Unfortunately there’s no perspective, insight, analysis or even poignancy to the writing and the narrative is at best disjointed. And even if it ends in a not-unhappy way, it's still a book. The Forever War was first published as a serial in Analog, before being released in book format in 1974. . I don't know if reality could be so forgiving. We go into the homes of suicide bombers, meet Iraqi insurgents, and an American captain who loses a quarter of his men in eight days.The Forever War allows us a visceral understanding of today’s battlefields and of the experiences of the people on the ground, warriors and innocents alike. Thanks to one reporter’s heroic act of witness and brilliant recitation of what he saw, we can see the war–as it is, and for ourselves.” —Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times, “A kaleidoscope of images and intensity. Why?I think we’ve all heard our share of arguments about these wars. . It is written in finely honed bursts of vibrant color that capture the peculiar culture of the war. They’re misrepresented by the media, disenchanted by the idea of travel, and generally dissatisfied. I can barely recognize the place.Will it last? Movies. We’ve all heard a lot of moralizing—who was right and who was wrong. I’m exhausted by it; I think probably most people are. . People are dying. . The army is his home, now and forevermore. And despite the fact that none of them have ever seen a Tauran, and have no idea what they look like or might have by way of internal organs, they’re still being trained to go for the kidneys. Dexter Filkins’s combination of courage and sensitivity is so rare that books like his come along only once every major war. They’re immediately shipped off into the great unknown to encounter the enemy. . achieves a gripping, raw immediacy.” —The Boston Globe’s Year’s Best Books, “Splendid.” —Washington Post Book World Best Nonfiction of 2008, “Dexter Filkins’s The Forever War is the best piece of war journalism I’ve ever read. . I'm not attacking people who do love it, I'm just genuinely curious as to why. Just yesterday, for instance, I got an email from Sam Williams, a 26-year-old sergeant from Northern Michigan who is on his fourth tour in Iraq. is well on his way to becoming the preeminent war reporter of this tumultuous era. And yet, as tragic as the events he describes are, the book manages to be a thing of towering beauty.” —Dave Eggers, Guardian Best Books of the Year, “The Forever War is already a classic–it has the timeless feel of all great war literature. To withdraw your consent, see Your Choices. . Note that by this time, it’s 2189. Also includes sites with a short overview, synopsis, book report, or summary of Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War. They were brave and smart and savvy and tireless, and they were friends. It’s deservedly an award-winning classic, and it remains relevant even now. . And I’d be standing right there. For more information, visit him and an ever-growing archive of reviews at Schrodinger’s Bookshelf. . It will stay with me forever.” —Jeffrey Goldberg, author of Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide, “Dexter Filkins has seen the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan; he has stood in the ruins of the World Trade Center; he has been in the heat of battle in Iraq; indeed, no one else has been closer to the action than this courageous and thoughtful observer. And for the survivors of the graduation exercise, there’s no time to waste. About The Forever War. He’s a semi-reluctant soldier, a draftee plucked from college after getting his Master’s in physics, his plan to get a teaching certificate interrupted by the war at hand. Revue de presse | Are you still in touch with servicemen and women you were embedded with, or any Iraqis you met there?Yeah. As veteran I feel kinda silly for missing that bit I just took it as face value of runaway science /genetic engineering. And then you go back to the hotel and turn on the TV, and some retired colonel in a studio in New York is telling you what happened in Iraq today. Like at the end of the book where they are all clones and the soldiers can make no meaningful connection. . And in the end all the suffering and loss was pointless and over literally nothing. . He was in the middle of everything. What about him was so fascinating? . . Yay us? He’s one of the only people to have fought in, and lived through, the entire Forever War. Through the eyes of Dexter Filkins, the prize-winning New York Times correspondent, we witness the remarkable chain of events that began with the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s, continued with the attacks of 9/11, and moved on to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.Filkins’s narrative moves across a vast and various landscape of amazing characters and astonishing scenes: a public amputation performed by Taliban, children frolicking in minefields, skies streaked white by the contrails of B-52’s, a night’s sleep in the rubble of Ground Zero. Le Seigneur des Anneaux : 6 acteurs qui se sont blessés sur le tournage, Disney : 18 personnages inspirés de vraies personnes. In those days I was just mystified by Afghanistan—what it was, where it was going. . So I thought we owed to the Iraqis to stick it out and get it right. By clicking Sign Up, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Penguin Random House's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. (Get that: twenty six and on his fourth tour in Iraq.) . And then the war ends. It is about the wasteful destructiveness of war. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. if what Michael Herr brought back from Vietnam in Dispatches was a sort of Jackson Pollock–streaks of blood, trickles of dread, splattershot of hard rock and harder drugs–The Forever War is like a pointillist Seurat, a neo-Impressionist juxtaposition of spots of pure color with black holes and open wounds.” —John Leonard, Harper’s, “The definitive–and heartbreakingly humanizing–report from the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sign up for news about books, authors, and more from Penguin Random House, Visit other sites in the Penguin Random House Network. With Channing Tatum. a haunting spiritual witness that will make this volume a part of this awful war’s history.” —Robert Stone, The New York Times Book Review, “Filkins makes us see, with almost hallucinogenic immediacy, the true human meaning and consequences of the “war on terror.” —The New York Times, “Unflinching. There’s very little empathy for the U.S soldiers the author encounters. And if you disagree with him you are a traitor and a fool. War is human drama at its most epic and most intense.Q: You were based in Afghanistan in 1998, long before it was really in the news as far as many Americans were concerned. After William’s mother dies due to lack of priority healthcare, he and Marygay reenlist, and that’s that. They told me everything.Q: You spent a lot of time face to face with Ahmad Chalabi, and you write that he was someone you "never missed a chance to follow around" and that "Chalabi was Iraq." | 698 Minutes . How do you talk to a warlord? It was reckless, but I needed to do it to stay sane. . I helped him get to the U.S. He’s a physician now in Atlanta. [Dexter Filkins] has put himself in the middle of this madness to deliver a stunning and illuminating story.” —Chuck Leddy, Christian Science Monitor, “[Filkins is] the real deal, a reporter’s reporter . Please try again later. . They are not in the same series, despite the title, but both deal with humans trying to make sense of war, its ideology, its self-perpetuation outside of human interests and even livespans, and most of all, the alienation of soldiers. Down there, politics is irrelevant.Q: Reporting from Iraq, you met many well-known people, like Chalabi and Bremer, but many whose names won’t be familiar to readers. Haldeman wrote this as a Vietnam allegory, and it shows in the details. . A very large fraction of the fans and authors I speak with have more "literary" tastes as you put it. Where is it going? . . . his honesty in portraying the war implicitly exposes the hollowness of the platitudes used in Washington to defend it.” —Chris Hedges, Philadelphia Inquirer, “Splendid. I go to and even work at a lot of conventions. : Sadly, this doesn’t last long at all before combat injuries take both him and Marygay out of commission. I’ve seen them both, and taken both together and separately, they paint a fascinating picture. We toppled Saddam, after all, and we made so many mistakes in the aftermath that helped send the country into its tailspin. How quickly culture and society changes, and the culture right between combat veterans and civilians. The whole planet is involved in a continuous war, even if not at the WWI or WWII scale (and despite this being, officially, one of the most peaceful times western civilisation ever knew.) Préférences cookies | If you haven’t read it, you owe it to yourself to check it out. . Dans les premiers soldats envoyés après entraînement, il y a un couple. His prose is as blunt as it is powerful.” —Lee H. Hamilton, The New York Times, “Filkins . The vacation can’t last for long, though; soon enough they’re recalled to active duty, and given promotions. It’s a horrible, nasty affair, made worse by the use of hypnotic conditioning that turns our heroes into crazed killers, spurred on by blatantly false images that owe more to ’50s-era schlock SF than any sort of reality. William’s granted the rank of major, and made into a company commander, something he doesn’t favor at all. . . WINNER. Based on Joe Haldeman's 1974 novel "The Forever War". Here we see that the world economy is based on food rations and calories instead of money, that getting any job at all is complicated and often fraught with illegality, and sudden violence is a way of life. In the “real” version, Haldeman doesn’t hold back. . Entire books could be devoted to examining the various themes of The Forever War, and I know I’ve already ran overlong just trying to touch upon my own thoughts on the subject. There are so many soldiers who won't fit right back - if at all - in their former places in society, it's getting kind of scary, and dangerous for all. In short, the world has moved on while he and the others were serving in the military, and there’s likely no real home for them anymore. This is a page-turner, and one of the most astounding books yet written about the war in Iraq.” —Time, “Thanks to one reporter’s heroic act of witness and brilliant recitation of what he saw, we can see the war¬ as it is, and for ourselves.” —Los Angeles Times, “Not since Michael Herr in Dispatches . The Forever War . I think it’s worth sharing. . While some aspects might be far-fetched, there’s no denying that it’s a powerful work. The Forever War should be read together with Forever Peace imho, to get the full impact. William’s incredibly thrown off-balance when he learns that his own mother has taken a female lover, another sign of just how much things have changed in his absence.