The Forever War
1974
- aging
- hugo award winner
- fiction in english
- aging in fiction
- space and time
- fiction
- space and time in fiction
- space warfare
- science fiction comic books, strips
- award:hugo_award=1976
The story
"The legendary novel of extraterrestrial war in an uncaring universe comes to comics, in a stunningly realized vision of Joe Haldeman's Vietnam War parable epic war story spanning relativistic space and time, The Forever War explores one soldier's experience as he is caught up in the brutal machinery of a war against an unknown and unknowable alien foe that reaches across the stars" -- The monumental Hugo and Nebula award winning SF classic-- Featuring a new introduction by John Scalzi The Earth's leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand--despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy they would oppose is inscrutable, unconquerable, and very far away. A reluctant conscript drafted into an elite Military unit, Private William Mandella has been propelled through space and time to fight in the distant thousand-year conflict; to perform his duties and do whatever it takes to survive the ordeal and return home. But "home" may be even more terrifying than battle, because, thanks to the time dilation caused by space travel, Mandella is aging months while the Earth he left behind is aging centuries...
What it’s like
Clipped, matter-of-fact prose that reads like an infantry log kept in the dark: short declarative sentences, dry gallows humour, and steady attention to boots, rations, and the ache of cold. The sensory world is mostly mechanical and interior, with hulls, suit seals, and the flat black of deep space pressing in, while a far-future Earth arrives as strange, half-understood rooms and customs seen through a returning soldier's eyes. Pacing is episodic and leaps across decades in a few pages, so time feels both stretched and sudden. The mood is weary, wintry melancholy with a sardonic edge. Combat comes in sharp, brief bursts that land hard and bloody without lingering on gore, and there is some frank sexual content and a steady undercurrent of grief and dislocation. Its people are worn-down, quietly stubborn figures slowly losing the world they knew and searching for footing in the one that replaced it. Suits slow evenings alone, long train rides, and readers who like cold, reflective science fiction about soldiers and time. Not gentle: expect real deaths, several violent scenes, and adult content.
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