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http://joe-haldeman.livejournal.com/51726.html
I pretty strongly suspect that Joe wouldn't actually mind if the teenage boys the novel was targeted to read it as a satire, but...
From the article: "Everywhere H. sapiens went, massive ecological changes followed. The archaic humans they encountered went extinct, as did vast numbers of animal species. It was, without a doubt, the most consequential migration event in the history of our planet." ... "The sad story of those first victims of modern human ingenuity and cooperation, the Neanderthals, helps to explain why horrific acts of genocide and xenocide crop up in the world today."
The article also brings up another tendency among humans, best summarized by writer Slavenka Drakulic: "Once the concept of 'otherness' takes root, the unimaginable becomes possible."
Our species is still evoluting. Perhaps, given new understanding and the right constraints, some of the most damaging behaviors can be bred out...
'“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…
I often read comments like this about The Forever War and I'm never sure if I read the same book. I enjoyed it but it seemed an awful lot more shallow than it's given credit for. It just seemed to me that it raised lots of ideas but never really explored them fully. I found it a bit 'thin'. Perhaps that was intentional as a corollary to the breakneck pace of time-dilation Mandella faced and the societal change he fac…
I think the rationale is really that Haldeman was really commenting on the pace of social change, especially for service personnel, particularly those who served multiple tours. The protagonist hates the horror of war as much as the alienation from the society he is allegedly being forced to defend.
Though I can see why that puts some people off :)
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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.
The book was definitely satire. Heinlein doesn't come right out and say how absurd the whole thing is, he lets the reader figure that out. I guess some don't. Edit: Just because you think I'm wrong with saying Starship Troopers was satire doesn't mean you should downvote me. Also, read this: http://www.locusmag.com/Perspectives/2012/11/the-joke-is-on-...
Everyone's entitled to their interpretation but you're getting downvoted because you come across as kind of a douche when you state things this way.
The notion that Starship Troopers was an antiwar satire is rare enough that you can't really link to a Locus story advocating it and then, boom, drop the mic. Successful writers who knew Heinlein, from Haldeman to Pournelle, have always characterized the book in a very different way.
For all those who haven't read it, check out the "sequel", The Forever Peace. I place "sequel" in quotes, because it's only thematically related, there's no continuation of characters or plots. In fact, it's set much closer to the present, and the use of remote-controlled robots makes it feel super-current. Unlike The Forever War, it envisions one way war could end. The final line of the Vice story is "When war is un…
> As much as I love TFW, I personally think The Forever Peace is a stronger novel. Honestly, a number of his novels are better, as he freely acknowledges (though not in this interview). It'd be pretty odd for a writer with a long career to perform his best work right out of the gate. (he's written several books in the last decade which are put together a lot more masterfully than The Forever War... I felt Camouflage…
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> paen to the military I always thought Starship Troopers was meant to be a satire, not praise for war. Just like Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. isn't a patriotic song.
Given Heinlein's history and politics, I don't think so. Now the movie , that was definitely meant to be satire. Which is why so many fans of the book hate it.
I don't so much hate the movie because it was satire, I hate it because it was cheap, lazy, unnecessary satire of either a phenomenon to which the book is at best distantly connected or of a very distant reading of the book.
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> As much as I love TFW, I personally think The Forever Peace is a stronger novel. Honestly, a number of his novels are better, as he freely acknowledges (though not in this interview). It'd be pretty odd for a writer with a long career to perform his best work right out of the gate. (he's written several books in the last decade which are put together a lot more masterfully than The Forever War... I felt Camouflage…
I should probably re-read The Forever Peace. I, on the other hand, have The Forever War on my favorite SF list but nothing else of his that I've read--and I have at least a half-dozen on my shelf--have ever grabbed me enough the remember them.
I honestly haven't cracked the Marsbound books yet, although I have them. There's something just a bit off-putting about series books to me...
For all those who haven't read it, check out the "sequel", The Forever Peace. I place "sequel" in quotes, because it's only thematically related, there's no continuation of characters or plots. In fact, it's set much closer to the present, and the use of remote-controlled robots makes it feel super-current. Unlike The Forever War, it envisions one way war could end. The final line of the Vice story is "When war is un…
Haldeman later wrote a "proper" sequel to TFW, Forever Free , but it's not nearly as good as Forever Peace .
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I should probably re-read The Forever Peace. I, on the other hand, have The Forever War on my favorite SF list but nothing else of his that I've read--and I have at least a half-dozen on my shelf--have ever grabbed me enough the remember them.
I think that you should be able to find something you like among Camouflage, Old Twentieth, The Accidental Time Machine, and Work Done For Hire. Together they're actually a pretty good spectrum of what he does. I honestly haven't cracked the Marsbound books yet, although I have them. There's something just a bit off-putting about series books to me...
I'm generally with you on series books. I understand why publishers and authors like them but there are so many out there that take an original concept and even get a good novel or two out of them but then continue on endlessly until all life has been squeezed out of the writing.
There are exceptions but they're a small minority--at least to my tastes.
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The book was definitely satire. Heinlein doesn't come right out and say how absurd the whole thing is, he lets the reader figure that out. I guess some don't. Edit: Just because you think I'm wrong with saying Starship Troopers was satire doesn't mean you should downvote me. Also, read this: http://www.locusmag.com/Perspectives/2012/11/the-joke-is-on-...
> The book was definitely satire. Heinlein doesn't come right out and say how absurd the whole thing is, he lets the reader figure that out. I guess some don't. Everyone's entitled to their interpretation but you're getting downvoted because you come across as kind of a douche when you state things this way. The notion that Starship Troopers was an antiwar satire is rare enough that you can't really link to a Locus s…
When I initially read the book, I expected it to be pro-war. In fact, I just wanted to read a SF book about aliens and robotic suits. But after I was finished, I was very surprised by it being satire. Sure, if you look at it from a completely superficial perspective, it looks like its espousing the views of a military-oriented society, but if you examine what's being said, it becomes clear that its criticizing it. Let me be clear, though, I don't think Heinlein is criticizing the individual soldier. I think he sympathizes with them the most. But he takes the idea of a military-run central government to an extreme to examine what it would be like. And while reading the novel we get to examine it from the perspective of those most affected by it. And guess what... Everything is miserable.
Heinlein celebrates people who would give themselves up to fight for other people, but he shows that war itself is absurd and terrible.