The sequel to Joe Haldeman’s Forever War isn’t really about war at all. In the previous book, a couple were separated by millennia, due to the vast distances their military careers took them, and the lengths of time those journeys took. Here they’re reunited by time travel, literally taking journeys through space and time in an attempt to reunite in both their presents.
As before, however, the universe has moved on, leaving them finally reunited in an alien civilisation they gave their lives for, but don’t understand and don’t care to live in. Even life on a remote, self-sufficient farm isn’t off-grid enough for them, overlooked as they are by their old enemies and what humanity has evolved into. So, they decide to move on again, skipping a few more evolutionary cycles and taking their chances with what humanity might become in another 40,000 years.
Forever Free extrapolates Forever War’s time travel themes further but is really all about the rights of individuals to live where and how they want. Haldeman questions why we’re here, what we’re doing and what will come next.
It isn’t as revolutionary as Forever War was, as a follow-up can never truly be, but if you liked the grand concept of the original, you might well be invested enough in its characters to see what happens to them next.