Review of The Forever War

As with Slaughterhouse-Five, I dug this out of the box housing my high-school bookshelf to reread it with the benefit of--eep!--an additional ~decade of life experience. William Mandella, the main character of the book, experiences total and utter alienation from the rest of the human race after spending hundreds of years traveling at light speed while only aging a few years. He was born in the 1990s, but ends the book living in the 3000s as one of just a dozen remaining 'original' humans. While Forever War was written as a response to the Vietnam War, it takes on new meaning with the increasing social atomization of modern (American) society. If, through the Web, you invisibly participate in a subculture that the people around you misunderstand or condemn, and find yourself biting your tongue in every real-life conversation, aren't you nearly as detached as Mandella, even if you have somewhere to go online? Furthermore, the social changes Mandella faces take place over years, and historical social change took place over decades or centuries, while today a culture shift that entices you and drives away your IRL peers (or vice versa) can take place in weeks or days (and be reported on in minutes.)