Ooh, this is a fun question. I don’t have quite the insane character population as some other authors and… to be totally honest, I’m not really a huge fan of a lot of my characters. Don’t get me wrong, I love them, but… not so much that I really want to spend a lot of time with many of them.

But… the moment I read this question, I knew exactly who my answer was.

From Starsigns, it’s Tivory.

SPOILERS UPCOMING FOR STARSIGNS

Tivory is a tiny fairy, the first one we see that lets us know they’re real in the first place. But because his egg was shaped, molded, and carved before he was hatched, he’s got physical issues, like a partial leg and missing fingers.

The problem is, through Starsigns, we pretty much see his entire life, so… not easy to do a spinoff. I suppose I could choose one of the other fairies who does survive, easily. I mean, what I’d really want to explore would be fairy culture, how they live on their own when their eggs and trees are safe.

I know this is a short post but… that’s the answer. 

I honestly doubt I’ll ever actually revisit the world I built in Starsigns. If I did, though, that’s where I’d most likely explore.

I was a ridiculously avid reader as a child. I’m sure there are plenty of reasons we could delve into, but simply put, video games and books were my refuges. It shows in who I am now: a storyteller. All about the stories.

So, what was I reading as a kid?

I was all over the place, honestly. Regular trips to the library happened a lot, so I tended to be exposed to a lot all the time. I was in the right age groups and generation to be swept up by R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and K. A. Applegate’s Animorphs. I’m not much of a horror fiend— at least, I’m a little more now than as a kid, at least with books— so I avoided the slightly-more-horror Fear Street books in favor of the goofier Goosebumps. And I only made it so far in the whole Animorphs series. Never finished, but I did get a good ways in.

But to be totally honest, the books I most remember reading as a kid were the Children’s Great Illustrated Classics. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned them before here, but they were a LOT of my childhood. Back in the olden days, before Wal-Mart even carried groceries, we could get these small paperback versions of the classics for fifty cents apiece. The books were squat and fat, but they were my lifeblood. Every other page was an illustration, and the text was obviously abridged, but I took in a ton of classics at a young age because of these editions. Dickens, Stevenson, Wells, and more were the author names I knew before I even hit double digits in age. 
Because of these books, The Count of Monte Cristo remains probably one of my favorite stories of all time. I adore Dickens, though I do find him a little overconveniently trite sometimes. H. G. Wells and Jules Verne are still some of my favorites and… I honestly need to revisit them more as an adult. Thanks for the reminder.

To sort of rapidfire at this point:

I discovered Middle Earth at age 10-11. First with The Hobbit and immediately taking me to The Lord of the Rings.

I did get into Harry Potter when I was in high school. I’m wanting to say my sophomore year, but it might’ve been my junior year. By then, 5 books were already out.

I suppose we can cap the “growing up” part of my life with say, my gap year between high school and college. So I’ll finish up by capping my childhood off with discovering Ender’s Game and Orson Scott Card in general.

Yeah, I have some serious personal problems with those last two authors now, but the fact remains that their books did affect me as I grew up. They got me through some hard times.

Fuck you, Joanne Rowling.

But I digress.

The fact I was reading so many of those classics means I actually missed out on actually reading a lot of children’s actual classics. I’ve never read Harriet the Spy, Charlotte’s Web, or anything by Roald Dahl. I only in the last 10 years actually read Little Women. 

There’s a balance to be had. Like, I’m familiar with the stories of the ones I’ve missed thanks to movie adaptations and such, but… I missed out on being a kid. A lot of us do that.

It’s not to say that I didn’t read things normal for kids. I had school assignments and all, so I read what my classmates were reading. Even in my leisure reading, I read age-appropriate stuff, targeted books. I was just never as tied to reading levels as some might be. If it was a book and I was interested, I was going to read it no matter what.

In fact, I have! For over a year now I’ve been using Libby. I switched mostly to that after leaving Audible as part of my “As little Amazon as possible” boycott.

While I do mostly borrow audiobooks, I’ve borrowed a few ebooks, as well. It’s generally a lot easier for me to consume via audiobook because I just cannot dedicate time to physically reading as much as I would like. It takes actual pausing in everything else to sit and read, as opposed to being able to be listen to audio while cleaning, cooking, etc.

