You can't lose for winning--especially, it would seem, if you're Joe Haldeman. Suffering the same fate as many an author who's dared to pen unconventional sequels to a ferociously loved book (in this case, The Forever War), Haldeman has risked the ire of his many devoted admirers a second time (the first sequel was the award-spangled Forever Peace). But Haldeman's call--not too surprisingly--proves to be a deft one, giving us a book that, while significantly different from its predecessor, turns out to be equally captivating and sensitive, in many ways even more thought-provoking. (Sure, it doesn't match The Forever War for sheer impact, but then again, what does?)

As in The Forever War, the heart of this story is the dry, ironic bite of fighting-suit vet William Mandella, now middle-aged and a parent (along with his love and comrade-in-arms Marygay) to two teen-aged kids. The family leads a spartan life on the cold and desolate planet Middle Finger, which serves as a sort of genetic safe-deposit box for the current incarnation of humanity, an inhuman race of group-mind clones known as Man. But the animals in the zoo are getting restless, and a core group of vets led by William and Marygay plot an unusual escape: hijacking a reconditioned time ship and using it to take a 40,000 light-year tour (over 10 years of their own time) to rejoin the world they know only after 2,000 generations have passed. Much of the action involves the hatching and fruition of this plot, but Haldeman doesn't really mix things up until nearing the end, when he dissolves physics as we know it and calls down the wrath of God itself. --Paul Hughes


From Publishers Weekly
In this long-awaited sequel to The Forever War, Haldeman describes the postwar life of retired soldiers William and Marygay Mandella on the half-frozen planet Middle Finger, where they and other humans have been secluded by the newly evolved, superhuman race of Man. The long war with the Taurans is over and William and company are little more than relics, kept around to provide archaic genes should the Man ever wish to alter their own, cloned near-perfection. Dissatisfied with their stagnant lives, William and his fellow vets steal a starship. They plan to travel so far and fast that time dilation will allow them to return only a decade older but millennia in their world's future. Disaster strikes just days into their voyage, however, when their antimatter engines mysteriously malfunction in direct violation of the laws of physics. Returning home in escape craft, Mandella and his mates discover that everyone on the planet has disappeared, leaving only their clothes behind. Further, all communication with the outside universe has been cut off. Despite a slow start, Haldeman builds considerable tension with the mystery that confronts his human survivors of what appears to be the complete disappearance of not only humanity, but also of Man and the Taurans. Some truly weird events have occurred and Haldeman gives them a genuinely spooky feel. Mandella's laconic narrative, so effective in getting across The Forever War's antiwar message, proves just as effective in this sequel. The novel is weakened, however, by what feels like an overly hasty conclusion, burdened by Haldeman's decision to invoke not one but two deus ex machinae in the book's final chapters. Still, this is a well-written and worthy sequel to one of SF's enduring classics. (Dec.) FYI: Haldeman's The Forever War (1974) and Forever Peace (1997) each won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best SF novel. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
In the aftermath of the Forever War, a group of combat veterans living on the distant planet of Middle Finger decide to sever their ties with the group-minded genetically identical society of "Man." Commandeering an anti-matter driven spaceship, they begin a journey beyond the Galaxy, where they confront a mystery that eventually brings them into confrontation with the greatest mystery of their existence. The author of The Forever War and Forever Peace continues his exploration of the essential nature of humanity in a deceptively simple story that questions the foundations of human belief. Haldeman's clear, concise storytelling and his understanding of human behavior make his latest effort a strong addition to most sf collections. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Continuation of a Classic

Twenty-five years ago, Joe Haldeman published his first -- and still most famous -- science fiction novel, The Forever War, a grimly ironic account of soldiers subjected to the brutalities of interstellar warfare and the distortions of relativity. As a result of those distortions, the soldiers who survive the war age very little, despite the fact that the war drags on for nearly 1,200 years. By the novel's end, those same survivors are faced with a choice: to align themselves with the static, homogeneous, hivelike society that has evolved in their absence or band together with other members of the human minority and build a new home. In Forever Free, a belated sequel to his classic original, Haldeman tells the story of a group of men and women who choose the latter course.

