1976 Hugo Winner -- The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman

          The Forever War argues that wars are pointless, the reasons why they are fought are self-serving, and the mental and physical toll they exact on the soldiers doing the fighting is tremendous. The characters were well done; the two main characters were quite believable, and some very different kinds of people were explored. William tries hard to keep his fellow and subordinate soldiers alive, sometimes having to think quickly to do so. The plot was a little choppy; mostly jumping to battles (or recoveries from them) and skipping the time between. The author attempts to answer how soldiers would deal with the changes at home when they are away for decades or centuries at a time.

          Beyond this point, there may be spoilers.

          The year is 1997, and the Earth is at war. After working out how to send ships faster-than-light between collapsed stars (“collapsars”), mankind had begun to explore and settle the galaxy. When a colony ship is pursued and destroyed by an unknown vessel near Aldebaran, Earth starts to send armed escorts with the colony ships, and eventually conscripts a standing army to guard the planets near the collapsars closest to Earth.

Private William Mandella, a recent physics graduate, has been drafted as part of this force. Basic training consists of exoplanet construction techniques, and fighting in an armored space suit. The expected tactics are: go to a planet near a collapsar, build a fortified base, and fight the mysterious “Taurans” (whom no one has ever seen) until relieved. And then, presumably, regroup and repeat on another planet orbiting another collapsar.

Their first mission, however, is to capture an enemy base, along with prisoners and equipment to analyze. After the long acceleration for collapsar travel and deceleration afterwards, they land and attack the base, slaughtering the Taurans who defend it. The only alien survivor manages to get to a ship and launch it, escaping back through the collapsar. After this mission, the relationship between Mandella and fellow soldier Marygay Potter deepens.

After returning to Stargate base for ship upgrades and replacement troops, the Earth troops head out to attack another alien base. They soon find themselves on the wrong side of the “future shock” arms race; despite improved capabilities, they find themselves under attack by a ship with even greater enhancements. Although they manage to destroy the enemy vessel, they are hit by an incredibly powerful weapon. Nearly half of the ship’s complement is killed, and all the fighting suits are destroyed; there can be no attack on the alien base. Marygay is seriously injured, and is not expected to survive the acceleration to make the jumps back to Earth. Mandella (now a sergeant) must do some quick thinking to make it possible for her live through the return journey.

Coming home, they find the Earth much changed. The relativistic speeds they must travel via collapsars mean they have experienced time dilation, making their back pay accumulate quicker but also aging everyone on Earth faster than they do.  Two years of ship time translates into twenty years on Earth. Population is now nine billion; everything has become rationed; and (to keep population under control) homosexuality has become the norm instead of the unusual. After spending time on the Potters’ armed farm, William and Marygay decide to re-enlist, hoping for instructors’ positions, but instead are sent back to the war together.

After being injured in another attack on an alien base, William and Marygay are shipped to Heaven, a hospital planet where they are patched up (regenerating lost limbs is now routine).  Now over 200 years old (by Earth dates), there is little left for them to return to Earth for; they enjoy some R&R together before being shipped back to the war. When their orders arrive, they seem the height of cruelty; they are being sent to different units, meaning their lives would run at different speeds; the first one to get home would almost certainly die of old age before the second returned.

Major Mandella returns to Stargate, and endures command training. His new strike force is sent to one of the furthest known collapsars, known to be an important system for the Taurans.  Their strategy reverts to William’s basic training: go there, build a base, defend it until relieved. Technology improvements include a stasis field; nothing can move faster than 16.3 meters per second in the active radius of the field. No modern weapons work inside the field, and it is deadly to unshielded living things. But classical weapons can be used; spears and swords can poke in and damage a fighting suit’s shielding, killing the occupant with his own protection.

The Taurans eventually show up with two ships and begin their attack. The Earth ship manages to destroy one Tauran ship before being destroyed, leaving an orphaned fighter and two drones, which make a beeline toward the collapsar. The remaining Tauran ship maneuvers to the planet and begins their assault on the Earth base. The orphaned fighter, instead of leaving the battle, flies around the collapsar and uses its drones to ram the Tauran ship at enormous speed, destroying it. Eventually, the surviving Earthlings on the planet huddle within their stasis field with their second fighter, defending themselves against the spears and arrows of the enemy. Mandella devises a simple but desperate tactic: activate their nova bombs (which will not go off within the stasis field); put them on the edge of the field; move the field. The tactic works; the attacks stop, and, after a long wait for the molten rock to cool and solidify again, they can turn off the stasis field and emerge.

The victorious Earth troops are able to crowd into the two fighters for the trip back to Earth. There they are confronted with even more unexpected changes; Earth and all her colonies are now run by genetically perfected clones. Population is now ten billion, across a number of worlds, but there is only one consciousness -- a hive mind.  Procreation is no longer needed; if a clone dies, he or she is replaced by an identical copy. The long war has been determined to have been a colossal mistake, brought about by the inability of the Taurans (who are also a hive mind) and the Earthlings to communicate, and fostered by the militaries, politicians, and industries of the late 20^th century, who wanted a war. Now that communication between the two hive minds is possible, the war is over. Stargate will be disassembled in disgrace: it was only being maintained until the last of the missions returned home, and with the survivors of Mandella’s task force, they have.

William reviews his prospects, which are all very similar: move to a planet and live out the rest of his days, a thousand years out of date, among perfect clones and without Marygay, the love of his life. Then, tucked into his service file, he finds an ancient note; Marygay was decommissioned long ago, and pooled her resources with several other veterans to buy a surplus spaceship. She is using this as a time shuttle; making trips out and back again to stretch out her time until he comes back. She will be returning to the planet Middle Finger (yes, the name implies just what you’re thinking) at the end of each run. Middle Finger is a planet set aside for people to live and procreate the old-fashioned, heterosexual way, just in case a problem is ever found with the perfect clones; and, in the epilogue, it is clear that William and Marygay are doing exactly that.