Forever War

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Overview

The monumental Hugo and Nebula award winning SF classic— Featuring a new introduction by John Scalzi

The Earth's leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand—despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy they would oppose is inscrutable, unconquerable, and very far away. A reluctant conscript drafted into an elite Military unit, Private William Mandella has been propelled through space and time to fight in the distant thousand-year conflict; to perform his duties and do whatever it takes to survive the ordeal and return home. But "home" may be even more terrifying than battle, because, thanks to the time dilation caused by space travel, Mandella is aging months while the Earth he left behind is aging centuries...

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble

Twenty-five years ago, Joe Haldeman became an instant presence in the science fiction field with the publication of The Forever War, which went on to win both the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novel. The Forever War is an ingenious, complex account of soldiers whose lives have been brutally disrupted by the combined effects of relativity and interstellar war. It has remained in print continuously since its initial appearance, and has recently given rise to some unexpected new offshoots. In 1997, Avon Books released an amended version of the text that restored the middle section -- a downbeat novella published independently as You Can Never Go Back -- to its originally intended place. In early 1999, Haldeman contributed a second related novella --A Separate War -- to Robert Silverberg’s anthology, Far Horizons. Most recently, Haldeman reversed his own frequently stated position by publishing a novel-length sequel titled Forever Free. It seems appropriate, in light of this creative flurry, to return to the source -- The Forever War itself -- and take another look. The Forever War was Joe Haldeman’s second novel. His first, War Year, was published in 1972, and was a realistic, frankly autobiographical account of its author’s experiences as a combat soldier in Vietnam. These experiences, radically reconfigured, also found their way into The Forever War, which is very much a reflection of the lingering effects of the "seemingly endless" war in Vietnam. Haldeman’s version of that conflict begins in 1996, just one generation after the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. In that year, the combined forces of Earth declare war against an apparently hostile race of aliens known as Taurans. As part of the military response to the Tauran threat, William Mandella, the narrator-hero, is drafted and placed in an elite combat unit composed of the best and brightest members of his own generation.

In order to engage the remote, enigmatic Taurans, Mandella and his cohorts must travel through a series of "collapsars," anomalous gateways in the fabric of quantum space. Passage through these gateways results in a relativistic phenomenon known as "time dilation." By the end of Mandella’s first, bloody campaign (which covers about two years of subjective time), more than 25 years have elapsed on his home planet. He returns to Earth to find himself a stranger in a very strange land, where he knows almost no one and where the patterns of day-to-day life have changed beyond recognition. Unable to cope with these changes, he reenters the barbarous but familiar society of the army, accompanied by his friend, lover, and fellow soldier, Marygay Potter.

Back in uniform, Mandella finds himself trapped, once again, in an endless cycle of violence and temporal displacement. He endures (and barely survives) a series of lethal, faceless encounters with an enemy that no one, least of all the political and military leaders of Earth, can begin to understand. In the resulting chaos, the one constant in Mandella’s life is his relationship with Marygay. Finally, even that is taken away, and he is left with nothing but the prospect of dying for an incomprehensible cause.

Throughout this process, relativity continues to impose its distortions. As the war carries Mandella and his fellow soldiers toward an increasingly remote series of battlefields, centuries roll by on Earth. In the course of these centuries, populations rise and fall, historical epochs flower and fade, and humanity evolves in unexpected directions. Eventually, at the tail end of a pointless, infinitely protracted war, Mandella returns -- a young/old man of barely 30 -- to a radically altered society he can neither recognize nor live in. In the end, he is forced to confront the fundamental irony of his thousand-year military career: Having left his home to do battle with aliens, he himself has now become the alien, and has no place in the world he fought to preserve.

The Forever War is very much concerned with alienation, which assumes a cruel and quite literal form during the course of the story. And though, like all good novels, it is many things at once -- acerbic portrait of the military mentality; imaginative extrapolation of the principles of relativity; meditation on the future of warfare in a technologically advanced society -- it derives much of its power from its compelling portrait of disenfranchised soldiers detached, by the very nature of their experiences, from the social mainstream. In a way, The Forever War serves as an extravagant metaphor for the actual condition of the soldiers who fought in Vietnam, and who returned home to a divided society that failed, almost completely, to acknowledge their efforts or honor their sacrifices.

After more than a quarter of a century, The Forever War continues to matter, continues to engage our sympathy for the individual men and women caught in the movement of huge, impersonal forces. Like Catch-22, to which it bears a familial resemblance, The Forever War is a novel about the desperate search for sanity in an unreasoning world, and the universality of its concerns makes it as fresh and relevant today as it was in 1975, when the national nightmare of Vietnam was still raw and recent. Literary prognostication may be a fool’s game, but the betting here is that The Forever War will endure well into the newly arrived millennium. Its energy, compassion, and bitter, hard-won wisdom are timeless qualities that should, by rights, continue to speak to new generations of readers.

