The Forever War (The Forever War, #1) - Joe Haldeman Page 0,1

fictitiously. Any similarity to actual persons, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

A Ridan Publication

ridanpublishing

© 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)

1979 Analog Analytic Laboratory: Science Fact (This Space for Rent)

1977 Hugo: Short Story (Tricentennial)

1977 Locus: Short Story (Tricentennial)

1976 Hugo: Best Novel (The Forever War)

1976 Locus: Best Novel (The Forever War)

1976 Ditmar Award (The Forever War)

1976 Nebula: Best Novel (The Forever War)

Foreword

Hey Joe, I Read Your Book, or,

An Open Letter to Joe Haldeman, Cleverly

Disguised as a Foreword to The Forever War

Dear Joe:

To get this letter to you started, and to set the scene for a theme I’ll get back to, I want to remind you (and share with the onlookers reading this letter to you) about the first time I met both you and Gay, which was at the Worldcon in Glasgow in 2005. I forget the specific manner in which we were introduced—I suspect my editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden may have made the introduction, as introducing science fictional people to each other is something he’s very good at. I remember saying hello and then being marvelously flattered as Gay told me that she had enjoyed Old Man’s War, which was at the time my sole novel, having come out six months earlier. After she was done saying very nice things about it, you said “I’ve heard good things about it, but I’m afraid I haven’t read it yet.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “I’ve heard good things about The Forever War, and I haven’t read it, either.” To which you laughed, then you and I and Gay went on to have a very nice conversation about other things. So that’s how we met.

Let me note two things about our meeting. First, you were entirely gracious to me in the aftermath of my attempted witty banter, because in retrospect (i.e., three seconds later) I could see how the comment might have seemed snarky and dismissive, even if it was not meant that way. Fortunately for me, you took it the right way. Second, in terms of high science fictional crimes and misdemeanors, mine in not having read your novel was a far sight greater than yours in not reading mine. My novel was the work of a newbie writer whom only a few people knew existed (thus my pleasure in Gay’s having read it at all), whereas your novel was (and remains) a science fiction classic—a winner of the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards, widely recognized as one of the two cornerstone works of military science fiction, along with Starship Troopers. You could be forgiven for not having gotten around to my book. I, on the other hand, did not get off so easily.

Indeed, it’s a measure of the significance of The Forever War in science