Forever, My Dear!

Joe Haldeman's The Forever War is Science Fiction. It tackles themes that were relevant at the time of writing (in this case, the Vietnam War) and transposes them to the far future (of 1996, but don't let that take from your enjoyment of the story). Haldeman shows the alienation soldiers feel after coming back home from a long war by taking it to the extreme. His soldiers fight in space, and, thanks to time dilation, come back many years after they went, having aged only little. But the world they come back to has changed completely in the meantime and they have a very hard time fitting in.

Haldeman's future earth is mostly a bleak place, food riots having resulted in a despoctic UN world government with a inpenetrable calorie based currency system and rampant corruption. People over 70 are assigned a medical status based on their contribution to society and only get help if they are deemed important.

Alienation from society and the people is the main theme that runs through the book. It also is quite anti-war, the whole war is caused by human's tendency to shoot first ask questions later and can only be rectified when humanity evolves to be on par mentally with the aliens they fight.

The Forever War has been praised as its generation Catch 22 by critics, which I don't really see. Catch 22 is satire, while Haldeman's book takes itself seriously most of the time. Nevertheless a good read, although the space battles do tend to get a bit drawn out, especially in the latter half.