Most notably, I’ve recently finished listening to the main 8 Bridgerton books and the Happily Ever After anthology. As of the time I’m writing this post, I’m just about to finish my first Kurt Vonnegut book, Cat’s Cradle. I listened to one of his short story anthologies, and I’m really trying to decide what I think of him as an author. I totally respect him; he’s fantastic. It’s just a matter of if his writing style really vibes with the kind of reader I am. A few of the short stories I was totally enamored with, but more often, I was kind of unimpressed. Same with the book I’m finishing up this week. We’ll see. I still want to give him one more really good shot, so yeah. (fun fact: the review for this book dropped here a few days ago. Go see what I ended up thinking!)

Honestly, using Libby/the library has opened me back up to a lot more books than I let myself get into while I was using Audible. My money isn’t tied up in these books, so I can take more chances, and if I don’t like something, I just return it early with no guilt.

I doubt I would’ve bothered with the Bridgerton books if I’d been on the hook to pay for them, honestly.

So yes. I highly recommend using your library or a library app to get books into you. I’ve also heard of Hoopla, so I need to look into that one, as well.

Just read, guys!

August was both better and worse than I expected. I got a lot done for free posts and such, but my big projects were largely stagnant-ish.

LitRPG book (working title Subscription Life) - Carving out writing time for this was not easy this month. Chapter 3 is at 1298 now. 876 words is all I’ve managed this month. I’ve been struggling with this one, and it’s probably going to end up being some stuff that gets cut in future edits because of that, but it’s at least good stuff that helps inform my future writing. I’m learning about the characters and world right now, how to really make things work, and that’s the struggle.

Collaboration Project - No movement yet.

Criminal From Birth sequel - Still with editor. It’s been rough. Still mulling over the title.

Vonnegut is an author I’d heard the name of for years but never really got exposed to. It wasn’t until I got back into using the library (via Libby) for audiobooks that I started branching far out into the book-o-sphere, and I saw my opportunity to check him out.
​
My first exposure was Welcome to the Monkey House which was a nice broad intro of short stories, but I wanted to at least read one full novel. Naturally, I put what was available on hold and… I started waiting for my turn. Only three books were available to borrow: Welcome to the Monkey House, Slaughterhouse-Five, and Cat’s Cradle.

The first novel that came available was not the one I’d heard of, and I could’ve kept putting it off, but I decided I didn’t want Slaughterhouse-Five to bear so much pressure of representing Vonnegut’s novels well, so when Cat’s Cradle became available, I went ahead and listened.
I went into this novel not even having read the synopsis or any book blurbs. I legitimately went in blind to anything except the title, the author’s name, and an impression of his writing style from having listened to Welcome to the Monkey House. So when I say I listened to this book without a clue what I was in for, I mean that.

I’ve found, via the short stories and Cat’s Cradle, that Vonnegut weaves plot together in a loose knot. It wanders in an out of itself, dancing around the crux or epicenter of poignancy, not quite revealing what its goal is or where it’s headed, until Vonnegut is ready to pull it tight so it suddenly becomes an intricate knot. Like dominoes falling into a pattern or something, it just suddenly clicks. The sudden moment of “O. M. G.” I have when I suddenly understand what’s going on, what all these moving parts were heading for… that’s pretty heady.

It’s exactly what happened with Cat’s Cradle. What blows my mind is how rapidly Vonnegut really puts big pieces on the board, so to speak. We learn right away the world is basically over, that this book is about what happened, and we even learn the name of the scientist responsible. We start getting interviews about him, spawning from how the scientist— Felix Hoenikker— was one of the creators of the atomic bomb. The author is wanting information regarding the bombing of Hiroshima… and in the long run, learns about a theoretical side project Hoenikker had entertained: a substance called ice-nine, intended to restructure the way water solidifies. Intended for military use— to keep Marines out of the mud— such a substance would hold the potential to convert all water on Earth into ice-nine.

