The Forever Review

A Book Review of The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

(There are some minor spoilers here involving the setting and early parts of the novel but I do not give away anything significant about the plot)

The Context of the Novel

The micro-sub-genre of military science fiction is defined by a couple of books published in 1959 by veterans of the US Military. The seminal work and probably the greatest is Starship Troopers, by Robert A. Heinlein, a veteran of the US Navy and a graduate of the US Naval Academy who served prior to World War II and worked as a civilian in research and development during that conflict. The novel has achieved something of literary immortality and is found on lists of required reading for military schools and military science classes around the world. The other founding author is Gordon R. Dickson, a veteran of US Army service in World War II, who published the novel Dorsai at about the same time without either author apparently having been aware of each other's efforts.

Shortly after these early military sci-fi books came out, other authors, especially veterans, began producing similar novels. In this second wave, probably the most notable novel is The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman, an Army veteran of the War in Vietnam. It’s usually considered to be a contrived response to Starship Troopers to reflect the different experience of the next generation with military service. Having heard about the book for decades, I was reminded of it when I finally saw a copy sitting on a shelf in a local bookstore and decided it was a long overdue read (yes, I still buy paper books for a variety of reasons).

The Review

The Forever War starts off by establishing one of the standard features of science fiction of the 20^th century that appealed to me greatly when I was young but now seems silly. In the novel, the advancement of technology has marched at an astonishingly rapid pace and humans are traveling throughout and settling the galaxy by the end of the 20th century. Given the context in which the novel was written, right after the moon landings of the late 1960s to early 1970s, this makes more sense than it does now. Humans had rapidly progressed from simplistic air travel in the years leading up to WWII, to fast jet powered travel, simple space travel, and travel to the moon in about 30 years. It turned out that those steps were easier to achieve than one might have thought and making the next step to travel between planets proved much more difficult, but that wasn’t apparent to most people at the time.

The other all-too-typical sci-fi feature of The Forever War is that the characters are all “supermen,” as it was referred to at the time, even though many are female. In humanity’s venture into interstellar space we have encountered hostile alien life and found the need to establish a new international military force, which is comprised of draftees with a minimum IQ of 150 as well as superb athletic prowess. It’s as if the average soldier must have the qualifications of an astronaut. This is a characteristic of sci-fi of the earlier era, epitomized by the works of Heinlein, Gordon R. Dickson, and the detestable Ayn Rand, and Haldeman jumped on the bandwagon.

Despite genius level intelligence, the soldiers of The Forever War talk and act like a combination of the “oversexed” GIs of the second world war and the fatalistic weed habituates of Vietnam War movies, rather than the highly educated specialists they are supposed to be, reflecting perhaps the author’s experiences in the Army, combined with some exaggeration and even wishful thinking. In Haldeman’s world, not only are women integrated with the combat units of the armed forces, but female soldiers are compelled by law to bunk with others on a rotating basis. This, combined with a trip to the sperm bank followed by mandatory sterilization for males is meant to satisfy sexual urges but prevent unplanned pregnancy. In effect, the women are being rotated around to keep the men satisfied (and themselves I suppose), and although it’s not clear if the actual act itself is mandatory, it’s made clear that the assignment is enforced by law for these draftees, who did not volunteer for service.

Perhaps the idea of mandatory pairing up made sense in the context of the late 1960s to early 1970s, but I can’t identify with it. This idea too might reflect the influence of Heinlein and other authors of the period who were trying to challenge societal norms and speculate about future value systems. But we are living in the future with regard to the time the book was written, and instead of putting people into situations that provide opportunity for unwanted advances in the workplace, we usually try to prevent it. Doing the opposite might be considered what we would call a “crime.” Haldeman’s idea of mandatory sleeping assignments represents a value system from the past, not the future.

Having established this unlikely cast of characters, Haldeman asks us to suspend disbelief further and kills off about half of these genius athletes during a few months of training. This, I have little doubt, is a result of the influence of Heinlein’s aforementioned novel Starship Troopers, and possibly other works by that author. Heinlein liked to shock the reader with societies in which sudden death occurs for seemingly petty or trivial reasons that his narration would rationalize as only logical under the circumstances. I won’t get into my thoughts about why I believe Heinlein did that but the idea was obviously appealing to Haldeman, who copied it and took it to an extreme in The Forever War.  One could interpret this as Haldeman critiquing Heinlein, but I’m not sure I buy that. It reads more like he was just a fanboy and got carried away. Training deaths do occur in the real world, and in a way are senseless, but do not occur at such a high rate and the exaggeration took me out of the story. The author may have been making a commentary on the wastefulness of human life that occurs in the pursuit of war, but if so then it failed because it really just seemed preposterous to me.

