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.
Though the above paragraph may seem to contain a
great deal of spoilers, much more happens in The Forever War. Haldeman,
drawing on personal experience in the Vietnam War, incorporates situations and
elements of society into his narrative that are strongly analogous of the
times. That these parallels are painted
in the colors of science fiction are what draw genre fans in and make the novel
relevant. The themes of societal
alienation, indoctrination, politics, post-traumatic stress disorder,
psychology, and polemics all make a strong showing, anchoring the story in both
social and personal conscientiousness.
But for as significant as the thematic content of The Forever War is, there remain some
problems with the narrative. Prose
predominantly the issue, Haldeman is not a born writer. His sentence structure and flow of words are not
what one would label beautiful or compelling.
But given that the story is told by a soldier, the rough, relatively
simplistic description, and dialogue work well.
Mandella’s insight and perspective, rather than being related in lofty,
fluffy prose, are expressed in terms more similar to those a normal Joe
conscripted into the army might.
Intentional or not, for this book it works.
In the end, The
Forever War is a novel that combines theme and story, action and
introspection as equally important parts of the story. It is a great example of what makes science
fiction a potentially powerful medium in which to express social concerns in an
imaginatively analogous setting. Fans of
Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers,
Ursula Le Guin’s The Word for World is
Forest, and to a lesser degree, Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game will find the novel interesting. Given the balance The Forever War accords entertainment with subject matter, readers
of sci-fi in general will more than likely find their time well-spent reading
the novel. The Vietnam War may be
decades in the past, but its ideologies hang around, keeping The Forever War pertinent in the process.
(As a side note, this book is available in an
omnibus along with Forever Peace and Forever Free entitled: Peace and War. Considering it’s only slightly more expensive
than any of the individual books, the omnibus is worth buying if you know of any
of the novels, but have not read the others.)
I thought the social concerns of this book were dubious at best, and I find it really odd I never read about this in reviews. Instead, it's morals are praised. I write at length about it in my own review on my blog, but the gist of it is that this book is whining and self-centered, and doesn't acknowledge the Vietnamese victims of the war, nor the American soldiers' own moral responsibility.
ReplyDeleteApologies, but that is a naive comment. It makes a lot of assumptions which ignores several key realities of the Vietnam War. Do you understand the idea of the military draft, i.e. you must fight for your country whether you want to or not? For sure there were some atrocities committed by American soldiers against non-military Vietnamese in battle, but we must remember those situations were exceptions. The majority of American soldiers were forced to go to war, and then forced to shoot at what they were instructed was the enemy in "normal" war scenarios. Entering the army, the soldier forfeits his life and choices to the decisions of officers. Disobeying orders on moral grounds means corporal punishment not reward. All in all, the average American soldier fighting in Vietnam was as much a victim as the people he was forced to shoot at, and the fact Haldeman chose to represent only one side of this does not make his story morally bankrupt. There are no requirements in place for writers that they must represent all sides.
DeleteDo yourself a favor and read about the Vietnam War. Your criticisms will become less like a Millennial voicing social justice cliches and instead be intelligent and balanced opinion about the realities of the actual conflict.