Through a winding process of personal discovery and insanely odd religion, the author ends up converting and becomes mired in a small, fanatical nation heavily influenced by one of Hoenikker’s children, Frank. We learn that all three of Hoenikker’s children actually have a fragment of ice-nine, and Frank’s chip of it has put him in a position of influence. It’s only once the ice-nine is used as a form of euthanasia for the nation’s leader that the world… well, actually ends for real. Bigger than Hiroshima, bigger than any other disaster. The ice-nine-frozen body is accidentally dumped into the Caribbean, and… ice-nine freezes the world.

The thing is, Vonnegut telegraphed the ice-nine takeover multiple times. It was pretty much slapped on the wall once it was first mentioned that such a thing was going to be the end of the planet. It’s pointed at loudly fairly frequently, as an ominous note that ice-nine is around, in Frank’s pocket, or in his brother Newt’s luggage, and so on. It’s there. It’s THERE.

Personally, most of the time I was listening to the book, I was sort of absorbing it on surface level only. I wasn’t sure I wanted to “let Vonnegut in” so to speak. I’m not sure what I was afraid of, but I was honestly holding the book at arm’s length. Maybe it’s his reputation, my natural hesitation at things recommended to me. Not that Vonnegut was ever personally recommended to me. I think that’s the difference. If something’s recommended by someone who knows me, I’m more likely to trust that. But the general populace… it can be hit or miss with me. When you hear big names get dropped a lot, or fad or popular media, it can be hard to pick which ones might actually resonate with yourself. Like… people love the Austin Powers movies. They were all the rage when I was in high school. I’ve never seen a one and refuse to. I only watched Squid Game because I happened on a clip and enjoyed it, so I decided to see what else the fuss was about. But I adamantly declined to watch even a moment of Tiger King. I read Dungeon Crawler Carl and watched Arcane because a friend recommended it to me.

But Vonnegut… he was one I never had a direct recommendation for. I just knew his name and that he was considered a classic, notable author worth reading. But… that never told me why.

I doubt he’s going to be a favorite author of mine anytime soon, but after two books, I definitely think I can look forward to when Slaughterhouse-Five finally becomes available for me. The more I’ve thought about Cat’s Cradle, the more I realize I enjoyed it overall. So much of me enjoys the concept of spoilers when done right. I’m more interested in HOW something happens than what actually happens. Like… I grew up knowing Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father, long before I ever watched a Star Wars film. And I saw the prequels first, so my first exposure was watching Anakin become Vader.

Once I recognized that that’s been what I’ve gotten from Vonnegut, I was able to really see Cat’s Cradle for what it was. Sad thing is, that didn’t happen until I began writing this very review. I’ve already put a hold on it again. I’m looking forward to listening again. And it’s the mindset I’ll be going into on Slaughterhouse-Five. Because I’m not reading any synopses or book blurbs or anything about it, either.

Yes.
​
Yes I have.

In fact, not only have I considered it, I’ve done it multiple times.

When I was in high school, I was part of the creative writing club. It was run by my favorite English teacher, who I had as my actual teacher in 10th grade: Mr. Walker. Along with writing exercises and games and all, there was one big project the club took on: the making of the school’s annual literary magazine, “The Stylus.” Any students could submit to the magazine, and toward the end of the school year, it was published and distributed. It wasn’t all writing either. Some visual art also did get places, though it was mostly intended as a wordsmith’s entertainment.

Anyway, I wasn’t really involved in it much, mostly because my life then was really taken up more by marching and concert bands. I wrote like mad, but… the magazine was never a priority for me.

Except for my junior year. I don’t remember exactly why, but for some reason that year, the vast majority of content printed was mine. Keep in mind this would have been something like spring of 2001, so my memories are 25 years old at best for any of this. I THINK I had a conversation about it with Mr. Walker at some point, about how much of this was my work. I don’t know whose idea pseudonyms were, but it was probably mine, just knowing me. 

I used at least three names for the works in that issue of the magazine, with one definitely being mine.

Another time I used one was for another organization. Those of you who know me are aware I’m a citizen of Westarctica, a micronation project. Over the ten years I’ve been a citizen, I’ve been involved in a number of initiatives and held a few specific roles.

But the initiative to talk about here is the Westarctican Art Expo. In its prime, it was a yearly exhibition of art made by Westarctican citizens. It allowed for visual art and written word. It was not a competition by definition, but some entries did get singled out as favorites. The Crown, the Council, and the Citizens all got votes, so there were three distinctions handed out every year.

