The Forever War

Joe Haldeman

1974

This was originally published by Joe Haldeman back in 1974 when the Vietnam war was in it's final stages and any similarities are not there by accident :~). As explained in a foreword, there are a number of versions of this novel going around. The one published in 1997, the one that Millennium selected for their Masterworks series, contains substantial bits that were not in earlier versions, so is a good buy even if you have an earlier version.

It's 1997 and Mankind has finally managed to get to the stars by the use of collapsar technology (See here for a definition for Wormhole) and after a few successful attempts they find that most of the near stars are occupied by aliens. As is natural in the circumstances war is almost automatic.

A Terran expedition is destroyed and the UN organises a taskforce of the brightest and best. Unfortunately they are all conscripts and less-than-happy to be part of the military machine.

Private Mandella having successfully completed the training course, rather against the odds, is shipped out to the stars along with the rest of the survivors of the course. Their first mission goes well enough, hitting a Tauran base so successfully that they wipe out all members of the base along with a number of the natives. There are a number of difficulties; the natives were telepaths and killed all the psi sensitives amongst the Terrans and a number of the Terrans were unable to participate in the slaughter despite psychological conditioning.

The next mission, still travelling out from Sol, is much less successful. They find a disadvantage of relativistic transport; the Taurans on this outpost are prepared for the brutality of the Terrans and have a technological advantage as well. The captain of the ship is so horrified by the damage that the Taurans inflicted on his ship that he turns and runs for Sol system where the survivors are demobbed and sent back to Earth itself.

There they find a society that is basically going to pot with gangs taking over the urban areas and bandits hitting isolated homesteads and healthcare to the elderly being strictly rationed. After a while, Mandella and his companion finally gave up on their attempts to understand this strange society and returned to military service as commissioned officers, with the stated wish that they act as training cadre up on the Moon. But before long (less than a couple of days!), they find themselves heading out to the fighting once more where they are split up on different ships which effectively means that they probably won't meet ever again.

As Mandella continues on, he finds the people under his command changing greatly as the UN changes people's attitudes towards sex and reproduction. Even so, the overt homosexuality that has become the norm takes him by surprise.

Finally Humanity becomes a fully cloned species and there is a chance of proper conversation between Humans and Taurans at long last and the military forces can be called home when it was found that the war was just a huge effort by the Terran Government to keep itself afloat.

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This is part of the Science Fiction Masterworks series.

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