Compared to the novels I have previously recommended, The Forever War is a bit different. Written in 1974 by Joe Haldeman, this novel is as much a story about Vietnam as it is about interstellar war.
Set in 1997, Humanity has expanded beyond the solar system by way of “collapsars”, a type of wormhole system allowing faster than light travel. As humanity explores far off solar systems, ships begin to go missing, and before long an Alien race called the Taurans are found to be responsible. In order to respond to this threat, some of Earth’s best and brightest minds, including physics teacher William Mandella, are trained and sent out for war.
While soldiers are only sent out to war for two years, due to the relativity of time when faster than light travel is used, decades or even centuries elapse on Earth. When Mandella returns home sporadically between his years of service, much as Haldeman himself did after Vietnam, the world has changed dramatically. The senseless losses of war, and the feeling of being out of place in what was once home are shown in this novel in a way that only a veteran can describe.
Due to this, in 1974 this novel barely managed to get published due to the similarities between the story and Vietnam, a subject that publishing companies avoided like the plague. Only through the intervention of an antiwar editor did Joe Haldeman manage to finally publish his novel, which remains as relevant today as it was in the years after Vietnam.
SDSU Sci Fi 