The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

Hello, Stranger.

Let's talk about Joe Haldeman's The Forever War.

The Short of It

Plot: Time dilation means that the world you leave when you go to war is never the one you come back to.

Page Count: 278

Award: 1975 Nebula, 1976 Hugo, and 1976 Locus

Worth a read: Yes
Primary Driver: (Plot, World, or Character)
Bechdel Test: Fail
Technobabble: Low-Moderate.
Review: I really like this book. Manages to be both thrilling millitary SF and a treatise on the futility of war/the military-industrial complex. Nice application of relativistic speeds changing to dynamics of warfare. Chilling depiction of the alienation felt by soldiers returning home. The evolution of Earth is interesting, though Haldeman is a bit indelicate with his approach to homosexuality.

The Medium of It

Spoiler Free!

A note before diving in: it turns out that there are a number of different versions of this book. This seems to happen a lot. I read a more recent edition, which includes material that was not in the 1974 edition. This is the version I am reviewing, though the above cover is from the original publication.

Alright, I love this book. I love future tech weapons, power armor, and chaotic battles. I love me a good alien menace, a threat that we have no choice but to fight. What makes this book astounding is that it is all of that while being an absolutely damning attack on the US military. This book is not actually about aliens. It is very much about the Vietnam War.

To be clear, this is not just my read of it. Haldeman has stated as much in interviews. I'm not trying to make it more than it is. 

We follow William Mandella, a physicist (alright, physics student) who is drafted to fight the Taurans. We go through training with him and follow him as he climbs the ranks. Critically, we are also with him when he comes home - and feels completely out of place. The planet he fought to defend feels alien.

Mandella is intelligent but a mediocre soldier, which makes him a superb protagonist. It drives home how silly so much of the military is; the idea that survival is enough to lead, the insanity of those in charge being barely older than their charges, the treatment of people as statistics. There are only a couple other characters of particular importance, none of whom have particularly complex stories.

Each time Mandella leaves, Einstein's Relativity kicks in, and he comes back only a bit older but far in his own future. Interesting things happen while he's gone; I don't love how it's handled, but I understand that it is to make crystal clear the alienation and isolation he feels.

This one is absolutely worth a read. It's both enjoyable as a science fiction story and insightful as an exploration of the isolation felt by soldiers returning home. 

I also love the ending. I had to pause because someone somewhere must have started cutting onions. Only reasonable explanation.

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The Long of It

Spoilers Ahead!

There are a few things I'd like to examine here.

The first is Haldeman's treatment of homosexuality. It is a surprisingly enlightened approach; I appreciate that it is made out to be a normal thing. The main issue is the depiction of gay men as effeminate - it's easy stereotyping, after all. Following the parallels of The Forever War as representing Haldeman's Vietnam experience, this is a pretty decent way of demonstrating how someone can be alienated from an entire society. It's not perfect, but it works. This is also quite literally a subject of academic study: William Mandella’s Struggles in a Gender-Shifted World:A Queer Study on Joe Haldeman’s the Forever War, among others. I won't try to outdo the academics on this one.

There are two stand-out moments in this one.

The first is the description of the dehumanizing programming given to the soldiers. They have implanted memories intended to break down any barriers that would prevent them from killing. At the same time, reality intrudes - and it does not matter.

My mind reeled under the strong pseudo-memories:

shaggy hulks that were Taurans (not at all what we now knew they looked like) boarding a colonists' vessel, eating babies while mothers watched in screaming terror (the colonists never took babies; they wouldn't stand the acceleration), then raping the women to death with huge veined purple members (ridiculous that they would feel desire for humans), holding the men down while they plucked flesh from their living bodies and gobbled it (as if they could assimilate the alien protein).. . a hundred grisly details as sharply remembered as the events of a minute ago, ridiculously overdone and logically absurd. But while my conscious mind was rejecting the silliness, somewhere much deeper, down in that sleeping animal where we keep our real motives and morals, something was thirsting for alien blood, secure in the Conviction that the noblest thing a man could do would be to die killing one of those horrible monsters.

Perhaps my favorite moment in the book is when Mandella reenlists. He cannot cope with civilian life and returns to the military, the last place he felt he belonged. He is given a guaranteed placement of his choosing - and it is immediately changed. Taken advantage of by the very military he agrees to serve.

"Well, we were given our assignment of choice. Nobody guaranteed we'd have the assignment for more than an hour."

"It's so dirty."

I shrugged. "It's so army."

But I couldn't shake the feeling that we were going home.

Now, the end. It's abrupt. I've dropped a couple of lines to pull together the vital parts:

"You are the last group of soldiers to return. When you leave here, I will leave as well. And destroy Stargate. It exists only as a rendezvous point for returnees and as a monument to human stupidity. And shame. As you will read. Destroying it will be a cleansing."

He stopped speaking and the woman started without a pause. "I am sorry for what you've been through and wish I could say that it was for good cause, but as you will read, it was not."

The 1143-year-long war had been begun on false pretenses and only continued because the two races were unable to communicate.

Once they could talk, the first question was "Why did you start this thing?" and the answer was "Me?"

Many of the early ships met with accidents and disappeared. The ex-military men were suspicious. They armed the colonizing vessels, and the first time they met a Tauran ship, they blasted it.

They dusted off their medals and the rest was going to be history.

You couldn't blame it all on the military, though. The evidence they presented for the Taurans' having been responsible for the earlier casualties was laughably thin. The few people who pointed this out were ignored.

The fact was, Earth's economy needed a war, and this one was ideal. It gave a nice hole to throw buckets of money into, but would unify humanity rather than dividing it.

It's a slap in the face after all the struggle - and that's the point. It's all for nothing. We cheered on Mandella, followed him as he fought, were relieved when he survived. And it was all based upon lies and accusations, problems that could have been solved through better understanding.

To wrap it up on a positive note - Marygay's letter at the end is so touching. We need Mandella to have a win - and he gets it.

I never found anybody else and I don't want anybody else. I don't care whether you're ninety years old or thirty. If I can't be your lover, I'll be your nurse.

It's an end that feels well-deserved; a silver lining to the futility and waste of war. If you don't feel even a little bit of something when you get to that line, you were probably the hunter who killed Bambi's mom.

Let's try to understand each other, Stranger.

And don't forget to read a book!