
In The Eternity Brigade, written in 1980, not long after The Forever War, the future is much less fun, much bleaker than The Forever War. Hawker is frozen for 12 years, fights a war in China, survives, then is repatriated back to the States, where he finds conditions pretty horrible. Gasoline is almost non-existent, energy is extremely expensive, and even though he and his buddies are filthy rich after their twelve years of monthly pay has been compounded with interest as they slept, they have to take a bus to New York, whereas before they were frozen they flew cheaply and easily to Las Vegas on just the signing bonus. In this future world, citizens have to have a photo ID card to travel, and permission to enter the cities to keep out illegal aliens, troublemakers and terrorists. As gripping as Stephen Goldin's tale is, it's hard to read something that turned out to be so wrong. But, remember, at the time everyone thought that we would run out of oil, and things would get worse and worse over time.Perhaps authors in search of character motivations in futuristic novels should read this book, The Bottomless Well.
