I read The Forever War several years ago and have been planning on re-reading it. It is a great book and I recommend you read it as both great fiction and for being faily much spot on given the current world situation.
The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War
11–20 of 86 posts
Re: The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War
#12Mankind has been at war for most of its existence. Only after WW2 and the development of nuclear weapons has war become much too risky due to MAD and has made diplomacy a much more viable option....for the more powerful nations. Meanwhile, we still have civil war in Syria, unrest in Africa etc. Once we colonize other worlds and space travel becomes more feasible, earth will become less valuable: the powers that be ca…
Actually, mankind has probably not been at war for most of its existence. Homo sapiens comes into existence ~200kya. By contrast, there is no evidence of warfare for most of the Paleolithic, and the first unambiguous evidence only comes ~10-12kya. In other words, the development of warfare is only roughly contemporaneous with the development of agriculture and sedentarism.
Re: The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War
#13Mankind has been at war for most of its existence. Only after WW2 and the development of nuclear weapons has war become much too risky due to MAD and has made diplomacy a much more viable option....for the more powerful nations. Meanwhile, we still have civil war in Syria, unrest in Africa etc. Once we colonize other worlds and space travel becomes more feasible, earth will become less valuable: the powers that be ca…
Actually, mankind has probably not been at war for most of its existence. Homo sapiens comes into existence ~200kya. By contrast, there is no evidence of warfare for most of the Paleolithic, and the first unambiguous evidence only comes ~10-12kya. In other words, the development of warfare is only roughly contemporaneous with the development of agriculture and sedentarism.
The avoidance of war was probably due to the low population numbers and the ability of groups of hunter/gatherers to avoid each other.
As the population grew and humans came into more frequent contact with each other, warfare was a natural by-product of the increased contact between groups.
Re: The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War
#14Just a thought. If you enjoyed these books, you might like _Old Man's War_.
Re: The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War
#15'“To say that The Forever War is the best science fiction war novel ever written is to damn it with faint praise.” It’s one of the best books about war, period' I'd probably raise that on Gibson. It's one of the best books, period. "The protagonist, an almost-anagrammed stand-in for Haldeman named Mandella, is hurled across far reaches of the galaxy to fight a poorly understood, apparently undefeatable foe." In that…
It's still one of my favorite reads. It's worth mentioning that Haldeman wrote it in part as an allegory to Vietnam. It's often called a counterpart or "rebuttal" to Heinlein's "Starship Troopers", though you'll read that both authors had immense respect for each others' books. In any case, I agree, "The Forever War" is up at the pinnacle of the art of Science Fiction and a near-perfect example of the message it can…
Sure, both authors are pointing out certain truths: the horror of being unable to defend your tribe against an existential threat; the horror of having to go and kill other beings.
Re: The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War
#16Reminds me of the new Metal Gear game - the part about extreme proliferation of nuclear and biological WMDs so even small groups can have more power and be more equal to the big powers than ever before.
Also, private military forces so countries can use them and deny their involvement and small countries can afford top military on demand, creation of a private military industry who will create conflicts just to have business/clients - interesting points...
Re: The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War
#17I read Starship Troopers and The Forever War back-to-back in like three days, and I wasn't so much of a fan of Haldeman's book, the writing just didn't seem as good to me as Heinlein's and in any case they're nearly identical -- though obviously the relativity thing and time making the "forever" part true was a very good point.
You should probably go back and read the books again, maybe with some more time between readings, and paying more attention to the people and less to the tech. The jaded, alienated Mandella in The Forever War has a lot more to say about the evolution of his society than Rico does.
Armor is yet-another excellent contemporary to both of those books.
Re: The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War
#18I don't think the author of this post ever actually read Starship Troopers, I imagine they've only seen the movie, since the book is hardly pro-war.
I don't think the movie was pro-war either. It was, imo, a satirical in flavor.
The movie was deeply satirical, but the book wasn't (either that, or the satire was well masked).
For instance, Haldeman (the author of Forever War) is on record stating that Starship Troopers glorifies war, and he's not the only one.
Re: The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War
#19Just a thought. If you enjoyed these books, you might like _Old Man's War_.
I didn't really care for Old Man's War. It's a fun read, but it's popcorn. It was a bit too juvenile nanotech wankfest for me.
Nominally it looks at subjects like long life, implanted AIs, etc., but it doesn't really do anything with them other than go "squeeeee look at the tooyyyyyys".
EDIT:
If you want to just bask in the sheer glory of superior firepower and gallows humor, and maybe even occasionally see something with a little bit more to say about politics and men who fight, I'd suggest the Hammer's Slammers series by David Drake. Future tank company modeled loosely off of the Foreign Legion just after WW2, the most mercenary of mercenaries, probably the coolest and most reasonable command-and-control for ground forces I've ever seen in a scifi book not set in the near future, and so forth.
Re: The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War
#20I read Starship Troopers and The Forever War back-to-back in like three days, and I wasn't so much of a fan of Haldeman's book, the writing just didn't seem as good to me as Heinlein's and in any case they're nearly identical -- though obviously the relativity thing and time making the "forever" part true was a very good point.
Saying they're "nearly identical" seems to miss the point that the former is a paen to the military filled with lieutenant colonels waxing philosophical about how duty to fight is the basis of all morality, whilst the latter involves a brazenly cynical protagonist whose thoughts of war mostly involve hoping to find a way out of it...
I actually don't think it's much of an ode to war or anything. I go to the Naval Academy like Heinlein did, and when I read the small details of military life and the grandiose calls to serve, I read them as criticisms or as satire.