Forever Free, which is set approximately 20 years after the concluding events of the earlier novel, is once again narrated by The Forever War veteran William Mandella. Mandella, together with his longtime lover Marygay Potter, has settled down on a harsh, earthlike planet known as Middle Finger (or, as its inhabitants call it, MF). He is now the father of two almost-grown children and earns his living by fishing and by teaching part-time in the local university. As the new novel opens, he is 54 years old and has grown increasingly dissatisfied with the strictures and conditions of his chosen life. Along with many of his fellow exiles, he particularly resents the subservient role that humans play in a society dominated by that hivelike species known, ironically, as Man.

Convinced that he and his kind represent nothing more than a "genetic insurance policy" -- a fallback position should the grand evolutionary experiment called Man eventually peter out -- Mandella concocts a desperate plan to set his species free. Together with 150 volunteers, Mandella proposes to occupy an interstellar starship called The Time Warp, and to pilot that ship on a round-trip journey that will last for ten years of subjective time but which, with the aid of relativity, will bring them back to Middle Finger some 40,000 years later, by which point the world will have changed in unimaginable ways. When Mandella's proposal is rejected by the ruling consciousness called The Whole Tree, he and his fellow rebels hijack The Time Warp and head out into the future.

Shortly into that journey, things go seriously -- and permanently -- wrong. The antimatter fuel that powers the starship inexplicably evaporates, forcing the pilgrims to return to their home planet in a series of interstellar lifeboats. They return to Middle Finger eight years after their departure to find that everyone on the planet has disappeared, leaving clothing and possessions behind. The search for a solution to these interrelated mysteries -- the disappearance of the fuel and the disappearance of the populace -- dominates the second half of this novel. In time, that search leads Mandella and a select group of survivors to the equally desolate planet Earth. There, they encounter a bizarre, shape-shifting entity called an Omni. Shortly after that encounter, both humans and Omni come face-to-face with the nameless, underlying power that governs the physical universe, a power that provides them with some unexpected answers to the novel's central mysteries.

Forever Free is an eccentric, playfully speculative book that frankly lacks the narrative immediacy and sheer visceral impact of its award-winning predecessor. It will be interesting to see just what sort of response it generates. (In a possible foretaste of things to come, one anonymous reviewer virtually foamed at the mouth while reviewing this book. Guess it wasn't what he or she was looking for.) To my mind, though, it would be a mistake to dismiss this novel, which offers a number of significant pleasures, most of which are considerably different from those on display in The Forever War. Forever Free is a quieter, more contemplative book and is clearly the product of an older, more meditative man. From beginning to end, it is much more a novel of ideas than action, examining, from its own unique perspective, the complex dynamics of family and community; and reflecting, with humor and intelligence, on the limits of our understanding of the great cosmological experiment in which we find ourselves. It is also a novel about people who are growing older but who have managed to retain their exploratory spirit and to resist the inertial pull of age, fate, and circumstance. All of this is delivered in a clean, clear, deceptively effortless style that is richly nuanced, frequently quite funny, and always eminently readable.

Readers expecting a more conventional successor to The Forever War may find themselves puzzled or disappointed. More flexible readers will find much to admire here and a great deal to enjoy. Forever Free may not be the landmark work that Haldeman's followers have hoped for, but it's a solid, intelligent entertainment that is infused, at least periodically, with the inimitable Haldeman magic.

—Bill Sheehan

FROM THE PUBLISHER

A veteran of The Forever War, William Mandella has since settled on a planet set aside for his kind. Married with two children, he makes his living on the snow-covered world ice fishing and teaching physics. But Mandella, his family, and his way of life have become obsolete. The denizens of Earth have evolved into a group consciousness known simply as Man, and they have taken control of Mandella's new home. Humans are considered dangerous because of their independent natures, though they are kept safe for the sake of their diverse gene pool." "That's now how Mandella and his fellow soldiers want to exist. In a desperate gamble, he rallies the humans to hijack the spaceship Time Warp and take to the stars to begin humanity anew. Then something goes wrong. The crew is forced to abandon ship and return home in suspended animation twenty-five years later. But the planet has aged centuries during their interstellar voyage - and the crew wonders what new world awaits them upon arrival...

