Product Description

WAR William Mandela is a reluctant hero, drafter to fight in a distant interstellar war against unknowable and unconquerable aliens. But his greatest test will be returning to Earth. A few months of his tour of duty equate to centuries on his homeworld, during which he becomes increasingly isolated from the world he has been fighting to protect FREE Mandela returns home for the last time - to find humanity has evolved into a group conciousness which excludes him. Alone, alieneated and missing the certainties of combat, he and his fellow verterans search for an escape - and finally look towards space. PEACE A war is raging, fought by indestructible machines operated remotely by soldiers miles away - and for soldiers like Julian Class, war is truly hell. So when he anc his companion, Dr Amelia Harding, uncover something which could take the universe back to square one, the prospect isn't so much terrifying, as terrifyingly tempting . . .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21913 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 704 pages

About the Author
Joe Haldeman was born in Oklahoma in 1943 and studied physics and astronomy before serving as a combat engineer in Vietnam, where he was severely wounded and won a Purple Heart. The Forever War was his first SF novel and it won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, a feat which The Forever Peace repeated. He is also the author of, among others, Mindbridge, All My Sins Remembered, Worlds, Worlds Apart and Worlds Enough and Time.

Customer Reviews

War! Hur! Good God!
There are those who would say that Haldeman's seminal novel, The Forever War, and the subsequent follow-ups are derivative, that Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers is being ripped off. I for one disagree. Haldeman's voice is unprecedented and much emulated in the years after it was published. The characters, the situations, the emotional turmoil that Mandella suffers as a soldier who becomes obsolete after his first time-spanning tour of duty, returning to an Earth that has left him behind, and that is no longer a world where he feels he can live as himself, is achingly well depicted and deserves a much wider audience than the geeks and freaks stereotypically derided as the main consumers of the genre. If there is one book that might turn you on to science fiction, then this is it. I urge you to try it, or failing that, pick up a copy of The Forever War. You won't regret it.

Variable
This was the first Haldeman I have read and it got off to a cracking start. The first Story Forever War is brilliant. It's well written and the relativity idea works well. The snapshots of future earth are great.

The second Story, Forever Free is a direct sequel and is not as good. The characters are a good and strong as before and the build up of the story is excellent. However, the ending; will be a love-hate decider amongst readers. It took me a while to gather my thoughts on it and I came away disappointed.

The third story Forever Peace, is not related directly to the first two. Have to admit I found this hard going. I (unlike a lot of other readers) didn't mind the switching between 1st and 3rd person narrative. However, I did mind that a lot of interesting ideas were only skimmed or poorly realised. The ending to me at least seemed rushed.

If I were reviewing Forever War alone it would be 4 or 5 stars, but as a whole it pulls the average down.