I didn't realize this was classic, beloved sci-fi going in, so whoopsie. I don't actually read tons of science fiction, but I'm trying to branch out more and the plot reminded me of Old Man's War by John Scalzi (I'm aware now this one came first) which I really loved, so I thought it would be another fascinating story based around unjust wars and aliens. It's also an allegory for Vietnam which I realized just before starting it, so that was another plus in this book's favor.

But, yeah. I didn't like it. I hate being so negative about books that are considered classics, especially when I'm still so under read in the genre, but it's not like I can make up other thoughts.

I didn't like the writing style. This is definitely something I struggle with in the sci-fi I've read. Anything that's too technical with science or military bores me. It reads so dry and bland and void of any personality. I'm here for the story and the characters, not how many gees they're going through space or what the specifics of their laser guns are. I'm more interested in what the fighting means in an emotional or philosophical sense than the military formations. Just not the book for me.

So much happened off screen as well. Because of time dilation, the main character skips through time a lot. Sometimes twenty years will pass, sometimes a hundred. He makes brief stops, but in general a few years have passed in his life and hundreds have gone by on Earth. So a lot of Earth's development, as well as the war's development, happens off the page and is explained to him by other soldiers. It felt like interesting things were happening in the background, but we so rarely got to experience them.

But then we get to the weird stuff. Every night, the men and women were assigned bunkmates with each other. Because apparently they never slept alone and there was never a choice. They were just randomly assigned a partner to sleep with. And have sex with. And this happened every single night. At first it didn't phase me because there's always weird societal stuff in science fiction. Generally, it's to make some kind of point or show how society was changed. But this was never discussed in any way. It just existed. The main character never even shared his thoughts on it. Like I don't know if this was some kind of self insert fantasy where Haldeman could get hella laid or if he just wanted an easy way to add gratuitous sex, but it was so pointless.

Then there was a whole gay subplot on Earth. It was very background and didn't have anything to do with the main story, but it was such a strange underlying thread. At some point, Earth was getting overpopulated so they decided to curb that by encouraging everyone to be gay. Because apparently, that was the only way to fight overpopulation. Birth control apparently didn't exist. It's just easier to make the whole world gay. And then everyone became gay eventually and heterosexuality was criminalized and seen as sociopathic behavior. I honestly can't tell if this was some kind of gay fear thing or if Haldeman was being progressive for the 70s. Like I'm not judging the book based on this the way I would a book with this subplot written today because it's fifty years old. It might have been incredibly progressive just to include some kind of acceptance of gay people. I genuinely don't know, but the whole suplot made me very uncomfortable and kind of culminated in the gay characters being given a choice to become straight at the end and taking it. I was very much not a fan.

The allegory for Vietnam could have been interesting in a different story (and has been, that's not an overly unique concept anymore but still very worth reading), but it was so obvious. At the end everything got wrapped up in the briefest of summaries with a neat little bow like Haldeman was teaching you a very deep lesson, but it was so obvious. I don't mind obvious if it's interesting, but this felt very bare bones. He gave us the minimum amount of thought and meaning, and then had it all happen off screen anyway.

I was so disappointed by this. I keep trying science fiction that sounds out of my comfort zone and loving it, but this hit all the wrong notes for me. I always wish to love classics, but sometimes it's just not for me.