Private William Mandella is a reluctant hero in an interstellar war against an unknowable and unconquerable alien enemy. But his greatest test will be when he returns home. Relativity means that for every few months tour of duty centuries have passed on Earth, isolating the combatants ever more from the world for whose future they are fighting. Paperback , 240 pages Published March 29th 2010 by Gollancz (first published December 1974)