bn.com
This is a thematic follow-up to Forever War, Haldeman's best-known novel, though the plot is unrelated. The industrialized nations battle the Third World using soldiers who are mentally connected to mechanical fighting machines in this scathing indictment of the dehumanization of war.
—Don D'Ammassa
Kirkus Reviews
Not a sequel to Haldeman's 1974 masterpiece, The Forever War, though the concepts and issues inevitably are similar. In 2043, the US-led Alliance is fighting a prolonged and dirty war against the third-world force of Ngumi, or "rebels." "Mechanic" sergeant Julian Class, a black soldier fighting for a predominantly white establishment, cyberlinks via a jack implanted in his skull to a robot "soldierboy" body—and to the other members of his platoon. The result is full, instant telepathy, in which secrets are impossible. Meanwhile, Julian's white lover, professor Amelia Harding, discovers that a particle accelerator experiment being assembled near Jupiter could destroy the entire universe. Then a colleague of Julian's, the military researcher Marty Larrin, reveals that prolonged cyberlinking "humanizes" people, that is, renders them incapable of killing. Julian, a near-pacifist, agrees to help Marty humanize all the military's bigwigs while he and Amelia attempt to halt the accelerator project. Trouble is, the Alliance armies are riddled with ruthless religious-fanatic Hammer of God moles, who think that the end of the universe would be a splendid idea.
Hardworking, often absorbing, and agreeably narrated, but the hard-to-fathom plot rubs uneasily against the chaotic and not altogether convincing backdrop.
From the Publisher
If there was a Fort Knox for the science fiction writers who really matter, we’d have to lock Haldeman up there.”—Stephen King
“Though not a sequel to his classic The Forever War…Haldeman’s new novel rivals it for emotional power. The Vietnam vet writes with uncommon intelligence and acuity about the terror of war and the horror of the human heritage in the middle of the next century.”—Publishers Weekly
“Mature and reflective…There are narrative kicks and hard SF pleasures in Forever Peace…they all point gracefully towards the depiction of a world where peace is inevitable, and as profoundly hard-wired into the human psyche, as war has always been.”—Washington Post Book World
“Haldeman has long been one of our most aware, comprehensive, and necessary writers. He speaks from a place deep within the collective psyche and, more importantly, his own. His mastery is informed with a survivor’s hard-won wisdom.”—Peter Straub
OCT/NOV 01 - AudioFile
When he inadvertently kills a young boy in a seeming exercise, Julian discovers that the wars of the twenty-first century, though fought by robots controlled by technicians hundreds of miles away, are no more antiseptic than wars ever were, but are equally senseless and cruel. From that point on, he struggles to disengage himself. But he finds that he can’t--without short-circuiting the whole process of war. George Wilson narrates this sci-fi mystery with a jaded, cynical tone that matches the embittered mood of the protagonist. His female voices, however, sound affected and stilted. They distract the reader and mar an otherwise entertaining reading. P.E.F. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine
