The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman

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...