with family members aging and going about their lives, etc. Indeed, by the end of the book the soldiers are well into the thirty-first century of Earth's calander, with Earth's society all but completely alien to them.
One thing that particularly struck me was Hadleman's ideas on how Earth's society would change over the centuries, particularly in regard to the fact that for many generations people have never known 'peacetime'.
I thought one particularly interesting idea was that, due to over population of Earth, the global government encourages homosexual relationships as the most effective means of birth control, eventually becoming the "social norm" so that heterosexual couples are considered "queer". I think it's important to say that there is no malice or homophobic connotations to this idea from Haldeman, but rather he uses this reversal of what is considered "normally" to develop the plot so that, rather than Mandella having to tolerate homosexuality, it is his heterosexuality that needs to be tolerated by the other characters. This idea that "normality" is simply what the general consensus of a populace believe isn't new to me, but I thought Haldeman played it very well and it was an unexpected, but interesting feature in the novel.
As is always to be expected with anything written decades ago, but supposedly set in the future, it is a little odd to be reading about "Sergeant Mandella 2007 - 2024 A.D" fighting a war in another galaxy when, sitting here in 2007 (at the time of writing I hasten to add!), we haven't even sent a manned ship to Mars yet. However, Haldeman addresses this in his Foreword and says - "The dates in the book are now kind of funny; most people realise we didn't get into an interstellar war in 1996……think of it as a parallel universe". Haldeman's desire to include Vietnam veteran's in the book is largely the cause of the earlier dates used, but as someone who actually knows very little about the Vietnam war, (I think anything I do about that war comes from movies like "Good Morning, Vietnam" and "Forest Gump" to be honest) reading the book some thirty years after it was initially published I thought the core ethos of 'The Forever War', as in the effect on those fighting and those being fought for, could apply to any war, in any decade, century or millennia for that matter.
I don't think anyone would find 'The Forever War' a life-changing novel; but then equally I don't think anyone would say it was terrible, one which they felt they had wasted their time reading. I think it is deserving of it's 'Masterwork' status. There are better novels out there, but there are also many, many more that are worse. I would happily re-read this sometime in the future, not because I feel I've missed anything, but because I know it's an enjoyable read. One I would recommend to anyone who enjoyed science-fiction.
Summary: Overall an engaging an interesting read, though perhaps too slow paced for some.
|
|
