Review: Forever Free

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Forever Free Forever Free by Joe Haldeman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, I think this was the best of the bunch. The narrator is changed for this final novel and he is much more dynamic than the previous narrator which probably played a large part in my level of enjoyment.

William and Marygay go away on a sort of time travel trip when an incident occurs where the law of physics fuck up in a specific fashion and then they return to Middle Finger via escape pods to find that a similar problem had occurred there at the same time.

The description of Earth in this future gets even more outlandish than before. In my view it suffers a common scifi trope, where in order to be more futuristic it becomes more absurdly "immoral" by the standards of the reader (or at least of readers contemporary with the original publication.)

The 20% risk of death associated with SA (Suspended Animation) makes for a pretty brutal method of travel.

And finally, a note to future-Frank, who will no doubt be coming back to this review one day, hoping to recall the story from his earlier "review" - sorry pal, I didn't leave you much to go on with this series. Remember that you enjoyed it and that you do reckon it's worth another read. This final book has a whacky end but a great plot otherwise, and even though you didn't care much for the love story initially, you'd warmed up to it by this last book. Go on. Give it another run.

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