Joe Haldeman - The Forever War

As relevant today as when first released, the award winning military science fiction classic is now available in ebook formats.

An elite military force returns after a brief interstellar operation to find that more than twenty-years have passed. During their time away Earth has changed drastically and the squad has difficulty reintegrating into the new world order. Hoping to find familiarity by re-enlisting, William Mandella discovers doing so comes with its own set of consequences.

The Forever War won all major science fiction awards including the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus. Ridley Scott, director of Blade Runner and Alien is currently adapting the classic for film. This is the author's preferred version and includes a Foreword by John Scalzi, author of Old Man's War.

Praise for The Forever War

To say that The Forever War is the best science fiction war novel ever written is to damn it with faint praise. It is, for all its techno-extrapolative brilliance, as fine and woundingly genuine a war story as any Ive read. William Gibson, author of Neuromancer and Spook Country
There are a handful of moments when an American science fiction novel abruptly and seemingly effortlessly satisfied every possible expectation conveyed, not only by the genres ambitions, but of those of the whole literary landscape with which it was contemporary; Sturgeons More Than Human, Dickss The Man in the High Castle, LeGuins The Dispossessed, [and] Gibsons Neuromancer. The Forever War is one such book, and like those others still carries with it that air of recognition and possibility. Jonathan Lethem
Perhaps the most important war novel written since VietnamHaldeman, a veteran, is a flat-out visionaryand protagonist William Mandellas attempt to survive and remain human in the face of an absurd, almost endless war is harrowing, hilarious, heartbreaking, and trueLike all the best works of literature, The Forever War takes you apart and then, before you can turn that last page, puts you back together: better, wiser, more human. Simply extraordinary. Junot Daz
The Forever War is not just a great science fiction novel, its a great Vietnam war noveland a great war novel, without qualificationthat is also science fiction. A classic to grace either genre. Iain Banks
The Forever War is brilliantone of the most influential war novels of our time. That it happens to be set in the future only broadens and enhances its message. Greg Bear
The Forever War does what the very best science fiction does: It deals with extremes both societal and teleological; it places a frame around humankinds place in the universe to show us what is outside the frame; and it functions simultaneously at the literal and metaphorical level. Inarguably one of the genres great novels, it is also among the finest novels ever written about war. James Sallis
In a literature of ideas, The Forever War is a titan: a book filled with mind-bending ideas about relativistic time distortion and world-shaking ideas about the futility of war. In todays world, where we think declaring war on abstract nouns like terror is a winning strategy, we need The Forever War. Cory Doctorow
I first read this twenty years ago and have never forgotten the wonder and fury it kindled at the time. Anyone who talks about the glory of war has obviously never read it. A beautifully detailed and intensely personal account of a conflict that lasts for over a thousand years, as told by one grunt who lives through it all. Only a writer as skillful and knowledgeable as Haldeman could use wars dark glamour to lure the reader in and then deploy the same fascination to show just what kind of effect this orchestrated barbarism can have on the human soul. Peter F. Hamilton, author of Pandoras Star, Judas Unchained, and Emergence
It is to the Vietnam War what Catch-22 was to World War II, the definitive, bleakly comic satire. Thomas M. Disch, author of Camp Concentration, and 334
If there was a Fort Knox for science fiction, wed have to lock Joe Haldeman up and throw away the key. Steven King

This book and parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwisewithout prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by the United States of America copyright law.
Ridan and its logo are copyrighted and trademarked by Ridan Publishing. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual persons, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
A Ridan Publication
www.ridanpublishing.com
Copyright 1974, 1975, 1997 by Joe Haldeman.
Foreword 2009 by John Scalzi.
Cover Art 2011 by Michael J. Sullivan
Formatting by Robin Sullivan
Release Date: June 2011

For Ben and, always, for Gay

Works by Joe Haldeman

NOVELS
War Year (1972)
The Forever War (1974)
Attar's Revenge (1975)
War of Nerves (1975)
Mindbridge (1976)
All My Sins Remembered (1977)
Planet of Judgment (1977)
World without End (1979)
Worlds (1981)
There is No Darkness (w/Jack C. Haldeman II) (1983)
Worlds Apart (1983)
Tool of the Trade (1987)
Buying Time/The Long Habit of Living (1989)
The Hemingway Hoax (1990)
Worlds Enough and Time (1992)
1968 (1995)
Forever Peace (1997)
Forever Free (1999)
The Coming (2000)
Guardian (2002)
Camouflage (2004)
Old Twentieth (2005)
The Accidental Time Machine (2007)
Marsbound (2008)
Starbound (2010)
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
Infinite Dreams (1979)
Dealing in Futures (1985)
Vietnam and other Alien Worlds (1993)
War Stories (1995)
None so Blind (1996)
Saul's Death and Other Stories (1997)
A Separate War and Other Stories (2006)
Peace and War: The Omnibus Edition (2006)

Awards: Joe Haldeman

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT
2010 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award for Lifetime Achievement
2009 Robert A. Heinlein Award
2004 Southeastern Science Fiction Lifetime Achievement Award
1996 New England Science Fiction Association Skylark Award (along with Gay Haldeman)
1989 Interzone Poll All Time Best Science Fiction Author
LITERARY AWARDS
2005 Nebula: Best Novel (Camouflage)
2004 Southeastern SF Achievement Award: Novel (Camouflage)
2004 James Tiptree Award (Camouflage)
2002 Asimov's Reader Poll: Poem (January Fires)
2001 Rhysling Award: Long Poem (January Fires)
1999 Spanish Science Fiction Association Ignotus: Best Novel (Forever Peace)
1998 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (Forever Peace)
1998 Hugo: Best Novel (Forever Peace)
1998 Nebula: Best Novel (Forever Peace)
1997 Locus: Collection (None so Blind)
1995 Hugo: Short Story (None So Blind)
1995 Homer: Short Story (None So Blind)
1995 Science Fiction Chronicle Reader Awards (None So Blind)
1994 Southeastern SF Achievement Award: Short Story (Faces)
1994 Nebula: Best Short Story (Graves)
1993 World Fantasy Award: Best Short Story (Graves)
1991 Hugo: Best Novella (The Hemingway Hoax)
1991 Rhysling Award: Short Poem (Eighteen Years Old, October Eleventh)
1991 Nebula: Best Novella (The Hemingway Hoax)
1984 Rhysling Award: Long Poem (Saul's Death)