The Forever War: Future Combat Meets Old School Stereotypes
I started reading The Forever War as part of my attempt to make the science in my science fiction more believable. And whenever you ask around about such things, the SF fans who know their science always point to this book, so I figured it was a good place to start.
Now, before I say anything, I just want to say that I won’t be saying “spoiler alert” when I discuss the book’s details. It’s been out for decades — published in 1974 — so if you haven’t made time for it yet, not my problem.
The author, Joe Haldeman, was a physics major drafted into the army and shipped off to Vietnam when he finished his bachelor’s degree. His focal character, William Mandella, is a physics major who gets drafted into an interstellar war with an elusive race we call the Taurans.
The parallels between the war with the Taurans and Vietnam are several, and who better to point them out than an actual veteran. And the advanced tech gave me a lot to think about. As the war drags on — like Vietnam, it seems to go on forever, partially due to the limitations of relativity — the tech gets crazier and crazier. It gets to a point where the tech gets so out of hand they create a special field that nullifies tech weapons, reducing combatants to old fashioned weapons like swords and spears.
Did someone say drag queens in space?
To illustrate how corrupt and misguided the war is, Haldiman weaves in some symbology to drive the point home. For one, the suits they wear to fight in any environment develop the ability to instantly amputate and cauterize limbs if the suit is breached in the arm or leg in an environment that would otherwise kill a soldier. But prosthetics have become so advanced it’s almost like regrowing a limb, and soldiers returning to battle are literally less human every time they get injured.
But the most disturbing element to me was the way Haldiman had the human race as a whole embraced homosexuality to parallel the perversity of the never-ending conflict. When William gets back from his first conflict, a full third of the world is gay, and the UN endorses it because it keeps the overpopulation in check. I guess in the early 70s it was impossible to imagine gay couples wanting to raise families of their own and all the ways future tech could help in that regard. To top it all off, William finds out that his mother and her roommate are more than just roommates. Oh, the calamity!
As the war gets even more twisted, eventually the whole of humanity adopts “homolife.” All babies are born and raised in creches, and William is encouraged to make the change himself. Apparently, future psychologists will be able to help you transition quite easily. But Willy sticks to his guns. He gets to be a little more accepting of lesbians (typical), but he still feels odd when he thinks about what gay men do behind closed doors.
Now, someone’s going to argue that this isn’t meant to be a symbol of corruption, that it’s just a part of the worldbuilding that doesn’t mean anything. But just look at the ending. We finally break through the language barrier with the aliens and realize no one knows who fired the first shot or why, and order is restored to the galaxy. And everyone who’s gay seems to have had a change of heart, because by the time William returns from the Magellanic Clouds (where the final battle takes place) everyone’s straight again.
The future of women in combat?
I was rather pleased when I started the book to see that all the units training for this conflict were mixed, equal parts male and female. Then after about three pages, things started to get a little weird.
It turns out that the troops were mixed to help keep morale up, and a strict rotating sleeping policy was enforced. Essentially, the women were there to help keep the men’s spirits up. Sure, they were there to fight, too. But I really got the impression that what really mattered is that the dudes had someone new to have sex with every night.
Old SF stories are full of crap this. I recently read a Heinlein story— All You Zombies — where the division of the space corps for women is called the Women’s Hospitality Order Refortifying & Encouraging Spacemen. That’s a mouthful, isn’t it? It would be much shorter to initialize it, right? (I’ll wait.)
The primary female soldier in the story is Marygay. She and William become each other’s favorites in the sleeping rotation, and even though he doesn’t seem to do anything to woo her she’s willing to follow him to the ends of the galaxy. She even reenlists after being discharged to be with him even though she’s a sworn pacifist. Yup, that makes sense.
When William returns from the battle in the Megallanic Clouds, he assumes that Marygay has died of a broken heart and old age in his absence. But, lo and behold, she’s bought herself a relativistic rocket which she flies back and forth along a strip of space five years long so she’ll still be young and pretty for William. How considerate. As they used to say in the movies, there’s a good girl.
The bottom line
While taking real-world physics into account makes the space warfare more original and engaging, Haldeman’s primitive thinking with regard to sexuality and gender roles don’t do him any favors. Overall, I found it clever, inventive, and I like his prose. But sometimes little things bug me, and I don’t think I’ll be rereading this book any time soon.