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In this long-awaited sequel to The Forever War, Haldeman describes the postwar life of retired soldiers William and Marygay Mandella on the half-frozen planet Middle Finger, where they and other humans have been secluded by the newly evolved, superhuman race of Man. The long war with the Taurans is over and William and company are little more than relics, kept around to provide archaic genes should the Man ever wish to alter their own, cloned near-perfection. Dissatisfied with their stagnant lives, William and his fellow vets steal a starship. They plan to travel so far and fast that time dilation will allow them to return only a decade older but millennia in their world's future. Disaster strikes just days into their voyage, however, when their antimatter engines mysteriously malfunction in direct violation of the laws of physics. Returning home in escape craft, Mandella and his mates discover that everyone on the planet has disappeared, leaving only their clothes behind. Further, all communication with the outside universe has been cut off. Despite a slow start, Haldeman builds considerable tension with the mystery that confronts his human survivors of what appears to be the complete disappearance of not only humanity, but also of Man and the Taurans. Some truly weird events have occurred and Haldeman gives them a genuinely spooky feel. Mandella's laconic narrative, so effective in getting across The Forever War's antiwar message, proves just as effective in this sequel. The novel is weakened, however, by what feels like an overly hasty conclusion, burdened by Haldeman's decision to invoke not one but two deus ex machinae in the book's final chapters. Still, this is a well-written and worthy sequel to one of SF's enduring classics. (Dec.) FYI: Haldeman's The Forever War (1974) and Forever Peace (1997) each won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best SF novel. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

In the aftermath of the Forever War, a group of combat veterans living on the distant planet of Middle Finger decide to sever their ties with the group-minded genetically identical society of "Man." Commandeering an anti-matter driven spaceship, they begin a journey beyond the Galaxy, where they confront a mystery that eventually brings them into confrontation with the greatest mystery of their existence. The author of The Forever War and Forever Peace continues his exploration of the essential nature of humanity in a deceptively simple story that questions the foundations of human belief. Haldeman's clear, concise storytelling and his understanding of human behavior make his latest effort a strong addition to most sf collections. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Faren Miller - Locus

Twenty-five years after The Forever War, and two years after a thematic sequel, Forever Peace...Joe Haldeman has finally produced a conventional chronological sequel in Forever Free. Well, maybe not all that conventional, given where it eventually takes us. While this book does show us what became of the principle actors (William and Marygay Mandella and their fellow veterans; the cloned and collective humans that call themselves Man; and the equally C&C Tauran ex-enemy), it resembles another series finale, Worlds Enough and Time, more than either of the other Forever books. That is, it spends a lot of time on the domestic and social arrangements of people who have been through scary adventures in the earlier novels before making several sharp and unexpected turns into brand new territory...I can't really write much of anything about the rest of the plot without spoiling a series of genuine surprises. I will say that the last quarter of the book had me thinking of both Philip Jose Farmer and Robert A. Heinlein (and don't that stretch the brain in funny ways.)

D. Douglas Fratz - Science Fiction Age

For the past 25 years, Haldeman fans have awaited a sequel to The Forever War, continuing the story of Mandella, Potter, and the others on Middle Finger. Haldeman's 1997 novel, Forever Peace, proved to be a thematic sequel only,...Now Haldeman has finally written a true sequel...[Forever Free] is extremely successful, and should please his many fans, despite the long wait and the high expectations the long wait creates. His chilling vision of future humanity, compelling story, and terse prose style make Forever Free one of the best novels to appear this year.

Don D'Ammassa - Science Fiction Chronicle