Marsbound

Description

A novel of the red planet from the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author of The Accidental Time Machine and Old Twentieth.

Young Carmen Dula and her family are about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime—they’re going to Mars.

Once on the Red Planet, however, Carmen realizes things are not so different from Earth. There are chores to do, lessons to learn, and oppressive authority figures to rebel against. And when she ventures out into the bleak Mars landscape alone one night, a simple accident leads her to the edge of death until she is saved by an angel—an angel with too many arms and legs, a head that looks like a potato gone bad, and a message for the newly arrived human inhabitants of Mars:

We were here first.

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Customer Reviews

An OK read, but not great...
This was a straight-forward, fairly light read. I found the characters a little implausible but still very likable, and thought the events of the story were reasonably well thought-out. The ending was certainly a setup for the sequel. (FYI, I've read the sequel and did not enjoy it as much, but I'll review it separately).

2010-02-22 (Alpharetta, GA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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Great Airplane Fare
As others have said, this is a quick read with clean concise writing that we have come to expect from Mr. Haldeman. He does a credible job of portraying the thoughts and emotions of a young woman as the main character. I enjoyed this book, finishing it in a few hours time, and my only complaint might be that at times it felt rushed as he fast-forwarded through events. There are other stories to be told in what remains unsaid in this book.

2010-02-13 | Denrael (Brooklyn Center, MN USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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the definition of modern pulp
I once took a writing course where the instructor told the class not to bother with getting the English correct. Consumers are not interested in reading "literature" outside of their common speech. To an extent this is true, and probably more so today than 50 years ago. When I first read the BARSOOM series by Burroughs as a teen I found myself getting the hang of proper language as I was taught in H.S. Many of the early Sci Fi stories upheld the standards of good written English. Today it is hard to find this on the bookshelves. For upholding the literary standard, Haldeman's book is an abomination. Surely a writing professor at MIT can do better than this? At least he didn't include the common contraction errors that people have devolved into. I was astounded to learn from my son that he could write an essay with misspellings, poor grammar and punctuation, syntactical errors, and still be given a good grade for content! Many of my generation will recall that when we advanced to writing classes our grade was pivotal on demonstrating basic command of English grammar. If you couldn't demonstrate that in your essays you flunked. Today no one cares to preserve the technical aspects of written English whether in business, education, or literature.

The inclusion of sex in the story, as well as the development of the main character can only be attributed to appealing to young male libido. I wasn't the least bit convinced the protagonist's portrayal as female was credible. In fifty years of reading science fiction very few stories (especially the good ones!) included sex scenes. Generally, they lend nothing to the elements of the story and add nothing to plot development. Sex in Sci Fi is a "recent" addition born of Hollywood producers. Before then if it was incorporated at all it was an integral part of the plot like in Fred Hoyle's A for Andromeda. There it isn't presented to stimulate the libido but to explore the nature of the female psyche from an alien POV.

As others have commented, this story was very slow in plot development. The first third of the book covers nothing but the boring aspects of traveling a space elevator. The technical problems and errors of the "sky rope" are clearly obvious to the astute reader. The most stimulating parts were the elevator stopping for cable repair. That is high drama to make a person want to get back into the story at the earliest convenience? For a "Who Done It?" plot it crashed on all counts. Go read The Cat Who Walked Through Walls by Heinlein for well formulated plot.

When I read The Forever War I found it difficult to stay involved with the story. Good stories kept me reading late at night, and being pulled out anywhere I found myself idle. Marsbound did not measure up in my mind as anywhere near the classics in Sci Fi and yet it has received rave reviews. Clearly, as a Sci Fi editor and professor of writing, Haldeman's book heralds a new era in the standard of trash fiction. It does not reflect the standards which Ben Bova laid out in The Craft of Writing Science Fiction That Sells. Today if you have a handle on the publisher community you can get all manner of junk published. Either Bova is wrong or the bottom has fallen out of good writing.

I gave it a star because you can't select none!

2010-02-04 (Kansas United States) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 1

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Haldeman in top form
True story: when I was an undergrad in 1977 I actually ate breakfast with Joe Haldeman in a hotel in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I was amazed that he actually invited me and sci-fi friend to join him (afterall, this was the writer of "The Forever War"). I'm not as starstruck by authors, athletes, or celebrities as in those innocent days, but I have read practically everything Haldeman has written since then. A few were disappointing to me, but with Marsbound, Joe's back at the top of his game.
I am a notoriously slow reader, but I finished this book and "The Accidental Time Traveler" right after getting them both for Christmas. Both are fun reads meant to entertain (and poke fun, too) and I recommend both. Looking forward to getting "Starbound" now (although my experience with sequels has not been good).

2010-01-18 | reader/writer (Bellville, OH USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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A Tedious, Disappointing Effort
Joe Haldeman is one of the "elder statemen" of science fiction, but this particular novel is a dud. As other reviewers have noted, MARSBOUND suffers from shallow characterization and a drawn-out first half. It reads like a puffed up short story, with a lot of needless detail that does little to create suspense or advance the plot.

Another shortcoming of MARSBOUND is the heroine, 19-year old Carmen. Joe Haldeman is a 65 year old man, and I didn't find his portrayal of Carmen the least bit believable. The scenes involving her sexual awakening lack are particularly painful to read --they are written in a desultory, almost clinical manner.

As another reviewer pointed out, MARSBOUND lacks emotional coherency. I didn't identify with any of the characters, and the plot was poorly structured. Haldeman is a talented author, but this book is a throwaway effort that isn't worth your time or money.

2010-01-09 (Las Vegas, Nevada) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 1

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Camouflage

Product Details

• ISBN13: 9780441012527
• Stipulation: NEW
• Notes: Stigmatize New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Description

Two aliens have wandered Earth for centuries. The Changeling has survived by adapting the forms of many different organisms. The Chameleon destroys anything or anyone that threatens it.

Now, a sunken relic that holds the key to their origins calls to them to take them home--but the Chameleon has decided there's only room for one.

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Customer Reviews

Some Additional Comments
I agree with the consensus of meaningful reviews here on the points they make such as the start and middle of the book are much stronger than the finish. I'd go further and say the wrap up extremely weak but I can't discuss why without creating a spoiler which I don't wish to do because I do think the book worth a buy and a read.

What I wish to add in the bad category is that the book has elements which I'd not expect from a veteran writer like Haldeman. A protagonist just shows up without explanation and then fades. Another protagonist is even less well explained as it shows up for no reason, doesn't seem to have any effect on the plot (except to supply some narrative filler) and then just vanishes. In fact, the book could be the literature's answer to The Sopranos TV series due to having such a high percentage of unresolved plot lines and characters.

On the good side, I think this book much more thoughtful about the nature of alien life than generally depicted. This motivated me to write this review and encourage you to read this book due to an incident.

I, like so many others, am laid off of work now. Due to that, I sometimes watch daytime TV where I encountered a show called 'Enterprise' which is a prequel to Star Trek. In the first alien encounter, the crew manages to turn up a bunch of aliens who look like humans with some head bumps, but the chicks are still very very hot. They live in a simulacrum of mid 19th century USA. They have the identical culture of that era USA. They even have the same mating rituals which we learned as we see the captain venture down that path with one of the extra hot aliens.

That the aliens of Enterprise are less alien than a typical Arab is to a typical USA citizen is annoying beyond belief. Haldeman definitely does not fall into this trap. Instead his aliens are very very alien and act like they evolved, as humans did, as the top predator of their environment.

I only wish Haldeman had tended better to his craft and eschewed a rather silly and frankly impossible wrap up, but overall I'm glad I got to read this book.

2010-03-19 (Southwest USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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An interesting and engaging read. A must for sci fi fans
I won't bother with a plot description. But the book is a riveting read, the ending was completely unexpected (I kept wondering how they would get around the whole alien thing during the whole book) There's enough sex to keep it interesting but not so much that it seems perverted or pornographic. The plotline is original and, something I like in my sci fi adventures, it seems like it COULD possibly happen. A certain amount of poetic license is expected and required in sci fi, but if you allow for that it is a plausable story. A must read.

2010-01-16 | Squid (The midwest. It's not just a location, it's a mindset) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Diverting escapist fare, despite its somewhat flat casting
This exciting, but ultimately disappointing, suspense novel suffers, perhaps, from the weight of its ambitions. An occasionally clever spin on the good-alien-versus-bad-alien theme, "Camouflage" sometimes seems to aspire to the level of a psychological thriller, imagining life on our strange planet through the eyes of an alien able to adopt any of a number of forms (from a shark to floor tiles) and faced with two threats: the comic, feeble foibles of human civilization and the pure evil of a second extraterrestrial life form that hides among humans. And they all--changeling, chameleon, humans--converge on Samoa to solve the mystery of an impenetrably solid artifact of celestial origins found on the ocean floor.

The central failing of the novel is that it boasts a plot that pivots on the actions and reactions of the various characters, but we never learn much about them beyond their various exploits. The better portions of the novel are told from the point of view of the changeling, who, arriving as a blank slate, eventually mimics humans and is decidedly "moral"; but the explanation of its motives or instincts or development is as lacking as its DNA. Similarly, the chameleon-alien is singularly, absolutely wicked, but it ultimately remains an unfathomable being with a voracious appetite for death and destruction. The premise is a given: changeling good, chameleon bad. And the humans who populate and work at the excavation site are nearly indistinguishable (and this lack of individuality becomes a bit of an issue when Haldeman reveals his tidy plot "twist" at the end--which will be all too predictable very early on if you've been paying attention).

I finished reading "Camouflage" about three months ago, and though I recall enjoying it (and there are a few scenes I found unexpectedly funny), I was surprised how few of the story's details I remembered when I sat down to write this review. It's ultimately popcorn fare, a soft-sci-fi/thriller/horror novel of the kind you'd expect from Michael Crichton, or a slightly more cerebral, made-for-TV version of "Alien v. Predator." If you're looking for a bit of pleasure to pass a rainy weekend--something light that won't require too much metaphysical musing--you can certainly do a lot worse than this zippy little escapist adventure.

2009-11-13 (Brooklyn, NY) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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Familiar plot made fresh
Stop me if you've heard this before: A strange alien artifact is found at the bottom of the ocean and ... What's that? You say you have read that same plotline? Yeah, but not like Haldeman tells it.

In Haldeman's hands the story is fresh, thanks to his creation of two very different (from each other as well as from humans) aliens who quite possibly could be immortal. Both have been around long enough to have greeted mankind's first descent out of the trees. One has lived in the ocean, passing time as a great white shark, a killer whale and a dolphin until he (she? it?) takes human form and walks out onto a California beach in 1931. The other has much more experience with the human race and the concept of war.

When the artifact is discovered and taken to Samoa, the stage is set for the aliens and a small group of researchers to finally meet. But don't assume you can guess where the story goes from there. Haldeman is a master of taking readers' expectations and turning them upside down and inside out. He also tells the story in such straight-forward writing that you don't realize until you've finished the book that it was far deeper than you first thought. This is definitely one of those books I'll be saving to read again ... and I have no doubt I'll find new ideas and insights the second time around.

2009-10-26 (Kansas City, MO) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Excellent book, engaging story
This was way better than I expected. I admit, when I got started on this book. It seemed a little goofy at first. But as the story progressed, I was impressed at the depth Haldeman gave the central characters. I really like Haldeman's light and clean writing style. It makes for effortless reading without losing any good details.

I won't give away the ending, but its a fun ending. Maybe it was obvious, but it still was satisfying.

2009-09-29 (Beaverton, OR United States) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Starbound

Product Details

• ISBN13: 9780441018178
• Notes: Discredit New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Make ready: NEW

Description

A New from the Hugo, Nebula, and John W. Campbell Award-winning author of Marsbound.

Carmen Dula and her husband have spent six years travelling to a distant solar system that is home to the enigmatic, powerful race known as "The Others," in the hopes of finding enough common purpose between their species to forge a delicate truce.

By the time Carmen and her party return, fifty years have been consumed by relativity-and the Earthlings have not been idle, building a massive flotilla of warships to defend Earth against The Others. But The Others have more power than any could imagine-and they will brook no insolence from the upstart human race.

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Customer Reviews

Starbound
If you enjoy the writing of Joe Haldeman, I promise you will love this new book of his. This is the continuation of "Marsbound", and details the furter adventures of Carmen (Mars Girl), Paul, the Martians, and a new cast of characters in their quest to save Humankind and planet Earth, from the vastly powerful and superior "Others". That's all I'll say for now...buy and read "Starbound"...you'll be glad that you did.

