The Forever War

The Forever War is a 1975 Hugo Award winning science fiction novel by Joe Haldeman. There is also a sequel, Forever Free. (Haldeman's book Forever Peace does not belong to the same series, though it deals with similar themes.)

It tells the story of William Mandella, a university student conscripted for an elite UN task force being assembled for a war against the Taurans, an alien species that was discovered when they suddenly attacked some Terran colony ships. Because of the unknown nature of the threat, many cadets are recruited for their unique knowledge and talents, including telepathy and luck. Mandella believes that he is chosen for his understanding of math and physics, which becomes ironic considering that the effects experienced by him and his comrades are often the results of extreme physics, though later one wonders if there is not something more to Mandella's being chosen. After a grueling training regimen on earth and Pluto's moon Charon, which results in a number of training casualties, the recruits finally ship out to remote bases orbiting "colapsars", wormhole-like phenomena that allow faster than light travel with massive relativistic effects.

Due to the physics of deep space travel, the war lasts for more than a thousand years from Earth's perspective. Over the course of the war, the soldiers (who because of the relativistic effects of near-light-speed travel suffer severe time dilation) experience technological future shock firsthand in combat as the Taurans employ superior weaponry against them.

A few times throughout the book, William Mandella completes his tour of duty and is shipped home, only to find how drastically Earth has changed from the last time he was home. He, with his fellow soldiers, have difficulty fitting into a future society that has evolved almost beyond their comprehension. At one point the veterans learn that to prevent overpopulation which led to world-wide food wars, homosexuality has been officially encouraged by the world government, and at another trip home they learn that it has become the societal norm. The changes within society continue to alienate Mandella and the other veterans to the point where many continually re-enlist.

Through brains, experience, and more than a little luck Mandella continues to survive through the centuries of combat and change, and soon becomes one of the oldest soldiers in the war, eventually becoming an officer and leading his own group of soldiers into battle. One of the telling points of the book is when he and a soldier from a much more contemporary time (by a factor of hundreds of years) are both doing a math equation by hand, they both use different methodologies, and they keep arriving at completely different answers, even though both methods are completely valid. The idea perhaps is that with enough time even the oldest systems are changed, and beliefs we have held for our entire lives are suddenly seen as invalid, despite the fact that the old systems worked.

The war ends after mankind begins a system of cloning, creating a new species calling itself Man which are created and used as new soldiers. Man develops a means of communication unique to clones, which allows them to communicate with the Taurans and begin peace talks. As it turns out, on of the main reasons for the perpetuation of the war is that the Taurans are a naturally clone-based species like Man and could not communicate with non-clones such as Humans.

The novel is widely perceived to be a portrayal of the author's military experiences during the Vietnam War, although it is set in a science-fiction context. Moreover it is a look at the changes happening in the world during the war through the eyes of a soldier fighting in it, and the unique (and perhaps more realistic) view he has of them compared to the rest of humanity. It was also considered to be a response to Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein, a promilitary book with a similar setting.

Belgian comic writer Marvano has, in cooperation with Joe Haldeman, created a comic book trilogy of The Forever War in Dutch, titled De Eeuwige Oorlog. The trilogy has a sequel titled Een Nieuw Begin ("A New Beginning").

Editions

The Forever War has been published in three editions. The 1975 edition was abridged for space by the editor, and is in the opinion of some readers the stronger novel of the first two. This edition has, "a white cover showing a guy in a spacesuit with a sword, with symbolic clocks all around." (author quoted) The 1991 edition recovers many expurgated sections, primarily dealing with the changes that befall human civilisation during the centuries of William Mandela's lifetime. This version has, "a futuristic soldier who looks like Robin Williams in a funny hat." (author quoted) In 2003, the most complete, according to the author, version was released. As stated in the Authors Note of the 1991 version, "But alas, not all of the changes got in, and the book had some internal contradictions because of things left over from the earlier(1991) one." This version has a man with a sparse moustache in a gray spacesuit and a sensor over his right eye.de:Der Ewige Krieg fr:La Guerre éternelle it:Guerra eterna