Reviews
(1)
This is a novel that would have been better as a short story.
If you have read and enjoyed this novel, then please skip over this review. If you haven't yet read it, then press on. My apologies in advance to the author and his fans.
The novel isn't really a science fiction novel. It is a story masking an exposition of the author's perceptions of race, war, sex, religion, and culture. Based on 1960s thinking in these areas, but set in the middle of the 21st century, the attitudes of the characters were not believable. Worse yet, the trite anti-western themes telegraphed where the story was going and led me to predict how it would end by about page forty.
"Forever Peace" fell short in other ways as well. There were a host of characters, none of which had sufficient development to make them sympathetic. The antagonists were unbelievably dangerous and the protagonists seemed to give the antagonist's assassins every chance to kill them. To describe the protagonists as naïve would be generous, especially in light of the fact that many of the protagonists were soldiers, or reformed killers, and could draw from a collective life experience of "one thousand years."
The only area where the author really seemed to have any insight on the future was in identifying the odd effect that killing people from a very long distance, using tele-operated equipment, would have on the soldiers who had that assignment. Fighting from remote safety, and then stepping out the door to a peaceful, normal environment brings an emotional dislocation already being experienced by service personnel. This aspect might have been a worthy subject for a short story.
(4)
Real and believable characters fuel Forever Peace
I was a little skeptical coming in to this one after reading the first 10 pages. Soldierboys and so on just didn't seem like the science fiction I was looking for. But, hey, it won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, so how could it not be a good read? I came to love this book on so many different levels.
The first half of the book is noticeably better than the second half of the book. In the first half Haldeman spends his time developing the military sci fi world, and especially developing the characters and building their interaction as entirely believable. I am a huge fan of many of the main characters because they are real and believable. Their interaction, namely Julian and Amelia, draw you in to the world and brings the story to a level that we understand, despite the science fiction elements that can, at times, alienate the reader.
The second half was still a good half as the political, ethical and moral values of a near future are analyzed in relation to the Soldierboys technology and the world that they live in. Haldeman did get a little more philosophical which is what brought the narrative of the story down a little, but I still felt that this turned out to be a great book. Could the underlying theory behind Soldierboy technology work without some guerilla group taking the initiative away and using it aganst them? Not sure. But it was still worth the read. A definite recommend.
4 stars.
Amazon.com
Julian Class is a full-time professor and part-time combat veteran who spends a third of each month virtually wired to a robotic "soldierboy." The soldierboys, along with flyboys and other advanced constructs, allow the U.S. to wage a remotely controlled war against constant uprisings in the Third World. The conflicts are largely driven by the so-called First World countries' access to nanoforges--devices that can almost instantly manufacture any product imaginable, given the proper raw materials--and the Third World countries' lack of access to these devices. But even as Julian learns that the consensual reality shared by soldierboy operators can lead to universal peace, the nanoforges create a way for humanity to utterly destroy itself, and it will be a race against time to see which will happen first. Although Forever Peace bears a title similar to Joe Haldeman's classic novel The Forever War, he says it's not a sequel.
Isitolian
jr
mrmercan