--Bill Sheehan

Gale Research

"Haldeman exercises his literary license," James Scott Hicks writes in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, "to comment on, and ultimately to expunge from his memory, America's last ground war [Vietnam]." Hicks points out that Haldeman's first novel, War Year, based on his army diaries, deals with the Vietnam fighting directly. "But the demon of Vietnam," Hicks writes, "was not exorcised from Haldeman's soul by writing [War Year], and frontline combat became the subject of . . . The Forever War." Haldeman, Hicks believes, is particularly adept at presenting his "theme of quiet resentment felt by those waging war."

Because of his scientific training in physics and astronomy, Haldeman is particularly careful to present The Forever War as realistically and accurately as possible. "The technology involved in this interplanetary campaign," Martin Levin of the New York Times Book Review notes in his review of The Forever War, "is so sophisticated that the book might well have been accompanied by an operator's manual. But then, all the futuristic mayhem is plugged into human situations that help keep the extraterrestrial activity on a warm and even witty plane."

More Reviews (5) Fewer Reviews

Greg Bear

“The Forever War is brilliant—one of the most influential war novels of our time. That it happens to be set in the future only broadens and enhances its message.”

Iain Banks

“The Forever War is not just a great science fiction novel, it’s a great Vietnam war novel—and a great war novel, without qualification—that is also science fiction. A classic to grace either genre.”

James Sallis

“The Forever War does what the very best science fiction does: It deals with extremes both societal and teleological; it places a frame around humankind’s place in the universe to show us what is outside the frame; and it functions simultaneously at the literal and metaphorical level. Inarguably one of the genre’s great novels, it is also among the finest novels ever written about war.”

Steven King

“If there was a Fort Knox for science fiction, we’d have to lock Joe Haldeman up and throw away the key.”

William Gibson

“To say that The Forever War is the best science fiction war novel ever written is to damn it with faint praise. It is, for all its techno-extrapolative brilliance, as fine and woundingly genuine a war story as any I’ve read.”

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780312536633
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publication date: 2/17/2009
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 288
Sales rank: 44,725
Product dimensions: 8.24 (w) x 5.36 (h) x 0.74 (d)

Meet the Author

A multiple winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, Joe Haldeman is an ultimate household name in science fiction. A Vietnam veteran and Purple Heart recipient, since the original publication of The Forever War, Joe has maintined a continuous string of SF classics, and as a long-time Professor of Creative Writing at M.I.T., is widely acknowledged as a key mentor figure to many of this generation's top SF stars.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

"Tonight we're going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man." The guy who said that was a sergeant who didn't look five years older than me. So if he'd ever killed a man in combat, silently or otherwise, he'd done it as an infant.

I already knew eighty ways to kill people, but most of them were pretty noisy. I sat up straight in my chair and assumed a look of polite attention and fell asleep with my eyes open. So did most everybody else. We'd learned that they never scheduled anything important for these after-chop classes.

The projector woke me up and I sat through a short tape showing the "eight silent ways." Some of the actors must have been brainwipes, since they were actually killed.

After the tape a girl in the front row raised her hand. The sergeant nodded at her and she rose to parade rest. Not bad looking, but kind of chunky about the neck and shoulders. Everybody gets that way after carrying a heavy pack around for a couple of months.

"Sir"- we had to call sergeants "sir" until graduation- "most of those methods, really, they looked . . . kind of silly."

"For instance?"

"Like killing a man with a blow to the kidneys, from an entrenching tool. I mean, when would you actually have only an entrenching tool, and no gun or knife? And why not just bash him over the head with it?"

"He might have a helmet on," he said reasonably.

"Besides, Taurans probably don't even have kidneys!"

He shrugged. "Probably they don't." This was 1997, and nobody had ever seen a Tauran; hadn't even found any pieces of Taurans bigger than a scorched chromosome. "But their body chemistry is similar to ours, and we have to assume they're similarly complex creatures. Theymust have weaknesses, vulnerable spots. You have to find out where they are.

"That's the important thing.'' He stabbed a finger at the screen. "Those eight convicts got caulked for your benefit because you've got to find out how to kill Taurans, and be able to do it whether you have a megawatt laser or an emery board."

She sat back down, not looking too convinced.

"Any more questions?" Nobody raised a hand.

"OK. Tench-hut!" We staggered upright and he looked at us expectantly.