2010-03-19 | Wood Guy (San Diego, CA USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Just didn't do it for me...
While a big fan of Haldeman, this one was just too much (or too little) for me. Actually quite boring and a very disapointing ending for having to endure so little action. The multi first person narrative left me guessing who was speaking and along with the gender-less names and anything-goes sexual relations I was completely confused by the characters. I've never worked so hard to figure out who was doing what to whom and in the end it didn't really seem to matter. Somewhere buried in there was a decent short story but I fear that there is a "Galaxybound" in the works.

2010-03-19 | kayenine (Hood River, OR) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 2

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Tells of the aftermath of the first encounter between humans and aliens on Mars
STARBOUND tells of the aftermath of the first encounter between humans and aliens on Mars and tells of Carmen and her husband, who have volunteered to spend six years traveling through deep space aboard a tiny craft with five other humans and two Martians to a distant solar system to visit a possibly immortal race of beings who have humanity's future in their hands. Their surprising discoveries of the similar evolutionary patterns between the Others and their own world make for eye-opening revelations.

2010-03-18 (Oregon, WI USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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The Story of an Other
//Starbound//, the second of a trilogy, is the desperate human attempt to confront a race of aliens called Other set in a distant world--the Other having nearly destroyed Earth in the first book. After a 6 ½ year trek across the cosmos, the humans return home to find that they have emerged 50 years in the future. This book is the foundation for building the human arsenal which will combat the omnipotent Other.

This book is written in the spirit of old-fashion science fiction, except that the plot is a little stilted. The novel, aside from suffering weak characterization, is broken up in an odd way, making it rather trying to keep up with the timeline. The pace however does move the story along and the reader feels rewarded with a fresh perspective on the bigger picture.

Joe Haldeman shows promise as a top science fiction writer even though //Starbound// is not his best. Since this book does entertain, what it lacks in depth is made up for with pace. While it struggles to make the 100 best list, I do recommend it as a fast read.

Reviewed by Dave Broughton

2010-03-15 | SacramentoBookReview.com (Sacramento, CA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Slow pace, poor ending
This sequel to Marsbound introduces some new characters and the point of view alternates between characters throughout the book. However, I didn't find the new characters, or their POVs, to be especially engaging. I also thought the pace of this story was quite slow, and the ending was totally unsatisfying.

2010-02-22 (Alpharetta, GA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 2

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The Accidental Time Machine

Product Details

• ISBN13: 9780441016167
• Notes: Mark New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Prepare: NEW

Description

NOW IN PAPERBACK-FROM THE AUTHOR OF MARSBOUND

Grad- school dropout Matt Fuller is toiling as a lowly research assistant at MIT when he inadvertently creates a time machine. With a dead-end job and a girlfriend who left him for another man, Matt has nothing to lose in taking a time-machine trip himself—or so he thinks.

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Customer Reviews

Time machine... check. Go into the future... check. Have difficulties... check!
J. Haldeman's book, The Accidental Time Machine, has a uniqueness based on its innocence. ABD MIT student Matt Fuller accidentally constructs a time machine. Who knows how or why? What Matt learns is that every time he pushes the "on" button, it disappears, and then reappears in an ever increasing time in the future. Matt learns how to travel with the machine, but the future, or parts of it, are bleak and troublesome. It'll take some time for him to realize that he needs to go far enough INTO the future to find the time when scientists have figured out how to go BACK in time, and send him home.

Will it work?

An entertaining sci-fi story by one of the masters.

2010-02-15 (Honolulu, HI & Logan, UT USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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Good author writes ok book
I am a fan of Haldeman, I think he has written a couple of great sci-fi works. When you pick up The Accidental Time Machine, what you will find right from the get go is a very seductive/readable style of prose that sucks the reader right in. I was hooked from the first couple of pages & over the first half of the novel was cheering Haldeman along, thinking "what a great little book".

