Has anyone read "The Forever War"?

[DetlefK]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_War

I just did. It's good sci-fi, but the portrayal of sexuality is odd.

It starts out with militarized planet Earth where mankind prepares for an interstellar war against an alien race called "Taurans" after violent incidents (that later turn out to be misunderstandings). As the spaceships can't surpass lightspeed and as time passes differently with time-dilation, the protagonists see different eras of mankind.

In the first era, the military is strictly 50% men and 50% women. Promiscuity is actively encouraged to increase the bonding. (The male protagonist and the female protagonist are in a romantic relationship, and yet both have no qualms having sex with others on the side.) Refusal to have sex is against the military code. There's a chapter where the unit of the protagonists reaches an isolated outpost where only men are left alive, due to battlefield-losses. In agreement with military code, the women of the unit have to serve the men of the outpost sexually in nightly orgies during the week-long stay, on top of normal duties. And the women regard this as completely normal, they just complain about not getting enough sleep.

In the second era, a fashion-trend arose for men to use make-up and to exhibit a more feminine behavior. The "Bonding-by-orgies" is still in place. The male protagonist is shocked to learn that his (now-geriatric) mother is in a relationship with a woman, simply for not being alone.

In the third era, Earth has a severe problem with overpopulation. As a result, homosexuality becomes mandatory to curb procreation. Population-growth only happens via an eugenic cloning-program. Children are indoctrinated from young age on to be homosexual and to regard intercourse with the opposite sex as disgusting. For a while, heterosexuality was a crime. Later it was downgraded to being a perversion and a mental illness. While the male protagonist has no problem with serving with homosexuals, they regard him as some sort of atavistic psycho.

In the fourth era, gender plays even less of a role as the majority of mankind are identical clones, essentially billion-fold pairs of identically looking brothers and sisters. Non-clones are the minority. Homosexuality is still regarded as the ideal relationship for a sustainable society. Heterosexuality is still regarded as an aberration, but the clones no longer actively oppress heterosexuals.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. I read it many years ago, then re-read it 10 or 15 years ago.

I believe Haldeman was a Vietnam vet. I just now learned that there were other books in the series.

[jobendorfer]

2. It's been a long time since I've read _Forever War_

I thought that the plot device ( due to travel at relativistic speeds, the protagonists experience a mission of 2-3 years duration, yet dozens, or some times hundreds of years transpire on earth ) was clever. Each time the protagonist returns home, he's never really coming "home" -- he returns to new and different culture after each mission.

My sense was that the sexually promiscuous behavior described in the first part of the book was largely due to the soldiers' belief that they probably weren't going to survive their first battle -- and were trying to cram every kind of experience they could into the brief time they thought remained to them.

I read the book when it came out (~1975), I remember thinking that the idea that people could be "indoctrinated" into homosexuality on a broad scale was naive.

And I seriously doubt that the author is advocating the gender roles and dynamics seen in the novel.

I thought the hero's story: fighting to stay alive, dealing with post-traumatic stress, exiled from his own time and place, was interesting. The part of the book that fails for me is that the author's postulates about what future earth culture(s) might be like aren't very imaginative. But for me, the book was about was William Mandella's struggle to hold onto his own humanity while fighting an apparently endless ( and ultimately pointless ) war. It should be noted that the author was a veteran of the Vietnam War.

J.