"Fuck you, sir," came the familiar tired chorus.

"Louder!"

"FUCK YOU, SIR!" One of the army's less-inspired morale devices.

"That's better. Don't forget, pre-dawn maneuvers tomorrow. Chop at 0330, first formation, 0400. Anybody sacked after 0340 owes one stripe. Dismissed."

I zipped up my coverall and went across the snow to the lounge for a cup of soya and a joint. I'd always been able to get by on five or six hours of sleep, and this was the only time I could be by myself, out of the army for a while. Looked at the newsfax for a few minutes. Another ship got caulked, out by Aldebaran sector. That was four years ago. They were mounting a reprisal fleet, but it'll take four years more for them to get out there. By then, the Taurans would have every portal planet sewed up tight.

Back at the billet, everybody else was sacked and the main lights were out. The whole company's been dragging ever since we got back from the two-week lunar training. I dumped my clothes in the locker, checked the roster and found out I was in bunk 31. Goddammit, right under the heater.

I slipped through the curtain as quietly as possible so as not to wake up the person next to me. Couldn't see who it was, but I couldn't have cared less. I slipped under the blanket. "You're late, Mandella," a voice yawned. It was Rogers.

"Sorry I woke you up," I whispered.

"'Sallright." She snuggled over and clasped me spoon fashion. She was warm and reasonably soft.

I patted her hip in what I hoped was a brotherly fashion. "Night, Rogers."

"G'night, Stallion." She returned the gesture more pointedly.

Why do you always get the tired ones when you're ready and the randy ones when you're tired? I bowed to the inevitable.

First Chapter

The Forever War

Chapter One

The projector woke me up and I sat through a short tape showing the "eight silent ways." Some of the actors must have been brainwipes, since they were actually killed.

"Sir"- we had to call sergeants "sir" until graduation- "most of those methods, really, they looked . . . kind of silly."

"For instance?"

"He might have a helmet on," he said reasonably.

"Besides, Taurans probably don't even have kidneys!"

He shrugged. "Probably they don't." This was 1997, and nobody had ever seen a Tauran; hadn't even found any pieces of Taurans bigger than a scorched chromosome. "But their body chemistry is similar to ours, and we have to assume they're similarly complex creatures. They must have weaknesses, vulnerable spots. You have to find out where they are.

"That's the important thing.' He stabbed a finger at the screen. "Those eight convicts got caulked for your benefit because you've got to find out how to kill Taurans, and be able to do it whether you have a megawatt laser or an emery board."

She sat back down, not looking too convinced.

"Any more questions?" Nobody raised a hand.

"OK. Tench-hut!" We staggered upright and he looked at us expectantly.

"Fuck you, sir," came the familiar tired chorus.

"Louder!"

"Fuck You, Sir!" One of the army's less-inspired morale devices.

"That's better. Don't forget, pre-dawn maneuvers tomorrow. Chop at 0330, first formation, 0400. Anybody sacked after 0340 owes one stripe. Dismissed."

I slipped through the curtain as quietly as possible so as not to wake up the person next to me. Couldn't see who it was, but I couldn't have cared less. I slipped under the blanket."You're late, Mandella," a voice yawned. It was Rogers.

"Sorry I woke you up," I whispered.

"'Sallright." She snuggled over and clasped me spoon fashion. She was warm and reasonably soft.

I patted her hip in what I hoped was a brotherly fashion. "Night, Rogers."

"G'night, Stallion." She returned the gesture more pointedly.

Why do you always get the tired ones when you're ready and the randy ones when you're tired? I bowed to the inevitable.

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stovicek

Posted September 27, 2011

more from this reviewer

Disgusted with myself...

.... for taking this long to read it.

3 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
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CLTurner

Posted June 18, 2010

more from this reviewer

Permanent Fixture

One of my favorite books. Period. A fast read, an important read.

3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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DominicMichael

Posted May 27, 2009

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I Also Recommend:

The Forever War is Forever Relevant

The year is 1997, and mankind is locked in a cosmic war with an enemy it's never seen. First, let's set the stage: twelve years before, scientists discovered the collapsar jumps, naturally occurring wormholes that allow instantaneous access to the stars. Fly in one end at just the right angle, at just the right speed, and pop out at some distant corner of space. What roads were to Rome and ships were to the British, so now are collapsars to Earth. Whoever controls them rules the known galaxy-and it seems other intelligent beings besides those on Earth understand this simple fact, as well.

