The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (3.5 stars)

This was the perfect story for its 1974 publication date. It's a deeply critical anti-war book that presents the futility of war, it's impact on society, the struggles veterans have re-integrating, and the dubious motivations for conflict in the first place. While it is a well-written, strong novel, I doubt if it was published today it would have had a chance of creating the same deep resonance with readers or sweeping the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards as it did in 1975/1976.

Haldeman's world where the intellectual elite are forced into military service in a war with little relevance to the general population, apart from economic stimulus and justification for martial law, is a great contrast to Heinlein's Starship Troopers.

But this war...the enemy was a curious organism only vaguely understood, more often the subject of cartoons than nightmares. The main effect of the war on the home front was economic, unemotional - more taxes but more jobs as well. After twenty-two years, only twenty-seven returned veterans; not enough to make a decent parade. The most important fact about the war to most people was that if it ended suddenly, Earth's economy would collapse.

Haldeman also applies relativity in interesting ways. Imagine sending ships into space to travel a massive distance at close to the speed of light, then faster than light through a collapsar Stargate, then spend a few weeks at 2 gravities decelerating to the battlefield. By the time the starship gets to the enemy, they may have had hundreds of years to develop their technology and prepare defences. But the same applies in reverse if they want to attack a human base.

You pays your money and you takes your frame of reference.

You could imagine the social disconnect of returning to Earth after several hundred years have passed. Haldeman uses relativity to create an exaggerated allegory to the disconnect Vietnam vets felt on returning to the US as it was undergoing a period of significant social change.

Sitting here in a bar with an asexual cyborg who is probably the only other normal person on the whole goddamned planet.

It's a powerful novel with a theme that will probably continue to be relevant forever, sadly. Haldeman could easily be talking about the war in Iraq in this passage:

You couldn't blame it all on the military, though. The evidence they presented for the Taurans' having been responsible for the earlier casualties was laughably thin. The few people who pointed this out were ignored. The fact was, Earth's economy needed a war, and this one was ideal. It gave a nice hole to throw buckets of money into, but would unity humanity rather than dividing it.

3.5 stars.