inkspot and pahoota's challenge

Noticing that pahoota lacked books by or about women in his library, I challenged him to read The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood. He'd already enjoyed The Handmaid's Tale by the same author, and he liked The Robber Bride just as much.

Pahoota challenged me to read The Forever War by Joe Haldeman - a hard sci fi novel. Although I'm a sci fi fan, I avoid hard sci fi, because I'm more interested in the characters, story, and ideas, not technical details, which I feel detract from the experience.

I'm about halfway through The Forever War. The technical jargon is beyond me, but I've managed to get by by translating it into very simplistic concepts - fast, very fast, too bright, very powerful, super powerful. It's working well enough, but I don't know if all the technical stuff has any significance besides what I'm translating it into. Perhaps you can help me out here pahoota?

Otherwise, not a bad story, and with short chapters and easy reading style, I'm getting through it fairly quickly. After reading Iain M. Banks's Culture novels, I have to admit that their body armour seems really clunky - far from impressive. But perhaps that's good thing - it makes the war that much less glamorous. When they reached that planet with the teddy bears, I thought the novel was terribly anthropocentric. They seemed to have waged war on the Taurans with very little reason to do so, and their attitude to the teddy bears showed was so arrogant. I was really intrigued when one of the soldiers said she was able to perceive what the teddies were thinking, but that was dropped after about two sentences.

However, during the battle Mandella finally called the anthropocentric views into question. A bit brief (it could have been addressed earlier and more regularly) but it was striking enough and the humans came out looking like brutal killing machines rather than heroes.

One thing that bothers me is how sexist the novel is. Yes, there are female soldiers in the army and some have positions of power (although never top positions), but I can't believe there's a law and a culture requiring them to be 'compliant and promiscuous'. This wouldn't be so bad if it were criticised in the narrative, but other than a few mentions of the women being 'overworked' when outnumbered by men, no one seems to have the slightest problem with it. Instead, Mandella has no shortage of hot, horny women eager to jump into the sack with him at the end of the day. In fact, every woman in the novel so far is sexy, except that one who got blown up - never found out what she looked like. Very much a guy's novel.

Well Inkspot, I may have done you a bit of a disservice by challenging you to a book that I myself have not read in about five years. My memory is a bit hazy on the exact details of the story, but I will try to help out. I remember one scene, early in the book I believe, when the humans were fighting (or maybe just training) on Pluto and someone falls and breaks a radiator or something, resulting in near instant death. I majored in Astronautical Engineering at university and I remember being struck by the great job Haldeman did in portraying how dangerous space is. Of course a lot of his technology (faster-than-light travel) is speculative at best, but in general he gets the mundane science right.

Yes, the humans are very anthropocentric. One of the first things a well-trained army will do is condition their soldiers to dehumanize their perceptions of the enemy; which of course is extremely easy when the enemy are extraterrestrial. And you're exactly right about the humans ending up looking like killing machines: Haldeman was a Vietnam War veteran and The Forever War is his observations on the futility and horror of war.

The novel is very sexist because frankly most militarized societies are sexist (think of the Spartans promoting homosexuality until well after adolescence to prevent "distractions", then mandating marriage to ensure more soldiers got produced). Of course it doesn't excuse sexism, but I believe Haldeman was trying to present a future military as how he expected it to evolve, not glorify sexism. You do have a valid complaint regarding the "sexy" women... it is a bit like a Hollywood production: everyone is beautiful and willing, and that stretches the credibility just enough to detract from the novel.

Thanks pahoota :) I agree that Haldeman's not glorifying sexism, i just thought that the fact that the women were all hot and quite happy to sleep with any soldier was unthinkingly sexist. On the other hand, I guess the sex policy isn't that surprising (although it could have been addressed). I came across something similar in a James Tiptree short story. It was pretty harsh though - the sex was portrayed to be more like rape, made more shocking by the fact the main character was hideous and the men hated her.

But anyway.

I read a bit more of the novel last night and during my lunch break this afternoon. The narrative is so brisk and lean! Even after reading just a few short chapters I can’t believe how much ground I’m covering.

The title ‘the forever war’ is really making itself felt now, as Mandella seems doomed to fight in the war until he dies. Medical advancements are like a curse – soldiers’ can’t retire after losing a limb or being badly injured because they can just repair their bodies and send them back out. It’s a horrifying thought. The inhumanity of the attitude towards the personal lives of the soldiers is even worse. The separation of Mandella and Marygay evoked the first real emotion I’ve felt reading the book so far. It was really sad. I don't understand the details of relativity, but the effects are shocking enough.

It's interesting how the Taurans barely feature in the narrative at all. I'm curious to see what Haldeman does with this.

Just finished, about 5 minutes ago. That was a great book. As an antiwar novel it was pretty much what I expected, but I was still unsure of the ending and it left me impressed with the novel.

The narrative moved very fast most of the time. It doesn't really give you much of a chance to engage with the characters, but I think it gives the reader a great impression of the way time is zipping by for Mandella, bypassing centuries jumping through Stargates, relaxing for what feels like 10 minutes of freedom before they send him out again, losing friends and acquaintances with barely a moment to grieve for them. It has more impact because it's short and to-the-point.

I particularly liked the brutal last battle, where they end up reverting to archery and sword fights with the Taurans even though technology had advanced so much.

After all that, the happy ending was very welcome :)

Thanks pahoota, that was a great challenge! I didn't really like the technical details that characterise hard sci fi, but I could at least figure out what they implied, even if I didn't understand the full significance of them. The novel had a great story nevertheless, so I'll be less hesitant to delve into this genre again.

Inkspot,

Great, I'm so glad you liked the book! I agree, I felt the best part of the book was the happy ending. I'm a sucker for a happy ending anyways, but it is so much more satisfying after all that warfare and misery.

I really enjoyed the challenge; we'll have to do it again sometime.

Definitely :)