And overarching all of those themes it’s about home – coming home, what home really is, and how it changes. Before I get to all that though let me talk about the story. I say that because its greatness doesn’t have to do with its battle scenes (though it has them), and it doesn’t have to do with the science (though it has it) it is great because it’s about people and humanity, it’s about our base desires and needs, and it’s about all the good and bad that comes with it. I said a moment ago this is a great war novel without having to qualify it by genre. But “home” may be even more terrifying than battle, because, thanks to the time dilation caused by space travel, Mandella is aging months while the Earth he left behind is aging centuries…” A reluctant conscript drafted into an elite military unit, Private William Mandella, has been propelled through space and time to fight in the distant thousand-year conflict to perform his duties and do whatever it takes to survive the ordeal and return home. “The Earth’s leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand – despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy they would oppose is inscrutable, unconquerable, and very far away. It is not only a great science fiction war novel (many would say the best), it is a great war novel. My thoughts after letting the book sit with me for over a week have not changed. For his career writing science fiction and/or fantasy he is a SFWA Grand Master and since 2012 a member of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.That was my reaction and the first words I wrote after finishing The Forever War. That novel, and other of his works including The Hemingway Hoax (1991) and Forever Peace (1997), have won major science fiction awards including the Hugo Award and Nebula Award.

He is best known for his 1974 novel The Forever War. Joe William Haldeman (born June 9, 1943) is an American science fiction author. Informally, the novels compose The Forever War series the novel also inspired a comic book and a board game. The novella A Separate War (1999) is another sequel of sorts, occurring simultaneously to the final portion of The Forever War. Forever Free (1999) and Forever Peace (1997) are, respectively, direct and thematic sequel novels. It won the Nebula Award in 1975, and the Hugo and the Locus awards in 1976. The Forever War (1974) is a military science fiction novel by American author Joe Haldeman, telling the contemplative story of soldiers fighting an interstellar war between Man and the Taurans.

The forever war 1974