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Overall Summary
Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War tells the story of a soldier named William Mandella and his lover, Marygay Potter. They fight against an alien race called the Taurans for over a thousand years. During that time they witness many changes in their own country as well as others around them. St Martin’s Press published this book in 1974.
William Mandella and Marygay Potter are two of the most intelligent people in their generation. They’re chosen to join an elite military force that will battle Tauran aliens in the future. The training is tough, as it’s designed to replicate the conditions soldiers will experience while fighting on alien soil. Soldiers must endure subzero temperatures, live weaponry, and obey orders or else they’ll be killed by superiors who enforce strict discipline. Several soldiers die during training because they disobey orders or don’t follow safety procedures properly.
The remaining soldiers embark on a journey through space using collapsars, which move them light years in a second. They catch their enemy by surprise and wipe out the Tauran’s with relative ease. Their mission is successful and they return to Earth.
The military’s type of travel has had a dramatic effect on society. Even though the soldiers were only away for two years, because of time dilation they return to Earth twenty-seven years later. Their home planet is now overpopulated and dangerous. The government has unfairly distributed resources based on class, and people are encouraged to enter into homosexual relationships to prevent reproduction. To their surprise, Mandella’s own mother ages drastically and is in a relationship with a woman.
Mandella and Potter try to adapt, but Mandella’s mother is killed by the government because she isn’t important. The soldiers decide that joining the army is their only escape.
At first, Mandella and Marygay are assigned as trainers. However, they’re soon sent to combat positions in space. During this time, Mandella loses a leg while Marygay loses an arm. They go to a recovery planet where they can grow new limbs using technology that was previously unavailable. Their next assignment separates them for several years before they reunite again at the end of the book.
Mandella is sent to a virtual reality training course for weapons. He is the oldest surviving man in the military, and he arrives at his new command post after centuries have passed. His team is made up of homosexuals who are all of one ethnicity, so they must learn Mandella’s dialect from the twenty-first century. For these reasons, they dislike him and don’t follow his instructions when fighting in battle.
Mandella and his strike force are sent to a frozen planet in preparation for an invasion by the Taurans. The attack is successful, but Mandella survives. He and the other survivors return to Stargate, where they find that humans have been cloned into a single consciousness called “Man.” Man has communicated with the Taurans and found out that there was no war between them after all—it was just a misunderstanding.
When Mandella returns to Earth, he finds a note from Marygay. She tells him that she has been living in a heterosexual colony set up by Man and is waiting for him. Over a thousand years after they joined the military, they have their first child together—a boy.
The novel won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1975 and the Locus Award for Best Novel and Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1976. Many people consider it one of the best science fiction war novels ever written. It was praised by William Gibson, who called it “a fine war story.”