Long story short, I won the Council Selection in 2018 with a chainmail piece and the Citizen Selection in 2019 with a miniature acrylic painting set. But I was a writer, and the populace knew it. In early 2020, I took on the role of Minister of Culture, which directly oversaw the Expo. Needless to say, I didn’t want my position to affect anything. That was also the year the Expo got split into an alternating form: 2020 would be writing only, 2021 would be visual art, and it would alternate from there.

It didn’t seem fair to be eligible to enter with the advantage of my name’s influence, so I submitted under a pseudonym. I also recused myself from the Council Selection and Citizen Selection votes, as I didn’t want to risk any conflicts of interest.

So when the Grand Duke messaged me about his pick and confusion that the author’s name was new to him and unfindable in any citizen rosters… he both was and wasn’t shocked when I explained how I chose the name I did.

I also won the Crown Selection because of that. At that point, I retreated wholly from entering the Expos. I’d gotten the trifecta of selections and felt good about it.

To answer the question, yes, I’ve written under pen names before. Will I for my novels? Maybe sometime, if I put out something I don’t want directly attached to my established name. But just because? No. I’m good claiming my words.

This question is one that, just in its nature, seems somewhat layered. Just sort of meta-analyzing the question and what I know about people makes me want to criticize the asking itself. Because in a way, it’s almost like a form of gatekeeping. What gives me any sort of authority to judge when other people get to call themselves what they want?
​
Because that’s kind of the thing. People can call themselves whatever they want, and it doesn’t have to affect others. It’s really a matter of the individual’s relationship with themself and… how they handle the truth or falseness of their claim within their own heart. 

Because there’s really no way to quantify it. It’s not like a Doctorate, where if you don’t have one, you’re legitimately not a doctor. 

But if you’ve written one word, ever… you are a writer. You engage in writing in some form. 
I guess, if I’m going to be so avoiding of just taking the question as it is, I do need to address the opposite thought to the simple “you can call yourself whatever you want” claim.

Stolen valor. 

Those situations where people will claim military experience or awards when they have never served, or claim medical expertise when their education is very literally having watched two Youtube videos that support their own opinions. That’s what I’m talking about. Where does one draw the line with creative endeavors? If you published a book twenty years ago but haven’t written a word since, are you still a writer?

I think so.

So… I think a lot of this really boils down to “what is a writer?”

Is it someone who has published a book? Sorry journalists, bloggers, and fanfic creators, you’re not really writers. Someone who writes regularly? Well, that novelist who was once prolific but now is not can no longer claim being a writer, even though they used to be able to. Is it someone who has tons of readers? Oh, the fanfic writer, blogger, and journalist now are writers… so it depends on audience then? 

But then… what about the person who writes long journal entries but only for themself? What about the woman who has self-published twenty romance novels and hasn’t sold a single copy?
Why are we so determined to police creativity?

I’ve been a writer for a very long time. I have had long stretches of productivity and long ones of zero production. I have things no one but me has read, and I’ve had fans seek me out at conventions asking what my next project is. I’ve written things just for me that will never see the light of day.

Some things are quantifiable, like having a doctorate or military service record. 

The arts… are so different. And humans are so varied and exciting that it really isn’t fair to try and ask when someone is “allowed to” call themselves an artist. 

Because even people who write horrible stories are still writers. People who draw stick figures are artists.

If you want to call yourself a writer, do it the moment you want to. I’m not the boss of you. It’s not my call to make.

I just hope that however you do it, you enjoy it. If you only tell stories to yourself in your head, you’re still a writer. If you’ve got a dozen bestsellers, you’re a writer.

Make it your own, however that looks. It’s not one-size-fits-all. 

When should you call yourself a writer? Whenever you’re ready to.

Well, you guys should know me by now. I like to sort of answer things a bit tangentially if I don’t necessarily feel like the original questions is that good.

“Inspired you most” is so darn selective, and… frankly, I almost find it trivializing. There are so many books out there, and maybe if I was younger with a lot fewer books under my belt (reading and writing) I could narrow things down to a “most” inspiring book. As it is… that would be making something small of what’s really a large question.

