The Forever War

 

“Reality becomes illusory and observer-oriented when you study general relativity. Or Buddhism. Or get drafted.” So says William Mandella, the protagonist of one of the best science fiction novels of all time.

I had the blessing of reacquainting myself with this classic as my end of year read. I had vague memories of the plot, I had first read the book in 2013, (Now I know 5 years isn’t that long but I have been losing my capacity for memory with each passing year) and I had been spirited away by its brilliance and originality. The second time was no different.

The Forever War belongs to that special period of sci-fi story telling, permeated by the liberal ideology of the sixties and part of the seventies.

The protagonist is a physics student who is conscripted into an elite task force in the United Nations Exploratory Force, which will battle the Taurans, an alien race that attacked colonist spaceships near Aldebaran. The members of this force are la crème de la crème: IQ 150 and above, physically fit, university education, which is something not generally associated with conscriptees. But since the force will battle in space against aliens, they need certain knowledge of physics, biology, medicine etc. The training is grueling and that is how the book begins, first in Missouri and then in Charon, a planet beyond Pluto before the actual planetoid was actually discovered. The environment is dangerous and any small mistake is lethal. In fact the soldiers are warned by their training officers that many will perish during training, given the nature of the battle suits they wear and the extreme conditions of the planet.

Another interesting element in the force is how the soldiers relate with each other, polygamous love exists and is expected by law.

Once the training is done, they depart for action via interconnected “collapsars” that allow ships to cover thousands of light-years in a split second. However, this travel has enormous relativistic effects and that is from where the novel takes its name. Each time William travels, there is a discrepancy between how much time has passed for him and how much time has passed on Earth. A voyage that lasts a couple of weeks for the travelers might be decades of time for others. This gives the story a phenomenal twist and mood, for William and all other soldiers become strangers to the rest of the world. In a brief return to Earth, the planet has changed drastically. Family members have died or become old, the know system has collapsed, even though William has only aged one year or two.

The novel is an anti-war novel, and it uses the conflict between the Taurans and humanity to illustrate it. The message is carried out discreetly, slowly creeping up on the reader and never overtly in your face, which is maybe why the book stands out as the greatest in sci-fi war genre. In fact you do not truly get the anti-war message until the very end of the novel.

Joe Haldeman was able to create a piece of crushing contrasts, between the soldiers that jump through "collapsars" and the world and people outside of that.

William Mandella spends 4 years of active service compared to the centuries that have elapsed in real time. He becomes the oldest surviving soldier and high rank through seniority rather than ambition. He describes himself as a pacifist but carries out his duty because of a sense of melancholy and that since the world has changed so much, the army is the only things he knows. For example, in a later period of the book, society has changed so much, that all his new soldiers are homosexual and heterosexuality is seen as a mental disorder, hence William is discreetly discriminated.

Hadelman’s experience in the Vietnam War no doubt helped him shape his core thesis, which shadows a message given by former U.S. president and Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight Eisenhower during his Farewell Address:

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

The book is a classic and its spartan style and prose makes it a very fluent read. I am very glad I read it again, I say read but I devoured it, read it in two days. As a final note, the author has a physics and astronomy degree, which strengthens some of the scientific concepts in the novel.