The Forever War

The Forever War
by Joe Haldeman

The Forever War
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Book Summary Information

Author: Joe Haldeman
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-02-17
ISBN: 0312536631
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Book Reviews of The Forever War

Book Review: Fantastic Classic Science Fiction
Summary: 5 Stars

Written by Vietnam War veteran Haldeman, The Forever War won both the the Nebula Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (1975), the Locus Award for Fiction Novel (1976)**, and the Hugo Award for Best Novel (1976). Critics consider The Forever War one of the quintessential pieces of American Science Fiction because it stands the test of time. Ironically, The Forever War came close to never being published; as the author notes in his introduction to the edition I read: "It was rejected by eighteen publishers before St. Martin's Press [which at the time did not publish adult science fiction] decided to take a chance on it" (xv).

The Forever War, an allegory of the Vietnam War, focuses on the tale of William Mandella, a physicist and physics teacher who as been drafted into the United Nations Exploratory Force (UNEF) through the Elite Conscription Act of 1996. Each person drafted into the UNEF was considered a genius within his or her field; only the best and the brightest would serve in this new army that was put together to battle an alien force, the Taurans, that had been encountered when time travel through time dilation, which is allowed by Stargates (not the kind of Stargates we think of from the television series) and collapsar jumps between portal planets.

The novel follows Mandella, from Private to Major, through 1143 years of Earth Relative time, which only seem like months to him. While he is in space and jumping from planet to planet, he ages only months as the Earth ages decades, even centuries and in the few times that Mandella makes it back to earth after being in space, for him, a relatively short time, sweeping changes occur--the population explodes, billions are without jobs, the monetary system is replaced by trading in Ks or calories, everyone is armed, has body guards, of lives in idyllic communes that are sporadically and devastatingly raided by armed men, and "veterans" of the interstellar war are displaced and not necessarily treated as heroes to the point where they "re-enlist" based on false promises that are quickly nullified by a change in orders.

Haldeman's novel is a powerful study of not simply the devastating effects of war on the combatants but its strains on the economic and political systems as well as the social structures of cities and nations as a whole. Above all, The Forever War is a powerful look at the human psyche and an exploration of human resilience. After reading this novel, I understand why it won so many awards. While The Forever War certainly speaks to the time it was written, it clearly speaks to our time now by touching on issues that come around again (or perhaps never really leave us).

**The Locus Award was presented for Best Novel from 1971 to 1979; in 1980 they changed the award designation to Best Science Fiction Novel.**

Summary of The Forever War

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...


In the 1970s Joe Haldeman approached more than a dozen different publishers before he finally found one interested in The Forever War. The book went on to win both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, although a large chunk of the story had been cut out before it saw publication. Now Haldeman and Avon Books have released the definitive version of The Forever War, published for the first time as Haldeman originally intended. The book tells the timeless story of war, in this case a conflict between humanity and the alien Taurans. Humans first bumped heads with the Taurans when we began using collapsars to travel the stars. Although the collapsars provide nearly instantaneous travel across vast distances, the relativistic speeds associated with the process means that time passes slower for those aboard ship. For William Mandella, a physics student drafted as a soldier, that means more than 27 years will have passed between his first encounter with the Taurans and his homecoming, though he himself will have aged only a year. When Mandella finds that he can't adjust to Earth after being gone so long from home, he reenlists, only to find himself shuttled endlessly from battle to battle as the centuries pass. --Craig E. Engler

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