The new soldiers complete training and immediately depart for action via interconnected "collapsars" that allow ships to cover thousands of light-years in a split second.

This first expedition, beginning in 1997, lasts only two years from the soldiers' point of view, but due to time dilation, they return to Earth in 2024.

Mandella, with fellow soldier and lover Marygay Potter, returns to civilian life, only to find humanity drastically changed.

Alienated, Mandella and many other veterans re-enlist, despite the extremely high casualty rate and their recognition that the military is a soulless construct.

Mandella and Potter receive promised postings as instructors on Luna, but upon arrival are immediately reassigned to a combat command.

He and Potter (who is his last link with the Earth of his youth) are eventually given different assignments, meaning that even if they both survive the war they will likely never meet again due to time dilation.

Engaging in combat thousands of light years away from Earth, Mandella and his soldiers need to resort to medieval weapons to fight inside a stasis field which neutralizes all electromagnetic radiation in anything not covered with a protective coating.

[6][2][1] Haldeman said that he disagreed with Starship Troopers because it "glorifies war" but added that "it's a very well-crafted novel and I believe Heinlein was honest with it".

[6] The Forever War contains several parallels to Starship Troopers, including its setting and the powered armor that Heinlein's novel first popularized.

[8] According to author Spider Robinson, Heinlein approached Haldeman at the awards banquet and said the book "may be the best future war story I've ever read!

Editions published prior to 1991 were abridged for space by the original editor (omitting the middle section, a novella titled You Can Never Go Back).

The 1991 edition restored many expurgated sections, primarily dealing with the changes that befall human civilization over the course of William Mandella's life.

It featured as the first novel re-printed in the series, and the cover shows a close-up of Marygay Potter with soldiers and spaceships in the background.

It included not only the military details but also the difficulty of coping as a lone heterosexual woman with a society where same-sex relations are the inflexible norm.

The cover depicts a futuristic gun barrel stuck into the ground with a smashed spacesuit helmet placed on top.

Belgian comic writer Marvano has, in cooperation with Haldeman, created a graphic novel trilogy of The Forever War.

[13][14] In the summer of 2010, Scott revealed that State of Play writer Matthew Michael Carnahan was currently on the fourth draft of a screenplay originally written by David Peoples.