There’s no comparison between books that have inspired me, mostly because… well… I take inspiration from tons of small places. Tons of them. A conversation, an observation, an experience, a musing, a passing comment… all of those are sources for inspiration.

So I suppose… I’m going to tackle this in a sort of “name your biggest, longest-lasting inspirations” or something like that. Because… yeah, my inspiration sources are constantly changing.

I decided to write a post about the specific inspirations for my published projects, so that was last week's post. But for this post… let me talk about one of the books that has truly inspired me to be better… by showing me what I do NOT want to be.

Immortaland: The Greatest Fantasy Kingdom to Exist and That Will Ever Exist

So, this is hands down the worst book I’ve ever read, and it’s basically a guidebook on how not to draw people into your fantasy world. I really don’t want to encourage anyone to read it, nor do I want to spend too much more of my life thinking about it, but let’s just say I read it in 2017 and I still remember nothing more than it being totally awful. Let me just paste the review I did of it as a precautionary tale.

“I seriously only read the entirety of this book so that I could write a review with a clear conscience. I can honestly say I have never been so happy to leave a fantasy world than I was to leave Immortaland behind.

Let's start with the claim that it's "The Greatest Fantasy Kingdom To Exist And That Will Ever Exist." Is that not ridiculously presumptuous? Right from the start, the writer is setting the bar ridiculously high. It's claiming that this place is better than Randland, Temerant, Middle Earth, Earthsea, and countless other worlds that are rich and full of adventure, culture, and intrigue. With these high expectations in mind, let's begin to read.

Start out with second-person POV. Oh, so I'm the hero here? Okay. Let's see what kind of adventures I get into.

100% done with the book... none. No adventure. No conflict. Hardly any culture. Zip. I'm not exaggerating. There was nothing here. The entire book is just... description. Not even infodump. It's like someone saw the opening scene of a movie, touring a castle, and tried to transcribe it into text. It doesn't work in the slightest.

So let's try to take it in terms of something like a Dungeons and Dragons rulebook. Maybe we can use it as source material to play with. Nope. Doesn't work there, either. This "world" is nothing but a storeroom of overpowered artifacts and ejaculations from a clicheed imagination. I can't tell you how tired I got of everything "bestowing ultimate [INSERT TRAIT HERE]." The whole time, the character named You was basking in more and more ultimate power. Soaking it in, basking in it, and so on. It was like watching a sequence from Dragon Ball Z where all they do is glow yellow... ad nauseum. Imagine a game where all you do is go around and collect buffs. What do you even use them for? Nothing. There's nothing to purpose there. What's worse, there wasn't even any real connection between the buffs. One throne that You sat in pushed away all negative emotions and cares. But a few scenic places later, You asked a question that's been bothering You, and it was answered. Were the negative questions and annoyances cast aside or not? Even as a resource, there's nothing of serious value here.

So let's take it as what it really is: drivel. I hate sounding cruel, but this was nothing but personal stimulation. It's an exercise in creation. That's fine. I don't understand how this can be considered anything more than a poorly painted word-landscape. It was wanting an editor, something to actually give it some sense of value for itself.

I will say that there is the potential for many stories here. Sadly, this book told exactly ZERO of them.”

In short, do NOT read this book. Save yourselves. You’re already better than this guy as long as you’re not trying to pass unsatisfying softcore self-insert mental masturbation off as a fantasy setting of value.

“Where do you get your ideas from?” is a pretty common question, so I thought I’d go back and reminisce a bit about what made each of my published works happen in the first place. Those first sparks, if you will.

I’m even going to go into how they strayed from the original ideas on some of them, because… why not?

Empeddigo - Man, this is digging back in the old days. I remember having two main basic ideas when I was developing this story: a fantasy/science fiction genre mashup, and an infectious disease. I definitely didn’t pull things off as well as I’d hoped, but to be totally honest… I haven’t read the book in a decade and a half. I remember very few of the details. I could probably only name three characters from it.

The Trials of Hallac - This is my epic poem, and a lot of my inspiration came from the format of other epic poems. Naturally, one of the main influences was The Odyssey. I’ve been a fan of Greek mythology since I was ten years old or so, and I took Latin in high school, so even the Romanized side of things was on my radar for a long time. Mostly the narrative technique of in media res affected me here, as well as the idea of there being certain specific, self-contained segments. The syllable-count system affecting the format was somewhat inspired by basic numeroulogy, but more from numerical symbolism across some faith systems. Like 3 and 7 being “lucky” or “holy” numbers, and therefore being the syllable counts spoken by deities, for example.

Plot-wise, it was strongly inspired by generalized fantasy gaming. The monsters and incidents were pretty basic in that regard. The main character’s familial conflicts were ripped pretty much straight out of Final Fantasy Tactics, with the main character being the third son and the only one born to a non-noble mother and therefore seen as less than his brothers.

Mere Acquaintances - So this story was really a project on writing vs editing and sticking to your guns. The nature of the project was to release it serially, much in the way authors like Charles Dickens published some of his works bit-by-bit in the newspaper. Mere Acquaintances was supposed to be something I never got to edit, a literal first draft novel put out as a sort of “don’t compare your first draft to someone’s finished product” kind of thing. There is a ton wrong with this project, and like Empeddigo, I doubt I could tell you much about it now other than what I remember. I haven’t read it in ages.

Starsigns - Now we’re getting into the books I definitely remember better. Starsigns went through a lot of changes from its first inception. The initial idea was “the boy who could speak fairy” and that whole idea came from my local renaissance faire. I’ve been going every year since 1999 (except for 2020 and 2021 - thanks Covid) so I’m super familiar with it. Well, we have an awesome gaggle of fairies who work the faire, and they have a certain high-pitched, somewhat bubble-throaty way of speaking. Think something like Stitch from Lilo & Stitch, but more garbled. Anyway, it’s a voice I can easily do, so I’ve been “speaking fluent fairy” for ages and seeing people who can’t do it or who barely understand the fairies themselves gave me the idea of there being only one person known who can understand them.

Add in inspiration from Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings and even more from her Soldier Son Trilogy and… yeah, that was the basis for the book.

Like I said, it went through a lot of changes. The main character’s name was originally Kerr and he was one of like 7 or 8 siblings, mostly boys. He was the only one without a prescribed fate and was therefore considered sort of… extra. To the point the working title for the book for a very long time was “The Extra Son.” Well, Kerr turned to Cair, and his many siblings got pared down/combined into a set of boy-girl twins. The book was planned to span a few years, from Kerr’s early teens to his early twenties maybe. Cair’s story spans a few weeks at most. There’s no pirate storyline like I originally had planned. Hell, in the original plots, there was no Almo, and… I don’t think there was a Tivory, even. 

In all honestly, I think Starsigns came out better than The Extra Son would have as originally planned, and I say that while still having some dissatisfaction over how Starsigns turned out!

Criminal From Birth - Ahh, Criminal. We’ve definitely come into the zone of books I remember more of. Well, we started that with Starsigns, but even that’s already 8 years old in publication, and a good 10 years since its first inception. The idea came from a similar place as Empeddigo, actually. I wanted to do a sort of genre mash-up I hadn’t seen before, and it turned out to be fantasy courtroom drama. That’s because I’ve been a fan of the movie Basic for a long time and the form intrigued me. For those who haven’t seen or heard of it, it’s a story about an incident in military training in Cuba where a few soldiers ended up dying, and they bring in a disgraced former investigative agent to sort out what happened. The story gets rehashed multiple times, with the details being questioned and investigated until something unties part of the mystery and the real answers finally come out. If you’ve seen Hero or Roshomon, it’s that same sort of thing.
I didn’t pull it off nearly as well as I liked, but… that’s how we learn. The story I came up with involved investigating bits and pieces of one man’s life, all to determine whether the crimes he committed were things he could truly be blamed for or if he was doomed to commit them with no choice because of his own nature.

The hard part is that the book has turned out to be the first of a trilogy, and neither of its sequels are going to be a bit like it in that sort of setting or tone.

The Deadly Studies - This is probably one of the least-inspired-by projects I did, mostly because it’s a spinoff series. So I had to take most of the inspiration from the original source material, John G. Walker’s The Statford Chronicle. Since I was working in that world, with certain plot points, timelines, and character info to line up to, I had less freedom to do much. I don’t know that I can really pinpoint any sort of inspiring stories or sources for its format or anything, which strikes me as sort of odd for me. This is probably the closest I have to a general amalgamation of all the potential inspirations I’d taken up to that point in my life. I never really thought about that before. Weird.

