One of the small concessions of the day job I’m currently working to save for overseas is the ability to keep an earbud piping things into my brain for the five or six hours of repetitive labour. Currently, the weapon of choice is a number of audiobook titles in the Top 100 Science Fiction Novels of All Time that I haven’t yet had time to get to reading, so the exercise is turning out to be an immensely satisfying two-birds-one-stone kind of venture. Over the Xmas period I managed to get through the entirety of Frank Herbert’s millennia-spanning DUNE series, Stephen King’s magnum opus THE DARK TOWER (the final/middle book read by the author himself), and Thomas Pynchon’s GRAVITY’S RAINBOW. Each of these is a lengthy dissection in itself, and I may yet wheel around for them but I wanted to open on something fresh. For those who have yet to read any of the titles I’ll do in this fashion, I’ll endeavour to stick to themes, context and concept in discussion in order to spare the gratifying twists in plot in all but necessary strokes that a reader/listener would want to experience first hand. So, “review” is perhaps inaccurate, especially considering all of these are widely regarded already as being masterpieces and the world doesn’t need one more arrogant blogger throwing around his spare change on the matter.
First up, Joe Haldeman’s 1974 novel “THE FOREVER WAR”, listed as #21.
