The Forever War

A perfectly adequate book that nonetheless didn't do much for me.

This is a 1970s era military SF book, in the spaceships-lasers-and-aliens mold. It deals with a conflict between humans and an alien race called the Taurans, about whom we never learn all that much. The plot revolves around the centuries-long conflict, narrated by drafted soldier Mandella; via relativity, he remains part of the war for much longer than a normal human lifespan. Which is where the other side of the story lies: constant culture shock, as for Mandella only a few years pass – relativistically speaking – while his home goes through decades and decades.

I suspect this was a stronger work in the '70s, when some of these ideas were more novel; these days it's all rather more pedestrian. Mandella's cynicism, likely a reflection of the post-Vietnam era in which the book was written, still plays well.

Bit disappointed with an ending that didn't feel brave enough, both for Mandella and the eminently predictable state of the war.