The collapsar network has opened the wide reaches of the galaxy to humanity, but when colonist ships are destroyed by aliens it becomes necessary for mankind to defend itself. The most intelligent, physically fit, and promising of Earth's young men and women are called to arms, including William Mandella, a reluctant soldier who will rise through the ranks to find himself a hero of the war.
The Souring of Space Opera
It sounds like the prototypical space opera: zooming starships, cruel bug-eyed monsters, and dashing heroes. But Joe Haldeman was a veteran of the Vietnam War, and it's difficult to imagine someone living through that reality and retaining any capacity for a rosy, pulpy space opera. The Forever War is bleak, not brash; melancholy rather than thrilling.
The book opens with a sergeant teaching his elite cadets eight ways to kill a man, even though no one has seen the alien enemy or knows anything about their biology. That's the problem with recruits who have an IQ of 150: they wonder why they have to know how to kill someone with a blow to the kidneys when their enemy probably doesn't even have kidneys.
Such inanity is the backbone of The Forever War. The military bureaucracy lumbers like an unthinking machine, and battle itself is bloody chaos, with soldiers making no more impact as individuals than does a single shell in a burst of automatic fire.
It's Not Just the Military
Despite the protagonist's propensity for survival, pessimism pervades the book. Mandella and his comrades despise the military they are part of, and neither the official practice of shouting "F--- you, Sir!" when dismissed by a commanding officer, nor the rotating conjugal assignments do much to improve morale. (For those sensitive to such things, be aware the book is uninhibited in its language.)
The resentment extends far beyond the military as an institution. Reading this novel I felt very little connection between any of the characters. They treat each other much as the military treats them, as artifacts and implements which may serve one day and break the next. There is fear and pain, but little sorrow or concern. Perhaps this is part of the point - the dehumanizing effect of war - but it makes the book feel very cold, and the reader, like the characters, is left detached.
The obvious exception is the female soldier that Mandella falls in love with. But their relationship is also chilly, tempered by its polyamory and the assurance that either might die at any time. Their sojourn together on Earth between tours resolves this somewhat, but the clamping down of their emotions neuters their romance of any power.
Speculations and Dilations
The projection into the future of the callous military apparatus so typical of the Vietnam-era cultural record is something short of speculation as it sometimes seems incontrovertible. It's not in the military culture but in the surrounding milieu that Haldeman makes some interesting propositions. Some are less successful, such as the notion that universal homosexuality will be enforced to resolve overpopulation and other problems. This would effectively divide humanity into two species, but rather than explore deeper ramifications the effect is only felt in some awkward moments for heterosexual Mandella.
On the other hand, time dilation resulting from near-light speeds wrecks complexities on both warfare generally and an individual's relationship to his society and loved ones, and this is explored thoroughly. Missions stretch through months for the soldiers involved but for centuries on their worlds. The game of technological leapfrog played by humanity and its enemy is a central feature of the plot. This distorted immortality also gives the novel its most affecting passages, as Mandella and his lover return to an unrecognizable Earth, and later suffer separations of time as well as place.
The Illegitimacy of Compulsion
The Forever War is usually seen as a response to Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers, a defrocking of Golden Age optimism by the grim realities of the Vietnam generation. Certainly, the positive, militaristic tenor of Troopers finds its obverse in Haldeman, who exposes the rampant absurdity and inherent misanthropy of war.
Yet the two authors were amicable, complimenting toward one another, despite propounding opposite worldviews. The explanation may be in the contrast between Heinlein's advocacy for a voluntary military, and Haldeman's depiction of a compulsory military. It could even be said that Haldeman makes Heinlein's case by delineating the weaknesses of compulsion, the almost inevitable gravitation to inefficiency, confusion, and mediocrity in a draftee system.
It may be that belonging to the post-Vietnam generation I undervalue the accomplishments of The Forever War. I never cared for its stunted characters and its prose and plot leave me unaffected. Most importantly, its dismal tone carries less freshness than the backed-up plumbing I recently had the pleasure of exploring in my basement with a hundred-foot snake; less freshness even than Heinlein's transparent and jingoistic Troopers, which undoubtedly smelled like a week-old trout in 1974.
There's something to the notion that these two paradigms cycle around each other in the collective conscious. I find the two books work together as if they were intended partners. The Forever War keeps Starship Troopers honest, even as it highlights by contrast the ideals of its forebear.
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