With so many great, fun novels coming out these days, it can be very easy to ignore past greats. I’m not talking like… the “classics” like the books of Dickens, Dumas, Wells, and so on. 
I’m mostly going to be talking about science fiction in this review, since the book I’m reviewing is sci-fi, so let’s go ahead and steer in that direction. 

Technology right now is  insane. Sci-fi books written even 10 years ago likely have some incorrect science in them. So how the hell can we read something science-fictiony that was written 50 years ago and take it seriously, especially in situations where the future year they were writing about was the early 2000s, where we’re currently living?
It’s that sort of thoughts that make science fiction from the 30s-70s and even into the 80s a little hard to take seriously or digest. 

So when I finally picked up The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I love science fiction. I love classic sci-fi. H.G. Wells was one of my favorite authors when I was a kid. Him and Jules Verne kind of set my tone for what science fiction was. Even so, it has been a while since I’ve sunk into any “old” sci-fi, and I almost gave up on The Forever War pretty early on.

Boy, that would have been a mistake. 

This book is known for a reason. It’s like… at least in my experience, one of those hidden gems that you uncover randomly and that really makes a mark despite its existence on the edge of the shadows. 

Quick synopsis: Earth is mired in a war with a largely-unknown alien race we call the Taurans. Our POV character and protagonist, William Mandela, is an elite recruit set to be a ground trooper in a sort of mech suit. His training and combat is intense, demanding, cruel, and just straight up deadly. His fellow troopers die in training, not just in combat.

That takes place in 1997. Thanks to space travel, time dilation, and relativity, he doesn’t get back to Earth from his 2-year war expedition until 2024. By then, the world is very different. His mother is old. The economy had to change to cover the needs of the still-ongoing interstellar war. Earth is dangerous in populated areas and even more dangerous in the less controlled areas. Freedom has a different face. 

So different that Mandela and many of his fellows can’t cope and simply… rejoin the military. Which means a promotion to trainer, but also much more time away. Over the course of many assignments, campaigns, and centuries, we follow Mandela through the war. 

What this book really does is gives the reader snapshots of human evolution in culture and adaptation. Mandela, being a “relic” of the 1900s, quickly grows more and more out of touch with his fellow soldiers. At one point, the man is in transit to take charge of a group of cadets… who haven’t even been born yet. During his transit, they’ll be born, raised, and prepared for him. 

Mandela loses everything he knew for this war. His own habits, preferences, and mannerisms become the drastic minority over the course of his life, where once he was a sort of “everyman.” The people and ideals he’s fighting for warp and evolve until they’re all but unrecognizable. 
There’s so much to unpack here. It’s a little bit of a Ship of Theseus situation for Mandela. He’s fighting for humanity, but humanity becomes less and less recognizable to him as things go on, and the war is all he really has. 

Well, that and his attachment to one of his fellow relic soldiers, Marygay. Their careers meet up and separate for longer and longer stretches, but Marygay remains one of Mandela’s driving factors. Seeing her again, connecting on a personal level with someone who understands him, becomes the main thing he clings to. 

What I think Haldeman did well with this book, which still holds up in the mid 2020s, was not make it about the science. Sure, we get some information about the technological advances of the military and the culture when Mandela’s on Earth in 2024, but… that’s not the meat of the story. The real story is about man’s relationship with itself. What humanity does to adapt, and how we can alienate ourselves from one another through necessity. We see the gradual changes in how humanity examines itself. Most notably, at least to me, is the change in sexuality over the ages in this book. Due to the war and the nature of military needs, Mandela’s heterosexuality goes from something to feed during his first expedition— the soldiers pretty literally all pair up every night to vent sexual needs— to an oddity, to a straight up minority, to almost unique. It gets to a point the man is almost like a freak show exhibit because he’s heterosexual. 

I won’t spoil the ending of this book, even though it’s nearly 50 years old. It would be best if you experienced it for yourself if you haven’t read it. 

But I cried. I cried joyfully and with hope. Not for humanity.

I cried for William at the end.