Now that I’ve torn the book down, I’m going to praise it. Haldeman almost lost me with the ridiculously dangerous training regimen for his elite super-soldiers, but his compelling language and quick pace held my interest and I was able to keep going. The training anecdotes are a necessary and effective device to draw in the interest of the reader, establish the historical background of the novel, familiarize the reader with the characters, and lay the groundwork for the author to get across his ideas. I’ve read a few Vietnam War novels and works of military history over the years (including Haldeman’s own novella War Year), and The Forever War displays many of the characteristics of a book written by a Vietnam vet: the displacement from home, the interruption of life experienced by draftees, the horror of witnessing violent death, fatalism, and difficulty adapting back to normal society after serving, but these are provided in a fresh context, which adds some interest.

Haldeman borrows several technologies from other science fiction authors, notably the powered suits used by the soldiers borrowed from Starship Troopers, but in some cases provides a better presentation. This borrowing of technology is a common practice in science fiction, and is not troubling to a fan of sci-fi, especially since Haldeman is so effective at quickly articulating how speculative advanced technologies might work and putting them into easily understandable terms. For example, he contrived a unique take on the use of naturally occurring portals in space as a means of quickly travelling across the universe and explains it simply and easily. It’s a very appealing presentation and you soon take it for granted as an established technology, thus the all-important suspension of disbelief is achieved. As an interesting note, it appears Haldeman also coined or popularized the term “stargate” for these portals, a term that has gone on to larger fame through film and television, although as far as I can tell Haldeman himself had nothing to do with the Stargate franchise. So the author himself was borrowed from in later works by others.

Haldeman also understood well the effects of long distance travel at nearly the speed of light, not troubling us with technical details of how the ships work, but rather covering the effects of the passage of time on humans, the slow flow of telecommunications over the vast distances of space, and the sweep of history in general, hence the title of the novel. Despite the extreme length of time covered by the book, the pacing of the author’s writing maintains a quick tempo throughout the entire work, and seems to accelerate as the story progresses. Soon I was unable to put down the book, anxiously anticipating each page. By the time I was half way through the novel, I had trouble putting it aside.

At the end of the day, The Forever War is pretty good novel for readers of the genre of military sci-fi, and is usually considered one of the best science fiction novels of all time. I will hold off on issuing a pronouncement of greatness but I do recommend it for sci-fi fans. I specifically would not recommend it to someone unfamiliar with sci-fi and wanting to try it out. It’s too vulgar and lacks enough literary attributes to make up for it. I also penalize Haldeman a little bit for lack originality due to the obvious similarity to Starship Troopers, especially during the earlier parts of the novel, although his explorations of the effects of long distance travel in space are quite unique and well thought out. Although not completely original, The Forever War has much to recommend and it’s a pretty good book. Sci-fi fans should read it; everyone else should leave it aside.

Post Script: A Differential Comparison to Starship Troopers

(Arguably I’ve put further spoilers in this section, although still not giving away much detail)

Even if The Forever War is meant to be a response to Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, it ranges over into parody at the expense of originality and I would expect some meaning is lost if you have not read both. For that reason, The Forever War has to be considered less successful as a standalone effort. Genre fiction is defined by similarities, but I found I was unable to review this book without referring back to Starship Troopers, which goes a little too far for me.

As a differential comparison, although similar, the two books present differing world views, reflecting the different experiences of military service of the authors. Where Starship Troopers reflects a study of the mentality of the motivated soldier and a justification for public service as a means to hold society together as a balance to individualism, The Forever War appears to be a more personal reflection of Haldeman’s experiences in Vietnam, and draws conclusions about the great length of that conflict, what he saw as its pointlessness and wastefulness, the harmful effects on soldiers returning from that war, and his much more negative opinion of bureaucracy and public service in general.

Interestingly enough, both novels feature conclusions that are brief and written almost as an afterthought to the story. The climax of each respective plot is not the climax of each respective conflict. Both books are fundamentally about soldierly experiences and not about the specific goals or the politics of war. The Forever War has been interpreted as a response to Heinlein’s novel, which I think it is to a certain extent, but that does not completely excuse the lack of originality in plot and characterization.