Forever Peace
by Joe Haldeman · first published 1997
56% recommend39% neutral6% critical
Why HN recommends it
Sci-fi novel about remote-piloted war machines, seen as prophetic about drone warfare and fighting detached from a bunker. Readers praise its speculative ideas about society, evolution and alternative unions.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Joe Haldeman returns with a story about the horrors of war -- and how we might move past them. Julian Class is a physicist working on the largest particle accelerator ever built, a nanobot-constructed ring in the orbit of Jupiter. He is also a 'mechanic', someone who pilots the robotic combat mechs used by the US Army to fight a protracted war against a South America-Africa alliance. When he learns about the potential outcome of the Jupiter Project, he is forced to take action.
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Haldeman later wrote a "proper" sequel to TFW, Forever Free, but it's not nearly as good as Forever Peace.
on “The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War” ↗If this interests you as a topic, go read Joe Haldeman's Forever Peace - it was written in 1997, but is prophetic about the dynamics of a war fought by remote. Going out into the warzone when you're at work, and coming back to your home in the suburbs every night.
on “Airmen who surveil the Islamic State never get to look away” ↗…in the humanity's best interest to wipe out 90% of the population with viruses. Rather grim, but understandable in a way. While in the domain of Sci-Fi, the solution I liked better was the idea from "Forever peace" by John Haldeman, where human evolution is propelled to the next step by increasing mutual empathy through technology. The Internet might be a small step in that direction.
on “Amazon deforestation accelerating to unrecoverable 'tipping point'” ↗See also Joe Haldeman's "Forever Peace".
on “One rat brain 'talks' to another using electronic link” ↗Another book that explores this (pretty in-depth) is The Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman. It won a couple of awards for sci-fi writing, and I found it enjoyable. In it there are remote-controlled humanoid killing machines that are piloted by soilders from a bunker through…
on “What Would Real Brain-To-Brain Communication Look Like?” ↗…is a deterrence. But the capabilities being built, like drone bombing are primarily used in our endless wars, and used by our 'allies' like Saudi Arabia in places like Yemen. Have you read the book "Forever Peace" by the author of the more famous "Forever War", Joe Haldeman? F.P. is a world with an endless battle against people that could stand in for the endless wars against Islamic terrorists we fight today.…
on “Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year” ↗Joe Haldeman's The Forever War and Forever Peace series of novels chronicle this with pretty decent speculation. He goes from war, to loneliness, to very low birth rates in society to rising same sex unions, to interesting alternative unions -- all…
on “Americans are choosing to be alone, but we should reverse that” ↗For all those who haven't read it, check out the "sequel", The Forever Peace. I place "sequel" in quotes, because it's only thematically related, there's no continuation of characters or plots. In fact, it's set much closer to the present, and the use of remote-controlled robots…
on “The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War” ↗> As much as I love TFW, I personally think The Forever Peace is a stronger novel. Honestly, a number of his novels are better, as he freely acknowledges (though not in this interview). It'd be pretty odd for a writer with a long career to perform his best work…
on “The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War” ↗Have you read the book Forever Peace? I think it's a foretelling of this, in part. The book doesn't have drones, but what it does have is mechs that fight wars with human remote pilots. War in the book essentially boils down to who can spend…
on “Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt Is Working on a Secret Military Drone Project” ↗http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0441005667?keywords=forever... Forever Peace: sci-fi written by a Vietnam War veteran. US Military uses robots for fighting that include mind-to-mind communication.. but bans links longer than N Days. After N days, a human with such an immediate…
on “What Happens When Virtual Reality Gets Too Real” ↗…today. The competence of the grunts in 1960's Starship Troopers is a reaction to the USMC in the Second World War and the experience of the US military during the shooting phase of the Korean War. 1998's Forever Peace shows how much computers changed the meanings of "combatant" and "battlefield" in the subsequent 40 years. One of the other interesting themes of science fiction is the evolution of the post-apocalyptic…
on “Sci-Fi Novels You Should Read” ↗I haven't finished the book yet, but this feels pretty similar what's going on in Joe Haldemann's "Forever Peace"[0], though in the book it's about removing the ability to cause harm through violence. Reading it has given me a better appreciation for not going to extremes in any direction. [0]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21618.Forever_Peace
on “What if a pill can change your politics or religious beliefs?” ↗…really finding myself fully immersed in the story Haldeman was telling, always wanting to stop and see more about how things had changed. I guess the 'world building' wasn't as good as I hoped for. The Forever Peace on the other hand seemed to painstakingly explore the build up to societal change, then ended as it was about to happen. Either way, both frustrating books.
on “The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War” ↗I should probably re-read The Forever Peace. I, on the other hand, have The Forever War on my favorite SF list but nothing else of his that I've read--and I have at least a half-dozen on my shelf--have ever grabbed me enough the remember them.
on “The Author of Our Best SF Military Novel Explains the Future of War” ↗