So begins The Forever War, a novel chronicling the story of elite soldier William Mandella through humanity's conflict with an alien race known as the Tauran. The author, Joe Haldeman, accomplishes a feat with his first novel that doesn't seem possible. He's written an epic adventure story in less than three hundred pages. What's more, the world he creates is so believable that after a short while, you don't even question the techno jargon anymore. Instead, you find yourself blindly accepting all the rules and also thinking of new ways to fight with the tools at hand. This complete immersion into a foreign reality is one the book's greatest strengths, and lays a strong foundation that seems to be missing in a lot of modern sci-fi. It's refreshing to see science as the cornerstone for science fiction. The author obviously had schooling in some of these areas to handle them so convincingly. And if he didn't, he sure fakes it damned well.

At its heart, though, The Forever War is a war story. "Tonight," begins the first chapter, "we're going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man." It soon becomes clear that the 'actors' in the demonstration video are convicted criminals who are actually being executed for the sake of teaching new recruits how to kill a man with a kidney punch. Cute. There's little outrage among the men and women, though, which is a hint at what kind of world you're entering. This is a world where men and women are forcibly conscripted into an organization called the United Nations Exploratory Force, or UNEF, and sent into battle. This is a world were 50% casualty rates simply during training are the norm, not the exception. This is a world where your superiors fire live ordinance at you during drills and execute you for insubordination. This is a brutal world. Accept that going in.

It's this inhumanity, though, that truly gives The Forever War its soul. Haldeman, based on his own real life experience in Vietnam, gives us a front row seat to the savagery of war and the lengths unchecked bureaucracies are willing to go in order to 'win.' His subtle, concise writing style adds to a gripping narrative that conveys the power of his themes without patronizing the reader by banging them over the head with a proverbial shovel. This is a story that truly gives the reader an honest impression of what armed conflict is really like, minus all the glitz and glitter and rhetoric. In these uncertain times, with America engaged in places like Iraq, it reminds you why war is always the option of last resort.

YOU CAN READ MY FULL REVIEW HERE: www.dominicbonavitacola.com

3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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5186737

Posted October 20, 2011

Words Cannot Describe...

...How great this book is. Incredibly fascinating.

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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RJ45

Posted August 6, 2010

I Also Recommend:

One of the best SF books ever

This is quite possibly the best book I have ever read. I say this having read the book back in high school, and then having reread it several time since. Joe Haldeman very effectively tells a story that takes place in the future yet speaks to a modern world where soldiers fight in wars that they don't really care about using skills that are largely alien to their basic personalities. These same soldiers then come home to a world that has seemingly changed (in the book, the world really has changed) and must choose to live in that world, or go back to do what they detest.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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JCarter

Posted January 1, 2010

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The Horrors of War now in Space

Originally published before Star Wars, this work is based on science fact. Man is unable to go faster than light speed, time moves forward on Earth but not for those in space. These things lead to soldiers fighting a war lasting thousands of years on Earth and only a few years where they are.
Civilization on Earth evolves beyond what soldiers on the front can grasp. but beyond that are still the horrors that soldiers face in battle.

For me this is the definitive science fiction work. Having written Mr. Joe Haldeman several times he had given me the inspiration to write science fiction and the encouragement to do so. I would place this book alongside Red Badge of Courage.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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DurtyC

Posted May 16, 2009

"Forever War" is One of The Best Books I've Ever Read

This book is fantastic... in more ways than just it's imaginative (yet realizable) setting. I would consider it "Literature" with the questions it challenges boldly, without bias, and with the themes it presents within a well-developed plot. However, it's written in a very accessible style that anybody can enjoy--science fiction lovers, war-story afficionados, or adventure readers. It brings up debate on battle as well as what direction our species/planet is moving. I will read it again and again.

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Kniep

Posted January 5, 2012

Absolutely Fascinating - a must read for space travel fans!

To start off, I'm a huge fan of space travel, exploration, time travel and war books. I find the Vietnam war especially fascinating which makes this read even more intriguing. Haldeman uses an onslaught of literary genius by morphing all 4 of these categories together into one unique classic. Based on his experience and emotion during and after the vietnam war, this book will take you with Haldeman into the depths of a soldiers psyche during the longest war in the history of man kind and show you what the future might bring. This excellent book reads like an old war novel, flowing from page to page with action, romance and adventure - The Forever War is a must read for all sci-fi and war fans alike!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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AshenDude

Posted November 20, 2011

Excellent, succinct novel

If you liked the "Old Man's War" by John Scalazi you will like this book. The most recent edition include a forward from John Scalazi noting the extreme similarities between the forever war and his series, noting that even though the forever war came first, two very similar concepts can emerge independent of each other (The Forever War significantly predates the Old Man's War). The highlights include incredibly succinct story telling, building a world without wasting time on trivial discussions or descriptions which has become a hallmark of much modern writing. The book keeps you gripped with a well paced story and communicates the emotional state of the protagonist as well as the stories political message (very relevant for the past 10 years, just as it was 30 years ago). I would recommend this book, a significant departure from the one other Joe Haldeman book I have read.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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TheTino

