Review of The Word for World is Forest by Ursula Le Guin

Given Ursula Le Guin’s penchant for mixing real world social, political, and cultural concerns, it should come as no surprise that her voice could be heard on the Vietnam War.  The Word for World is Forest, published in 1976, is some of Le Guin’s most overt commentary on war and colonization.  A revision of her eponymous 1972 novella, the novel comments directly on the presence of major political powers in less-developed areas for profit, all in highly personal and well-told fashion.  

The Word for World is Forest is set entirely on the planet Athshe.  Humanity (called the Terrans) has arrived and set up mining, logging, and other resource-based enterprises, enslaving the indigenous to perform labor in the process.  A smaller, greener, hairier version of humanity, the natives also sleep in a significantly different fashion.  In fact sleeping little at all, they rather fall into a state of lucid dreaming at random periods of the day.  Thinking them to be lazy and avoiding work, the humans, in particular a man named Davidson, routinely beat and otherwise abuse the Athsheans, forcing them to perform the labor whose profits are sent to Earth.  It isn’t long, however, before the natives rebel against the humans, the resulting fight deciding the sentient fate of Athshe.

Review of "Forever Peace" by Joe Haldeman

Despite the similarities in name, Joe Haldeman’s 1997 Forever Peace shares nothing in common with his huge success, The Forever War, save the military science fiction motif.  Winning its own accolades (the Nebula, Hugo, and John W. Campbell Awards), Forever Peace is a novel less focused on the portent of war and more on the idea of universal understanding.  Not without its share of action, however, readers will find Haldeman back in The Forever War form, the novel containing both depth and entertainment.  

Forever Peace is the story of Julian Class, both scientist and operator of a mechanized robot called a “soldierboy” for the US military.  By jacking in to a device that collectively links operators to their soldierboys, teams are able to carry out covert missions in support of US economic, and by default, political interest.  The only fallback to the device is, when operatives link together for a certain period of time, they transcend to greater heights of human understanding and become passive, no longer interested in violence or war.  The US government’s usage of the soldierboys not always for altruistic purposes, it becomes up to Julian, and his girlfriend Amelia, to spread the word about the system’s abilities to pacify violent inclination and avoid major conflict in the process.