The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (St. Martin’s Press)
Contributed by Michael Chabon on Feb 3rd, 2024. Artwork published in
January 1975
.
A fine and enduringly important novel, featuring an understated, semi-abstract, even minimalist hardcover design typical of an era where the corresponding design for mass-market paperbacks tended to be overtly representational, busier, and more colorful; even gaudy. The relativistic dislocation and temporal trauma experienced by the battle-weary protagonist, a “starship trooper” for the Vietnam era, are deftly but quietly alluded to by the hourglass filled with interstellar space and tumbling planets, so that almost all the “sense of wonder” and “futuristic” heavy lifting is done via typeface, Premier Shaded for the former; and for the latter, naturally perhaps, Futura.
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See also the first British edition by Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Orbit’s 1976 paperback edition: