Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780060510862
ISBN number: 0060510862
Label: Eos
Manufacturer: Eos
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 288
Printing Date: September 01, 2003
Publishing house: Eos
Release Date: September 02, 2003
Sale Popularity Level: 90446
Studio: Eos
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Private William Mandella is a hero in spite of himself -- a reluctant conscript drafted into an elite military unit, and propelled through space and time to fight in a distant thousand-year conflict. He never wanted to go to war, but the leaders on Earth have drawn a line in the interstellar sand -- despite the fact that their fierce alien enemy is unknowable, unconquerable, and very far away. So Mandella will perform his duties without rancor and even rise up through the military's ranks . . . if he survives. But the true test of his mettle will come when he returns to Earth. Because of the time dilation caused by space travel the loyal soldier is aging months, while his home planet is aging centuries -- and the difference will prove the saying: you never can go home. . .
Amazon.com Review:
In the 1970s Joe Haldeman approached more than a dozen different publishers before he finally found one interested in The Forever War. The book went on to win both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, although a large chunk of the story had been cut out before it saw publication. Now Haldeman and Avon Books have released the definitive version of The Forever War, published for the very first time as Haldeman originally intended. The book tells the timeless story of war, in this case a conflict between humanity and the alien Taurans. Humans very first bumped heads with the Taurans when we began using collapsars to travel the stars. Although the collapsars provide nearly instantaneous travel across vast distances, the relativistic speeds associated with the process means that time passes slower for those aboard ship. For William Mandella, a physics student drafted as a soldier, that means more than 27 years will have passed between his very first encounter with the Taurans and his homecoming, though he himself will have aged only a year. When Mandella finds that he can't adjust to Earth after being gone so long from home, he reenlists, only to find himself shuttled endlessly from battle to battle as the centuries pass. --Craig E. Engler
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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Given the stellar reviews and awards this book has won, I was expecting something superb. It was truly average. Pedestrian. Workmanlike. Perhaps for its time, 35 years ago, it was cutting edge. But we have to judge it by the present, given the plodding nature of the writing.
The author is no stylist. It came off as something written by a very talented teenager. That isn't saying a lot.
Alas, most books I read, I would never read again. This one, I'm sorry I spent the time in the very first place. It's not bad. It's just not what everyone led me to hope for. The bar is set too high, and so the rating must be harsher.
J
Rated by buyers 
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(Note: This is a review of the author's "preferred edition". It's not called that, but in the Foreward, Haldeman describes previous iterations and why they didn't include the elements he reintroduced here)
Most people who review this novel seem to focus on the allegory to various wars, particularly the Vietnam War. But having been thinking about how parts of the world feel strange to me (technologically and socially - I had an epiphany regarding Facebook and the similar online networking sites recently), I think the novel works just as well as an allegory for aging.
While the war scenes are quite well done, I found I was looking more forward to what changes would be seen to humanity after every 'tour of duty', in which the main protagonist would age very little as centuries pass on Earth.
I'm not sure I buy that humanity would ever fight a war such as the one in this novel, though it would certainly be a fascinating one. The novel brings home Einstein's relativity paradoxes in a way that none other has yet done for me, although once or twice it appeared as though Haldeman hand waved to make sure that something came out the way he wanted, when if it had been reality the situation wouldn't have been anywhere near as likely to occur.
That doesn't really detract from the novel, as it's really about one man who becomes more and more separated from the people he knows, and even the world he once thought he knew. And in this context, it's one of the best books I've ever read.
Rated by buyers -
Simply the best Sci-Fi book I've read. I read this book many years ago when I was into this genre. Its time twists are most gripping as are the changing social mores. A rewarding fast read.
Rated by buyers -
William Mandella is the name of the main character of this well crafted sci-fi/war book. Author Joe Handelman and his view of the future of mankind it's just allucinating.
In the future, if you join the army you MUST be promiscous (by law). Then a few hundred years later, sex with the opposite sex it's banned (or at least not well received). A couple of hundred years later humans are cloned.
The way that long distance travels affects the timeline of a human being are extremely well detailed and written in this book. William Mandella at some point returns to Earth, just to find a new way of talking (english still spoken but quite different) and new orders in the society he left behind when joining the army. On the warfare aspect of the book its just phenomenal. The way the power suits are described and the thrilling battle moments are incredible.
This is by far one of the best books I've ever read. If you are looking for an easy to read book, entertaining, definetly shocking, with a good amount of gore and at some points humorous, then this is the one you need to read.
Rated by buyers -
I finally read the classic 1974 sci-fi novel by Joe Haldeman called The Forever War which won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 1975 and 1976, respectively. These are pretty significant achievements and it would be difficult for a book to live up to them.
This one does.
The central premise is about a war between humans and aliens that is occurring way out in space so that even though faster-than-light is possible via wormholes, the trips ends up taking decades of Earth-time. The author uses this relativistic effect as a time-machine that allows the characters to experience huge time shifts and allows the author to speculate on Earth's future in exciting, engrossing and particularly amusing ways.
The protagonist of the book is an Everyman: William Mandella, a (presumably) straight white American male who is conscripted to fight the aliens despite a 50% casualty rate and somehow manages to survive multiple missions in what becomes known as "The Forever War."
GRADE: A.
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