Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780441007875
ISBN number: 0441007872
Label: Ace
Manufacturer: Ace
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 288
Printing Date: November 01, 2000
Publishing house: Ace
Release Date: October 31, 2000
Sale Popularity Level: 426786
Studio: Ace
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Brief Book Summary:
The 'long-awaited'* new novel set in the universe of Joe Haldeman's classic Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novels The Forever War and Forever Peace.
'A well-written and worthy sequel to one of SF's enduring classics.'-Publishing houses Weekly
'...there was a Fort Knox for the science fiction writers who really matter, we'd have to lock Haldeman up there.'-Stephen King
'One of the best prophetic writers of our time.'-David Brin
'His prose is as clear and engaging as his ideas.'-New York Times Book Review
Amazon.com:
You can't lose for winning--especially, it would seem, if you're Joe Haldeman. Suffering the same fate as many an author who's dared to pen unconventional sequels to a ferociously loved book (in this case, The Forever War), Haldeman has risked the ire of his many devoted admirers a second time (the very first sequel was the award-spangled Forever Peace). But Haldeman's call--not too surprisingly--proves to be a deft one, giving us a book that, while significantly different from its predecessor, turns out to be equally captivating and sensitive, in many ways even more thought-provoking. (Sure, it doesn't match The Forever War for sheer impact, but then again, what does?)
As in The Forever War, the heart of this story is the dry, ironic bite of fighting-suit vet William Mandella, now middle-aged and a parent (along with his love and comrade-in-arms Marygay) to two teen-aged kids. The family leads a spartan life on the cold and desolate planet Middle Finger, which serves as a sort of genetic safe-deposit box for the current incarnation of humanity, an inhuman race of group-mind clones known as Man. But the animals in the zoo are getting restless, and a core group of vets led by William and Marygay plot an unusual escape: hijacking a reconditioned time ship and using it to take a 40,000 light-year tour (over 10 years of their own time) to rejoin the world they know only after 2,000 generations have passed. Much of the action involves the hatching and fruition of this plot, but Haldeman doesn't really mix things up until nearing the end, when he dissolves physics as we know it and calls down the wrath of God itself. --Paul Hughes
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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Reasonable setup, can't say that for the rest, though.
The few human relics of the war are living together stashed away on a planet just in case the group entity needs them again.
Bunch of retired soldiers, so they get bored, and decide to play with relativity and take a trip into the future, so to speak.
When they come back after your spaceship accident type event, everybody has gone bye-bye, humans and aliens.
The story starts to go that way, too, unfortunately.
Rated by buyers 
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As I said above do not waste your time with this book, it has to be one of the worst books I have ever read. I wish I could give it less then 1 star.
The book starts of ok, Halderman reintroduces the characters from Forever War and sets up what could be a great story idea but then the books just gets bad. Its as if he got tired of writing the book halfway though and then took some drugs and then just started writing whatever crazy drugged up idea came to him. I was so upset with this book I burned it.
Rated by buyers 
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I Loved this book. It gripped me from the beginning and while I was initially disappointed in the ending, it developed in my mind like a fine wine on the tongue. It's a book that I'll never forget.
Rated by buyers 
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In "The Forever War," William Mandella tells the story of a 1960's flower child that grew up to find himself a soldier in an interstellar war waged by Earth against the mysterious Taurans. Because of the time-dilation effects of collapsar travel at near-light speed, Mandella returns repeatedly to an Earth that becomes stranger with each visit. His Earthbound friends and family grow old and die, and as the war stretches into a thousand years, it's his own fellow humans that become the aliens. Mandella's fellow veterans are a confusing mix of soldiers from many centuries -- some of them speaking in a language he can hardly understand. Mandella, with his roots in the 20th century, is one of the oldest of them all. At the time "Forever War" was published in 1974, the book's flat combat-laden narrative echoed Heinlen's "Starship Troopers" and reflected the alienation Haldeman must have felt when he returned from his own Vietnam experiences. This brilliant book won a Nebula award, and over the years I have read it many times, trying to understand how Haldeman's writing so effortlessly captured a purity of character and action. The book was followed by a Nebula award-winning sequel -- "Forever Peace." Twenty-five years after publishing "The Forever War," Haldeman has finally concluded the trilogy with the fascinating "Forever Free." Mandella is now in his 50's, retired with his wife and two nearly-grown children on a remote planet settlement where he and his fellow veterans from the 1000-year war can live out their remaining years. Both Taurans and "Man" have been united into a "Group Mind" where individuals exchange memories every day, and human individuality has become an anachronism. Mandella and his fellow veterans are being preserved as a kind of experiment by the group mind -- an experiment that backfires when Mandella and his wife Marygay organize their fellow veterans and abduct an ancient collapsar starship with the plan of escaping by jumping another 40,000 years into the future. The last half of the book takes a rather bizarre turn toward the metaphysical, but the action never stumbles, and it was 4:30 AM before I read the last page. Haldeman's vivid and thoughtful handing of his characters, emotion, and science concepts shows science fiction at its very best and puts him near the top rank of living science fiction writers. My recommendation -- don't read this book. Read the whole trilogy from scratch -- and don't miss another frequently overlooked Haldeman favorite of mine -- "Mind Bridge."
--Auralgo
Rated by buyers 
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By this point, any opinion I write will probably sound like one of dozens written before. Still, I have to say I didn't like this book. I actually didn't think it was too bad until the end, at which point my suspension of disbelief goes out the window. One of my personal prejudices is that a bad ending can make me dislike an entire book, and that is the case here.
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