Review: The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
by Rich Horton
This review will be full of spoilers -- it's a classic SF novel, and pretty much everyone in the field (except John Scalzi :) ) has read it. Short answer: it's definitely worth reading -- a bitter and cynical look at war, some cool ideas including the effect of time dilation and lots of physics, a somewhat transcendent but pretty creepy conclusion. And, also, some very '70s things, including pretty questionable -- at times downright offensive -- "sexual revolution" era sexual politics, and oddly 70s-ish notions of dystopia.To my impressions:
I read The Forever War back in 1975 when it came out, mostly in the Analog quasi-serialization, though I bought the paperback too. I had to get the first two parts of the novel out of the library as I didn't start buying Analog until the August 1974 issue. The last two sections (in Analog) were in the fourth and sixth issues I bought. I liked it then and I endorsed its Hugo and Nebula wins. But if I am telling the truth, my memories from 50 years ago have become pretty dim, so I only recall the basic outline: William Mandella is drafted into a war against the aliens, there are several very impressive battle scenes, he falls in love with fellow soldier Marygay Potter, they are separated by time dilation, the war ends when it is realized the whole thing was a mistake due to poor communication, Marygay waits for William by flying back and forth in a spaceship until time dilation means their timelines are synchronized again.
We scheduled it for our book club this month, so I finally reread it. I got a Kindle edition, partly because I had heard that a significant chunk of the novel had been rejected by Ben Bova at Analog, and had only been added back to the book edition much later. The funny thing is, that chunk, was published as a separate novella in the November 1975 Amazing. And I don't remember it at all! -- even though I was buying Amazing at the time. I don't even remember the other stories in that issue, nor do I recognize the cover. Either my memory is completely shot -- possible! -- or I somehow missed that issue -- I don't think I had subscribed yet.
What did I think on a reread? It's still a pretty effective book. The telling is cynical in a totally believable way. The Army scenes ring very true -- and Haldeman would certainly be a better authority than me anyway. The soldiers are foulmouthed, dislike their commanding officers, but fairly disciplined if only because the alternative is dying. From my perspective a couple of things bothered me. One: in the Army "confraternity" -- sexual relastions with your fellow soldiers of the opposite sex -- is essentially mandatory, and (at least for a while) on a rotation basis. This seesm that it would be particularly hard on the women -- and there are hints of this in the novel. But only hints -- for the most part people seem happy to be always ready for sex and to be bedding a different person each night. In reality -- probably not much fun for most women, and, really, not so much fun for lots of men. Two: the casualty numbers are incredible, probably significantly higher than Russian casualties in Ukraine (and partly for a similar reason -- the politicians on Earth don't care.) Even worse, part of this is to my mind very avoidable casualties during trainging. Three: I don't quite buy the concept of only recruiting geniuses (150+ IQ) for the Army. I get that there's some satirical point to that, but still.
That said, it's very exciting, and well-written. The battle setups are interesting, and seem like a plausible use of the technology Haldeman invents. Some of this tech is pretty implausible, but in an almost believable fashion. The new section, originally called "You Can Never Go Back", concerns William and Marygay's return to Earth after their battles, at which time they are eligible to muster out. They describe at thoroughly decayed Earth society, in a very '70s fashion. Homosexuality is encourage as a population control measure (though -- as Mandella even points out -- birth control is pretty easy to enforce anyway.) Haldeman's depiction of homosexuality is mostly positive, I suppose, but there are some cliches, which I understand he regretted in later years. The rest of the depiction of Earth at that time seems a bit over the top -- but partly it's a device to make it plausible that the two of them reup.
The social changes from then on remain interesting. Homosexuality is eventually mandatory, and enforced by medical treatments. All births are by artificial insemination and by using artificial wombs. There are algorithms to ensure genetic compatibility for "better" children. The novel takes a somewhat neutral stance towards this, though I find it horrifying. And the final fate of mankind -- where every one is clones of a single individual, linked a sort of hivemind, is appalling, and really dangerous. There is a backup plan -- a few planets where heterosexual relationships and natural birth is allowed -- which of course is where William and Marygay end up. But seriously -- what is "good", what is valuable, what sort of art would be possible, etc. etc., in a world with only one actual individual. It's really truly terrible.
Anyway, it remains a good novel. As with so many books, it doesn't hold up as well 50 years later -- I wasn't as impressed as I remember being back then. Nonetheless, it definitely heralded an outstanding careers, and beginning some time in the 1990s I got in the habit of reading every Joe Haldeman novel as they came out, every 2 years or so, and they are reliably strong work. (My favorites are The Hemingway Hoax, The Coming, and Old Twentieth.)