The Forever War

What is the Science Fiction Premise?

We are offered many Science Fiction ideas in The Forever War. There are portals that facilitate travel throughout the galaxy. There are near light-speed space ships. And, there are many exotic weapons. In some ways, it is difficult to choose one premise to focus on. Having said that, I choose the time dilation due to the near light-speed travel as the key underlying premise of The Forever War. This premise is examined from the perspective of soldiers who are deployed in an interstellar war lasting a very long time.

Is the science of the premise explored?

In 1974, when The Forever War was published, time dilation was a well understood science fiction concept. The challenge for Haldeman was less one of explaining time dilation per se than of explaining the requirements to survive near light-speed travel and of explaining how travelers might jump around the galaxy while obeying the speed limit. The first challenge is addressed by special couches and then shells that support a person during periods of rapid acceleration or deceleration. The second is the "collapsars" or portals that allow jumps through space.

Is the impact of the premise on an individual explored?

The heart of the story is understanding how time dilation affects the lives of the protagonist and his lover. They arrive at a battle scene facing the prospect that the enemy's weapons have improved while they were in transit. They arrive home facing the prospect that society and their families have aged even though they feel only months older. While the action centers on a soldier's life of traveling to the battle, fighting, and returning to home and country, the wrinkle in it all is that everything keeps undergoing major changes with each new deployment.

Is the impact of the premise on society explored?

Time dilation and its effects are a concern for the military, but less critical to the society as a whole. We see some accommodation of the military to the fact of time dilation, but this is as much an opportunity for sarcasm as realistic speculation.

How well written is the story?

I found this book really easy to read. The writing is clear and not overly ornate. Occasionally, I got bogged down in some of the technical explanations, but I was mostly being impatient to get on with the story. (I guess I was willing to take the author's word on the science.) In addition, the story does poke some darkly humorous "jabs" at the military and even society as a whole.

Can I recommend the book?

I think everyone who likes Science Fiction should read this book.

If you know of the book, you might have been avoiding it because it gets portrayed as an anti-war novel arising from the Vietnam War. That might be true, but I could not easily discern it and I am a child of that era. The war in The Forever War is not a Vietnam analog; it could be almost any war in which power is being projected beyond one's home region. As for the anti-war sentiments, they are more a distaste for stupidity than a call for unbridled pacifism.

You might also be avoiding The Forever War because you don't like portrayals of violence. I can't really help you here. I share a distaste for such scenes. I can say, however, that the author does not appear to revel in the violence and it is an essential element of the world he is portraying.

The thing that really draws me to The Forever War is the way that the author uses the time dilation to magnify the sense of isolation and alienation that a soldier can feel. When sent to a foreign planet separated by space and time, you have only your comrades for support and survival. Your first thought is to save one another, not to achieve some national objective. When you come home, the world is so totally changed that you wonder what you were fighting for and seek the company of the military and your comrades as the only life that still makes sense. We do not need The Forever War to know that soldiers already experience these things. But for those of us, who have not been soldiers, the magnification can help us see and empathize with lives we have not known.

Tar Daddoo