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In the 1970s Joe Haldeman approached more than a dozen different publishers before he finally found one interested in The Forever War. The book went on to win both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, although a large chunk of the story had been cut out before it saw publication. Now Haldeman and Avon Books have released the definitive version of The Forever War, published for the first time as Haldeman originally intended. The book tells the timeless story of war, in this case a conflict between humanity and the alien Taurans. Humans first bumped heads with the Taurans when we began using collapsars to travel the stars. Although the collapsars provide nearly instantaneous travel across vast distances, the relativistic speeds associated with the process means that time passes slower for those aboard ship. For William Mandella, a physics student drafted as a soldier, that means more than 27 years will have passed between his first encounter with the Taurans and his homecoming, though he himself will have aged only a year. When Mandella finds that he can't adjust to Earth after being gone so long from home, he reenlists, only to find himself shuttled endlessly from battle to battle as the centuries pass. --Craig E. Engler
From AudioFile
William Mandela is a survivor of an alien war that has gone on for hundreds of years. Time-travel paradoxes have turned the young soldier into the oldest man alive, a man who no longer fits in an armed and regulated Earth society. He barely feels comfortable in an army in which he is one of the few heterosexuals left and harsh, alien environments are liable to kill you, even if the aliens don't. George Wilson gives a matter-of-fact reading to a story filled with spectacular action scenes interspersed with the endless boredom of deep space. First published in the 1970s, FOREVER WAR still seems all too possible. M.C. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
