The Forever War

Apparently The Forever War is ''to the Vietnam War what Catch-22 was to World War II, the definitive, bleakly comic satire'. Or so says Thomas M. Disch (on the reverse of the Orion books edition which I read).

Here's the synopsis from Orion's own website: Private William Mandella is a reluctant hero, drafted into an elite military unit to fight in a distant interstellar war against an unknowable and unconquerable alien enemy. Mandella will perform his duties and, as he survives, rise through the ranks, but his greatest test will come when he returns to Earth. Because of the effects of relativity, every time he comes home after a few months' tour of duty, centuries have gone by on Earth, making him and his fellows ever more isolated from the world for whose future they are fighting.

In order to fully express how fucked up Earth has become in Mandella's absence, Halderman introduced this offensive subplot about humanity being converted to homosexuality. Don't worry though, guys! There's a happy ending! Everyone gets to be a big fucking rabid hetero after all! Here's one of my favourite passages: I'd gotten used to open female homosex in the months since we'd left Earth. Even stopped resenting the loss of potential partners. The men together still gave me a chill, though. Perhaps I'm just being oversensitive, but too often this specific sub-plot comes across as the author's personal bug-bear, rather than a pure narrative device.

Y'know, it would actually be fine if the book was really good, but it's not. Judged purely as a good-ol sci-fi novel, only the final battle packs any real narrative excitement - the rest is a total yawn. How anyone could compare it to Catch-22 is baffling. The most convincing reason to reason I can think of to read the book is as an interesting companion (or counterpoint) to Starship Troopers. And now Ridley Scott is making it into a movie!? Double-urgh.