Title: The Forever War (The Forever War Series Book 1) Pdf
In this novel, a landmark of science fiction that began as an MFA thesis for the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and went on to become an award-winning classic—inspiring a play, a graphic novel, and most recently an in-development film—man has taken to the stars, and soldiers fighting the wars of the future return to Earth forever alienated from their home.
Conscripted into service for the United Nations Exploratory Force, a highly trained unit built for revenge, physics student William Mandella fights for his planet light years away against the alien force known as the Taurans. “Mandella’s attempt to survive and remain human in the face of an absurd, almost endless war is harrowing, hilarious, heartbreaking, and true,” says Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Junot Díaz—and because of the relative passage of time when one travels at incredibly high speed, the Earth Mandella returns to after his two-year experience has progressed decades and is foreign to him in disturbing ways.
Based in part on the author’s experiences in Vietnam, The Forever War is regarded as one of the greatest military science fiction novels ever written, capturing the alienation that servicemen and women experience even now upon returning home from battle. It shines a light not only on the culture of the 1970s in which it was written, but also on our potential future. “To say that The Forever War is the best science fiction war novel ever written is to damn it with faint praise. It is . . . as fine and woundingly genuine a war story as any I’ve read” (William Gibson).
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Joe Haldeman including rare images from the author’s personal collection.
Return to a Forgotten Genre I haven't read sci-fi in many years (it was my passion as a teen, but I'm long past that period of my life now), so I was pleasantly surprised by the writing and intellectual quality of The Forever War. It is a provocative novel that uses the Theory of Relativity to show us how much the world changes over the 100s of years that actually pass while the space warriors are on missions that last for months. Shifts in social and sexual mores that occur during the protagonist's three combat missions are jarring for him, yet he manages to hold to his personal principles and beliefs. The parallels with Vietnam are clearly intentional (since the author fought in Vietnam), and the returning soldiers are greeted not as heroes but as oddities in a culture that has foresworn war and made peace with an enemy that had slaughtered many of the men and women's friends. This novel is the kind of thoughtful science fiction that I used to love, and I'm delighted to know that such books are still being written. Bring on more!A true classic of sci-fi I first read this many years ago, but seeing it at a bargain price of $1 over the Black Friday weekend was irresistible.It's been good to revisit it, too. Sure, I remembered an awful lot, but times have changed in our world since then, which makes for something of a good parallel with the tale itself.For those unfamiliar with the book, it's the story of William Mandella, a soldier fighting in deep space for humanity - but the faster than light travel that carries him and his fellow soldiers into battle also means that while only a year or two may pass for them, many years pass on the Earth they are fighting for.Before they know it, the world they left behind is almost unrecognisable to the soldiers - and the only remnant of the world gone by are the soldiers themselves, finding in one another the familiarity they can no longer see in society.There are obvious connections here to the veterans who returned from Vietnam - Haldeman himself served there - and came home to a country they struggled to fit into after the horrors they had experienced.Among the changes they see are changing attitudes to sexuality over the years. I've seen people criticise the book for Mandella's attitude to homosexuality, which becomes more prominent in society in the decades in which he's off fighting alien aggressors, but really that's a representation of both Mandella's place and time, and I would argue a positive showing an increased acceptance of homosexuality. Sure, Mandella has a struggle to accept that - but he struggles to accept everything about the changed world. He is a man literally out of time, with regard to just about every aspect of society.It truly is a visionary novel, tackling heavyweight subjects of how you go on fighting for a world you no longer recognise, even as you do your duty.If you've never read it, trust me, put it on your reading list - it truly is one of the greats.
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Tags: B00PI184XG pdf,The Forever War (The Forever War Series Book 1) pdf,ebook,Joe Haldeman, John Scalzi,The Forever War (The Forever War Series Book 1),Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
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