Forever war Essay

Forever war is a novel base on scientific fiction with both contemplative and action laden of interstellar wars between the enigmatic Tauran species and humanity, it has themes like brutality of enigmatic the wars and those involved in wars and reasons why a solder may return home many centuries after the war. The novel is all about a university student, William Mandella, who is called up for elites United Nations task force that is being gathered for war against the Taurans, a strange species realized when they abruptly attacked human colonists ships. Besides being sent for scouting/ reconnaissance purposes, politics of vengeance are also a reason for their formation The army consists of very educated individual with good physical and mental health and the theme of forever war begins in the training camps when very many casualties occur due to the live weapons and the harsh conditions in the training camps. The recruits undergo grueling training on earth and there after on Charon. The newly recruited solder leave for action and travel through worm hole like phenomena (collapsars) that lets ships to envelop many light years within a divided second. However there are relativistic effects realized due to the frequent traveling though the collapsars at almost light speed. The initial encounter with the unarmed Taurans far way from the planet becomes a massacre as the non resisting enemy is wiped out. Mandella painfully reflects how typical that encounter was for man kind past records with interaction with other cultures. From soldier’s point of view, that first expedition only lasted only some months but due to time dilation, several years had passed upon returning to earth. As they return along the long journey, they are attacked by Taurans who have highly advanced weapons while they cannot arm themselves. Marygay, a fellow soldier and a companion and lover to Mandella resume to civilian life but after some time they realize that they cannot fit in the society that has greatly evolved beyond what they can comprehend. The war veterans escape and resume to the army upon realizing the world government is officially encouraging homosexuality to prevent food wars and control overpopulation. They enlist to the army even though they realize that the military does not treat solders with much value but are used as machines. This further displays the Joe idea behind forever war in the Mandellas life and those of other soldiers. Mandella, through luck is able to survive four years of service to the military that can be termed as a number of centuries due to time dilation and as a result he attains higher ranks not from his personal imbibitions but through seniority as he is the oldest surviving soldier in that war. Despite of this Mandella is separated from his lover Marygay who has been his companion on earth since the time of his youth this is by the inevitable and unfriendly military machinery. After engaging in war for many thousand years from the earth, Mandella and other soldiers battle in trying to survive the last conflicts of war. During the past time mankind begins to clone himself and the results of cloning are also called man. Through a special form of communication, the clones are able to communicate with the Taurans who eventually are able to bring peace. It is then realized that the Taurans are clone who could not communicate with the pre-cloned man there leading to misunderstanding meaning that the war was a colossal mistake especially by the trigger happy community. The worst thing in the war from Joe’s point of view is that one is fighting a strange enemy in such a hostile environment and being trained efficiently to fuel yearns for blood. There are also problems when fighting in the clumsy combat in very low temperature besides traveling long distances in the black holes (collapsars). There are many ways a soldier can meet his death while fighting under such conditions there by leading to time dilation that results to the title of the book forever war. The progressions of displaying life as a combatant both in the combat situation and during training are unforgettable and gripping. The author has set a lot of understanding as a soldier during the Vietnam War in to the novel. The two main strengths put in the book are the depiction of progressive alienation of the combatants from the rest of mankind (humanity) and the psychological experience of being a combat that fortunately ends in a sorrowful revelation that the war they were engaged in was merely a blunder. In the novel, the armed forces stuff seemed well presented throughout. There is a particular attention grabber where by when the electricity does not work, the army alternatives is edged weapons. The military implication was well developed though the science in it may be kind of rubbish. Any one who doubts war could be as a result of an enemy that never was should consider the a recent event as the United States army panic stricken response to the international criminal court and their bizarre setting up of a national missile defense, this project will be costly in terms of monetary terms but will be to defend the US against a risk that is vanishingly not likely to become apparent . At the end, Mandela traces his love that had been lost for any years and the other humankind is identified as a race of the bisexual psychic clones. The Forever War doesn’t have happy termination as Mandella and Marygay find each other as the book end with the announcement of their first baby boy, they are in a prison planet where by the genetic curiosity has forced the human race to abandon its humanity in favor of monstrous liaison in the company of its former foe. REFERENCES Joe Haldeman: The Forever War, retrieved on 21st September, 2007, available at www. strangewords. com/archive/forever. html Joe W Haldeman (2003) The Forever War, Econo-Clad Boos publishers, US Review by Nicholas Whyte, retrieved on 21st September, 2007, available at www. nicholaswhyte. info/sf/forwar. htm Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, retrieved on 21st September, 2007, available at www. wikipedia. org/wiki/The_Forever_War