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Comment by PuffinBlue | Hacker News Reader

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 faced. I always felt out of place and behind as a reader, never really finding myself fully immersed in the story Haldeman was telling, always wanting to stop and see more about how things had changed. I guess the 'world building' wasn't as good as I hoped for.

The Forever Peace on the other hand seemed to painstakingly explore the build up to societal change, then ended as it was about to happen.

Either way, both frustrating books.

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> 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.

Likewise. Which is not to say I thought it was bad. I think perhaps it was a product of its time? I could imagine it felt a lot more urgent and prescient when it was released than it does today (I read it for the first time earlier this year).

Personally, I found Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks to be much more compelling when it comes to a sci-fi study on the nature of war. Each to their own, of course.

> 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 faced. I always felt out of place and behind as a reader, never really finding myself fully immersed in the story Haldeman was telling, always wanting to stop and see more about how things had changed. I guess the 'world building' wasn't as good as I hoped for.

I think that this was a conscious choice by Haldeman - he wanted you to feel as lost as Mandella, who got a brief glimpse of a culture before being plunged yet again into another relativistic journey into the future. The only constant in his life was the Army, as inhuman and brutal as it was. I thought it was a good choice, but I can definitely see why you'd be frustrated with it.

Those are fair comments, sure.

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 :)

I agree it's deliberate. I took the fleeting scenes and topics as simulating the experience of bouncing from Vietnamese hamlet to hamlet, never really stopping to know anyone or anything about them, then getting whisked stateside for a brief leave in a now a totally changed homeland, only to get sent back to start the process over.

I agree. For me, Forever War was a book with an interesting premise and a somewhat lackluster execution. None of the characters are pretty interesting or memorable, and the main character seems to be Hadelman inserting an idealized version of himself into the story. The story itself felt a bit forced or inconsistent in numerous places, and never really capitalized on some of the ideas.

I enjoyed reading it, but didn't think it was particularly great (same with Forever Peace, though that book had somewhat different issues).

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