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.
