There are a couple versions of this book on Amazon; I got the 1984 print because some reviews were harsh on the more recent versions with added/conflicting material.
They say the best science fiction isn't about the future, but the present. Having been written in 1974, The Forever War is nominally about a draftee's experience in an interstellar war. As the battles reach farther and farther out, time dilation means he has to cope with greater and greater changes every time he returns.
What it's really about is Vietnam veterans' maladjustment to life back home. While deployed they dreamt of those they left behind, but rapid changes in society meant that "home" was never the same as when they left.
As a 40 year-old book, the anachronisms are amusing. The character, like me, was born in 1975. He gets drafted in 1993, while his younger brother moves to the moon in 1995. When he returns from his first battles in 2023, he learned that most cities had been burnt in the 2004 food riots and the UN took over worldwide food distribution in 2007. Without any Internet or email, a letter from Earth to the moon cost $5000.
Sometimes the details are clever, as when he yearns to spend time with one of his fellow draftees -- someone who remembers the Earth of the 80s and 90s.
In hindsight, it's not a "prophetic" book by any means. Our last Earth war was not in 1987, and the end of the draft make the idea of death in space somewhat less tragic.
Yet the theme of veterans suffering from the effects of time dilation remains relevant. Even without physical trauma, there are still the emotional scars, difficulty reintegrating, and sometimes bitterness toward the civilians who moved on and learned to live with their absence.
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Review: The Forever War
There are a couple versions of this book on Amazon; I got the 1984 print because some reviews were harsh on the more recent versions with added/conflicting material.
They say the best science fiction isn't about the future, but the present. Having been written in 1974, The Forever War is nominally about a draftee's experience in an interstellar war. As the battles reach farther and farther out, time dilation means he has to cope with greater and greater changes every time he returns.
What it's really about is Vietnam veterans' maladjustment to life back home. While deployed they dreamt of those they left behind, but rapid changes in society meant that "home" was never the same as when they left.
As a 40 year-old book, the anachronisms are amusing. The character, like me, was born in 1975. He gets drafted in 1993, while his younger brother moves to the moon in 1995. When he returns from his first battles in 2023, he learned that most cities had been burnt in the 2004 food riots and the UN took over worldwide food distribution in 2007. Without any Internet or email, a letter from Earth to the moon cost $5000.
Sometimes the details are clever, as when he yearns to spend time with one of his fellow draftees -- someone who remembers the Earth of the 80s and 90s.
In hindsight, it's not a "prophetic" book by any means. Our last Earth war was not in 1987, and the end of the draft make the idea of death in space somewhat less tragic.
Yet the theme of veterans suffering from the effects of time dilation remains relevant. Even without physical trauma, there are still the emotional scars, difficulty reintegrating, and sometimes bitterness toward the civilians who moved on and learned to live with their absence.
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