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 "The Cat from Hue" by John Laurence

John Laurence, a young television reporter for CBS news, was sent to the front to cover the Vietnam War in 1965. Though barely surviving some situations, Laurence would go on to serve two additional “tours of duty”. It is this experience, along with personal reflection and commentary on the social and political arenas of Vietnam and the US that would later be collected in The Cat from Hue.  Interesting reading, those wishing to look deeper into life on the front lines in America’s war in Vietnam and media in the US should have a read.

A devil-may-care attitude is not precisely the mindset with which Laurence arrived in the southeast Asian country at war. It’s fair to say, however, his relative youth played a hand in repressing his fears and being somewhat innocent regarding American political interests in the region. The more time he spends at the front, however, interacting with soldiers and dealing with the contradictions and propaganda produced by not only the government but his own news agency, slowly drives Laurence to take his opinion of the war in the direction of much of America’s counter-culture, though naturally with a higher degree of sympathy for the soldiers and veterans and the clashing expectation from each side.

Review of "The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman

Joe Haldeman’s 1976 The Forever War is one of those rare novels, like Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama or Pohl’s Gateway, that runs away with nearly every major American science fiction award the year it was published.  Winning the Hugo, Nebula and Locus, it is undoubtedly a combination of the book’s thematic elements and commentary on contemporary concerns (the Vietnam War) that won the book such high acclaim.  And it is all worth it.  Not the most stylistic or prosaic of novels, The Forever War nevertheless remains one of the best examples of how science fiction is capable of commenting on the human condition in relevant fashion.

The Forever War is the story of William Mandella, a student drafted into an extra-planetary war with the alien Taurans.  Before being sent to the front, Mandella undergoes training of severe duress, a la Heinlein’s Starship Troopers or Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket.  Though a number of his contemporaries do not survive the training, nothing can prepare them for the experiences of actual combat.  Returning to Earth years subjective time later, but decades, even centuries objective time later due to the dilatory effects of space travel, Mandella finds that what he left behind is not as it was.  And this is only the beginning of his troubles.  Civil hostility and locating gameful employment difficult, Mandella is soon back in the place he left, the military, and more war on the way.