Sci-fi, time machines, and THE FUTURE.
Thanks to a certain @fetfet50, I picked up two Joe Haldeman books (The Forever War and The Accidental Time Machine) at the library. Having a disproportionate love for anything sci or fi, I was pretty certain I would enjoy them.
Boy was I wrong.
I consumed them. I wanted to marry them. I’m not sure how I went my entire sci-fi lovin’ life without hearing of Joe Haldeman. But I am disgustingly glad I finally have.
I read The Forever War first, it being the oldest between the two books by nearly 40 years. At its loosest, it’s an allegory for Vietnam, Haldeman having served there, and the connections are pretty obvious, most distinctly in the horrible preparation of the troops through no fault of their own, the use of mind-altering drugs by the troops (though in Haldeman’s version, this is officially sanctioned, at least for most drugs), and the backwards un-reason for the war in the first place. But from there, the book takes an entirely original twist on… well… everything.
Fighting an enemy called the Taurans about which little to nothing is actually known (indeed, no one even knows what Taurans look like until their first mano – a – mano combat, many years after the start of the war), the soldiers are flung through space and time by way of collapsars (now an actual, scientific term for super-massive black holes with incredible rates of rotational speed; in the book, something closer to a black hole – which, lest we forget, were not even actually considered legitimate theory in the 1970s, oh how time flies: super-massive black holes are now that which hold every galaxy together and dark matter keeps us spinning – and which the author simply describes as a collapsed star with a high enough gravity and density to warp time). This poses no problem for the soldiers until they return to earth, first dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of years in the future while they themselves have aged only months or years, and every time they return, they find their home planet to be in worse, or at least weirder, shape. In an ironic twist, after about a thousand years, heterosexuality is considered abnormal and unnatural, natural breeding is considered flawed and gross, and straight people have to be ‘cured.’ But, failing that, the heterosexual are looked on as mere abnormalities, curiosities, and no one is worse for wear – not anymore, anyway. Not only did that make me giggle, Haldeman actually gave a compelling argument for it, and accurately (or as accurately as can be presumed) gave an account of the feelings of those soldiers, straight soldiers, returning from a mostly-heterosexual time period into this gay new world with as little hate as possible. Indeed, this was a huge change for them, since sex between male and female soldiers was encouraged in the past as a means of stress relief and considered wholly normal if not necessary for the morale of the troops. In short, the concept of sexual orientation as well as emotions and perceptions of people jumping thousands of years in a few month’s time felt incredibly genuine while still being sensitive toward tough issues, which was even more impressive to me given that the book was written in 1974. (In the words of the Ninth Doctor, “Relax. He’s a 51st century guy. He’s just a bit more flexible when it comes to dancing.” Oh Captain Jack.)
That being said, for as forward-thinking as the book is when it comes to people, it’s incredibly backwards when it comes to technology, which clearly is no fault of its own. It was 1974; personal computers were nearly unheard of, and here these soldiers are, between the years 2000 and 3500, roughly, and one is complaining that you could only fit something like 15,000 pages worth of information on a memory stick the size of your thumb and that’s why battle plans are inaccurate, et al. Now, of course, it’s only 2010, but we can fit the entire Library of Congress and then some on a flash drive the size of a toenail. As I said, it’s no flaw of the book’s, but it does make you squint for a moment and think to yourself, “Wait, no.”
I won’t go into the battle technology too much but I have to mention my favorite piece of equipment, the statis field, a sort of forcefield where everything – light, lasers, everything – is canceled out, and the soldiers on both sides are reduced to fighting with weaponry with no internal moving parts: bo staves, swords, bows and arrows. I can’t say why, but a bunch of people in space suits taking out long-limbed aliens in life support bubbles with arrows totally made this book for me.
Technology, war, emotions aside, this book, and Joe Haldeman’s writing style on the whole, is incredibly funny. There are parts where you snicker, parts where you giggle, and parts where you laugh so hard you start to cry. This is true of both The Forever War and The Accidental Time Machine. It’s not even so much that jokes are made; it’s a truth in advertising sort of humor, a pointing out of obvious inconsistencies, and weird, universal quirks in people, regardless of time or place or species. The style is also completely comprehensible and enjoyable whether you have trouble with basic math or a degree in physics or, like me, are somewhere in between.
Check back soon for my review of The Accidental Time Machine, A History of Violence, and possibly The Eyre Affair, which despite the fact that all I remember about Charlotte Bronte from my 6th grade report was that her coffin was only 12 inches wide, I am enjoying immensely. Hopefully it will not take me a month to post like this one did. Blogger fail.