Posted August 23, 2011

Brilliant

I could not believe no one has left a review for this book, I read it years ago before the advent of the nook, it is one of those books that you read in one night because you cannot put it down. You could just call it Military SF but it is much more , as in Starship Trooper is much more than a book about Soldiers set in the future. If you like Trooper you should like this one.
Enjoy

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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DoD

Posted August 18, 2011

Very Good. Glad I read it.

The science aspects of the story are better than the military characteristics. That is especially true with respect to the space/time travel relationships. It is an enjoyable comic-book style story.

1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted May 4, 2011

Excellent! A must read.

A superb novel that is well written. A must have, and a great accompaniment to Starship Troopers

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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JGolomb

Posted April 4, 2011

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Fantastic Military Sci Fi

"Forever War" follows genius/warrior William Mandella as he chases aliens across the universe and time. Joe Haldeman's novel is held up as one of the earliest and perhaps best military sci fi novel of all time. He delivers an exciting and intriguing story of future war while laying to bear some important societal issues of the post Vietnam-era, although these issues raised could apply to any war-time era.

Whereas Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" only barely masks his treatise on war-time values within a science fiction setting, Haldeman is much more effective at building a foundation of a strong narrative and layering on issues of sex, gender, age, societal evolution and other themes.

I'm not sure I can add more to the pantheon of reviews and descriptions of this book. I really enjoyed it and would rate it stronger than "Starship Troopers" and in a similar vein (but not quite as good, honestly) as John Scalzi's "Old Man's War" series.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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klik

Posted January 23, 2010

1125 year War!

War between humans and aliens from the Andromeda constellation begins in 1997, the fourth year of colonization of the galaxy by mankind. A graduate student is drafted from his postgraduate programs and faces a war that tears him from all he once knew and even his true love. For how can one fight a war for a society that one knows nothing about? A great read, with a war that is fought over vast distances, and over vast time. Einstien's theory of relativity means that space travel will cause a traveler to miss hundreds of years on one trip, and this is central to the war that begins in 1997 and ends in 3438-ish.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Lord_Adair

Posted December 19, 2009

One Time Must Read

This is a great book to read once, but it is a little gruff in the beginning. The story is rich and full of ever changing principles and beliefs. The main characters do not change which is a testament to who they are.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted July 23, 2003

Not good, but better than Starship Troopers.

Forever is the key word here. As in 'It will take forever to finish this book.' While not quite as boring as Starship Troopers, The Forever War is very similar in its lure of action under the guise of SF. There seems to be considerably more science added to this tome, and it is educational and enjoyable. I believe Haldeman has a strong background in the sciences and is able to pull off feats of relativity and make them understandable to the layperson. Entertainment value is low however. I was expecting an exciting novel like Ender's Game, but it just didn't turn out that way.

1 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted November 21, 2000

OUTSTANDING

THIS IS A REMARKABLE NOVEL! IT IS LIKELY THE MOST THOUGHT PROVOKING PIECE OF SF EVER WRITTEN! BUY IT AND LOVE IT!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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LHL311

Posted May 22, 2012

I enjoyed this novel

I am a sci-fi fan, and enjoyed the Forever War. The ending was not what I expected, as there was one paragraph about halfway through that led me to a mistaken assumption of how Mr Haldeman was going to end the book. On the whole, if you are a fan of sci-fi and war stories, this is entertaining.
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Anonymous

Posted May 19, 2012

emjay

Great story!
Loved it;good plot interesting characters and situations
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brownpony

Posted May 17, 2012

enjoyed it.

Well written. An interesting twist on time variation in space travel.
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Forever War

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Gale Research

Greg Bear

Iain Banks

James Sallis

Steven King

William Gibson

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Chapter One

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Disgusted with myself...

Permanent Fixture

The Forever War is Forever Relevant

Words Cannot Describe...

One of the best SF books ever

The Horrors of War now in Space

"Forever War" is One of The Best Books I've Ever Read

Absolutely Fascinating - a must read for space travel fans!

Excellent, succinct novel

Brilliant

Very Good. Glad I read it.

Excellent! A must read.

Fantastic Military Sci Fi

1125 year War!

One Time Must Read

Not good, but better than Starship Troopers.

OUTSTANDING

I enjoyed this novel

emjay

enjoyed it.