The Forever War (The Forever War, #1) in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Nov 19, 2018 Nadine in NY Jones rated it did not like it

Shelves: fantasy-and-sci-fi, audio, aliens, dick-lit, spacey-space-future, 70s-80s-sff

This is a really fascinating idea: military troops move through space at near the speed of light, so thanks to relativity, every time they are back home on leave, the soldiers have aged just months, but many years have passed for the home world. Not only that, but the enemy experiences the same relativity, and multiple troops are sent at different times, so that in any given battle the enemy could be technologically far advanced or woefully behind, and the troops begin to have communication prob ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

May 31, 2019 Joanna rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, fantasy-sci-fi, 2019-read

Very interesting space opera version of the author's Vietnam war experience. Though published in the 1970s, the book holds up and makes for a good read all these years later. I read this several months ago, but somehow forgot to log it here, then was about to start it again and realized it seemed really familiar.

The narrator for the audible version did an excellent job and kept the story moving along with good pacing. ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Mar 09, 2008 Chris Friend rated it liked it

I'm not unimpressed with this title, but I'm not going to rush out and recommend it to all my friends. It was enjoyable, but the quirks were off-putting.

A solid storyline provides the backbone of the book, and there are enough breaks and guideposts to alleviate any tedium that may have tried to creep in. But a few things really bugged me:

First and foremost, the author's unnatural fixation on sexuality. The first thing I did when I finished reading was to check on his own orientation. The man is I'm not unimpressed with this title, but I'm not going to rush out and recommend it to all my friends. It was enjoyable, but the quirks were off-putting.

A solid storyline provides the backbone of the book, and there are enough breaks and guideposts to alleviate any tedium that may have tried to creep in. But a few things really bugged me:

First and foremost, the author's unnatural fixation on sexuality. The first thing I did when I finished reading was to check on his own orientation. The man is straight (having married a woman after whom the hero's love interest was named), but an astonishing amount of the text was preoccupied with the changing trends in sexual orientation through human future-history.

For a book published in 1974, I'm sure it was quite an interesting study. A thought-provoking exploration of war, time dilation, and social development, it would certainly have felt relevant and forward-thinking. But reading the book after thirty-four years, I was constantly bugged by the feeling that it was dating itself, laden with the self-importance of being socially progressive when it was really just making a point to an incessant degree.

The books is sectioned off into large chunks of time during which we grow more and more familiar with the hero during the various stages of his military career. Each time he returns from a mission, we learn about the state of affairs on Earth. (Each time I read one, I thought that Asimov does a far better job of telling the story of global social dynamics.) The only constant from one interlude to the next was the narrator's commentary on sexuality. One minute, Earth is overcome by "the homo life" as an acceptable standard; the next, a straight person is called a "queer"; the next, either persuasion is completely normal, with people having the option to switch orientations at will.

I opened the book looking for great classic science fiction, since it won the Nebula and the Hugo. While I did get what I wanted, I certainly could have appreciated it without the dose of fixation on one topic. ...more

Like · see review