The Forever War

New recruit? Check. Ethnically-ambiguous surname? Check. Nifty armor? Check. Bug enemies? Check. Sketchy military contracts and post-war depression?....

An allegory for the author's own experiences as a soldier-turned-veteran of the Vietnam War, The Forever Warsits in direct contrast to the military glorification of Starship Troopers. With superb pacing that touches nothing irrelevant, this tightly written piece of SF history is thematically dense, but easy to read. With military-approved, drug-induced soldiering; dangerous and uncomfortable hi-tech armor; time-dilation as metaphor for cultural shift during wartime; and prolonged war to power the economy, this novel is both timely and futuristic, even forty years later. The most dated elements (women recruited specifically for sexual compliancy, locker room homophobia that extends centuries beyond to a militantly homosexual galactic society) feel neither dated nor unrealistic given the premise (metaphorical in nature) and the setting (this is the military, after all).

Best quote: "'It's so dirty.' I shrugged. 'It's so army'" (166). This should be required reading before anyone signs on.

The Worst Part: The Foreword in recent printings, written by another SF author on this list who states his work was not influenced by Haldeman, he had only recently read Haldeman, and comments little on the important nuances of Haldeman's work while drawing parallels between The Forever War and his own work when there are none,and insists on quoting Jimi Hendrix while failing to recognize the irony of the subsequent lyrics. ("Hey, Joe" is followed by "where you goin' with that gun in your hand?" which puts in mind the image of a very angry Joe Haldeman unappreciative of such a negligent Foreword.) It's a bad case of Ellisonitis.