I bought a copy of Joe Haldeman's The Forever War after reading that Ridley Scott was going to be directing a film adaptation of the story. I'd never heard of it but found out that it had won many prestigious sci-fi awards back in the mid70s such as the Hugo and Nebula. Having finished the book, I can understand why Scott sought it out. Like Oliver Stone, Scott likes his lead characters to be masculine. Even his female main characters have traits that are traditionally thought of as being the province of men.
Haldeman served in the Vietnam War and this book is in a sense "Vietnam in space". Considering this, there's not a whole lot of combat. It is, perhaps, more about being a veteran than people shooting at one another. On a side note, I take it that the novel has seen a few different iterations with various editors exorcising parts of the book for whatever reason. The author's note of the version I read notes that it is the director's cut, so to speak, with all the bits previously taken out having been restored.
The Forever War is the story of William Mandella who is conscripted into military service in 1997. By this time mankind has discovered collapsars which are like wormholes that allow travel between them in no time at all. You pop in one and end up at another one light years away without any time having elapsed. Shiploads of colonists were sent out traipsing through the collapsars until there was a Gulf of Tonkin incident - one was pursued by an alien ship and destroyed. This happened in the constellation Taurus so mankind's new enemy was the Taurans. Unlike during Vietnam, here draftees are the best and brightest. Mandella has a degree in physics, for example.
As I noted above, the story here isn't so much about fighting, although there's some of that, but rather about isolation which I can imagine many a Vietnam veteran felt. Jumping through collapsars causes time dilation so soldiers may be gone for only a short spell relative to them, but back on Earth decades, if not centuries, have elapsed. Each time Mandella goes out to serve his planet, he returns to find that humanity has changed and left him behind.
The world of The Forever War begins with things quite different than our own. Men and women serve together in the armed forces, even in combat, and the opposite sexes are allowed to do some serious fraternization. We follow Mandella and his fellow recruits through training which involves getting used to wearing some funky space suits that allow them to survive in the incredibly harsh conditions on planets that are near collapsars.
Curiously enough, though, the first combat Mandella sees takes place on a rather verdant planet. At first the troops encounter strange creatures with green fur and three legs. After dispatching a few of them with lasers, it is determined that they are simply local fauna. Eventually a Tauran base is found and the real shooting begins. The enemy prove to be easy prey.
After his first tour, Mandella finds himself back on Earth but many years have elapsed since he was last there. This middle section of the book was excised back in the 1970s because of its pace. While definitely slower than the rest of the novel, it really ratchets up the isolation factor. Mandella barely recognizes the place. People need bodyguards, the government advocates homosexuality as a way to deal with overpopulation, food is scare, et al. This break in the story has a vibe similar to Children of Men. It's little wonder that he reenlists. More collapsar jumps and another combat mission later, he finds himself commanding a platoon and that all of the grunts are homosexual. Despite the odd instance of portraying some gay men as being very effeminate, Haldeman no doubt gets a lot of credit for creating a world where homosexuality is normal and, furthermore, is not detrimental. Penis-vagina coitus is considered gross and babies are created outside the womb.
The Forever War's closing chapters detail Mandella commanding what amounts to a suicide mission to a planet where his soldiers are to build a forward base and then wait for reinforcements. This is the best part of the book because it combines combat with our hero at his most isolated, both physically and mentally. By this time, Mandella is something of a curiosity being one of the last heterosexuals still alive and many under his command are heterophobic. Late 20th century English is archaic so he has to learn the latest dialect. He's also separated from his love, Marygay. To pile Pelion upon Ossa, he's out on a distant planet with no way to call for immediate backup should the Taurans attack with overwhelming numbers. And they do.
Things look pretty hopeless and Haldeman piles it on by first letting the soldiers linger for a bit. They get the base constructed and then sit around waiting for an attack. When it finally comes, there's a tense build up as it slowly becomes apparent to Mandella that he and his soldiers are badly outnumbered. They prepare to make their last stand.
Any book described as "Vietnam in space" is bound to sound like a relic of the past – something that speaks to a particular time and place. While Haldeman's experiences as a soldier in the Vietnam War are on display here, The Forever War that transcends that conflict. Just look at the news. George Bush's War on Terror has been continued by Barack Obama and we have troops engaging in hostilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, and Yemen. Eight years after it began it feels like a forever war. Beyond combat, this is a story about a man becoming isolated from kith & kin, society, and perhaps himself. It's not a happy story but war isn't happy and neither is its aftermath.
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