by Dan Roberts
The Forever War ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐
The Earth’s leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand—despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy that 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 without rancor and even rise up through military ranks. Pvt. Mandella is willing to 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.
If you’re looking for a good horror read for Veteran’s Day, I advise purchasing Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War (1974). Forever War is fifty years young this year. The book tells the story of a 1000-year war against an alien race from the perspective of William Mandella (An loose anagram for Haldeman). While the story is Science Fiction at its core, like all tales of war, it features numerous horror elements. Included are your typical face-melting alien weapons and the cosmic horror of time and relativity in space. Haldeman used the tale to explore his own feelings of grief and alienation after his service in Vietnam. His adapted experience gives the accounting of the 1000-year war a tragic authenticity. After publication, The Forever War won a trifecta of Science Fiction awards (Lotus, Hugo, and Nebula).
While generally a techno-optimist, I love the unique perspectives in The Forever War. Haldeman envisions wondrous technological advancements but refuses to celebrate any of them. They become just another source of peril, prone to lethal accidents, or as self-defeating instruments of destruction. He makes the wondrous ordinary until it becomes terrifying.
Haldeman also powerfully lingers on the inevitable isolation of veterans who come home to a completely different world. Society, technology, family, and culture go on without the veteran, whose only focus is on survival. I don’t want to ruin anything, but my favorite part of the book is when William Mandella returns to his now decades-old mother at the end of the first act. He finds a society in wartime economic stagnation where all human sexuality has undergone a revolution of sorts. Things are so miserably stark; that Mandella chooses to return to the conflict he abhors. The future is brighter teetering on the knife’s edge of interstellar war.
This reminds me of so many conversations I’ve had with veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Home is relief and a break from rigid strictures of discipline. But, at the same time, something is often missing. While in the country they were the most important person in the world. Their life served a mission. At home, they found none. Their only job became to exist. This so tragically led many to wonder, did they even matter now? No other author I have ever read captured this as successfully as Haldeman, and for that alone his book should be read.
Subsequent books have since been added to produce the Forever War series. They are Forever Peace (1997); Forever Free (1999); A Separate War (1999). But my heart is with the original. Visceral, honest, insightful, and still relevant. Read The Forever War and take time to think about veterans on November 11th.
Daniel Roberts is a historian and author, with publications on the history of the United States Navy. He is the author of The American: The Life Times and War of Basil Antonelli. Recently he has decided to get into the fiction game and is shopping for three novels. For more information, visit his author site.
Twitter (X): @thegreatlostdan
Instagram: @realworldwitbirds
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