However... The story here really falls apart at around the half way point. Hmmm... maybe the best way to describe what is so very wrong here is to compare this story to its forefather, the Time Machine by HG Wells. I think that both stories suffer from the same lack of imagination. In Wells' version, the protagonist travels through I dont know how many millennium only to land in a place where humans were essentially less evolved than we are today. I feel like the futures that Hadelman gives us are filled with these same ugly mocking images of ourselves right now. Not the advanced societies or evolved humans I bet will be there. I mean, common, journey 2400 years into the future and have a conversation with people you meet. No way.

so I guess what I am trying to say is that I was underwhelmed to the point where i would not recommend this to anyone. Even though I really enjoyed the first half. The future was just way to limited for any self respecting sci-fi'er.

2010-02-06 | akitonmyers (Palo Alto CA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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Great concept hampered by poor narrattion
As a concept this novel is one of the best I've read lately, and yet it was hard to slug through because of the poor narration and dull characters. The main character lacks and depth and also doesn't grow even as his adventures take him through time. The grad-student-time-traveler isn't the type of guy you want to spend the weekend with, much less have to spend thousands of years worth of time reading about.

And it's a shame because there is some great world building going on as we see society jump thousands and thousands of years in the future. While the book is good for time travel fans who are craving a new type of story, anyone with interest in characters will be disappointed.

2010-02-01 | Missylissa (Tampa, FL USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 2

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great story
I thought I was going to be disappointed when I first began to read. The story seemed a bit silly and there wasn't really much science to speak of. But then, I found I couldn't put it down. The action grabbed me and wouldn't let go. Surprisingly engaging and a very quick, fun read!

2010-01-26 (New York CIty) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Almost wowed
It's perhaps bad form to critique negatively something that you really like a lot. And I really like a lot "The Accidental Time Machine." Alas, I could have liked it so much more had there been more; quite honestly, a lot more, maybe in page count 100 additional pages especially in the beginning. It's as if this one bolts out of the starting block before the other runners have even stepped onto the track, before the spectators have been set up emotionally for the race of the decade. From the get-go I didn't feel the astonishment or awe of Matthew, the protagonist, when he stumbles upon the machine. I didn't feel peril when he sets off for the first time, there's not enough of Matt's thoughts, his feelings, his angst, to share with the readers. But the story's great, so I keep reading. Yes it closely resembles HG Wells' Time Machine but so what, I tell myself, it's a fresh take. But as I keep reading I can't help feeling, I wish it wasn't so skimpy, and that's my beef. I know the title suggests something light, and some readers might be thinking "Hitchhikers Guide.." or some such zany piece. But in essence Haldeman's story isn't zany, it's amusing in places, but it's really a big tale, only told in precis, or just about. I still give high marks because, like I said, what there is, I liked a lot.

2010-01-25 | Sea Chest Books (Los Angeles) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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Old Twentieth

Product Details

• ISBN13: 9780441013432
• Notes: Kind New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Train: NEW

Description

The passengers aboard the starship Ad Astra spend most of their time on the thousand-year journey to Beta Hydrii within the virtual reality of twentieth-century Earth. There, they can experience nostalgia for the hardship of a life they've since evolved beyond.

But when people inside the virtual reality chamber start to die, engineer Jacob Brewer finds himself face-to-face with a sentient machine obsessed with humanity. It has put itself in charge of the ship. And it wants to talk to Jacob...

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Customer Reviews

Great story, disappointing ending
I've been a Haldeman fan since _The Forever War_. This book starts out with great potential, functional immortality, biological warfare, generation ship space travel, VR time travel, all sorts of interesting memes to explore. It was an interesting read, right up to the last dozen pages. I went back and re-read the ending three times, and I still think it's weak.

2009-11-30 | Grimmund (Windhaven, Northshield) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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Ruined by a cop-out ending
As you'll read in the more positive reviews of this book, most of it is an enjoyable exploration of an interesting world, with decently developed characters, an intriguing history, some rather engrossing puzzles. Then in literally the last five pages Haldeman essentially throws it all away, with an ending so bad, so abrupt, so self-denying, that it reaches back and sucks most of the interest out of the earlier narrative. Not only are we not going to get the answers to the various puzzles, but the puzzles themselves might not really have existed at all. Or something.

Not recommended, unless you must read everything he's ever written. Or if you can stop just before the end, and finish it better yourself.

2009-07-06 (Mohegan Lake, NY USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 2

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Misled quality
They said the book was in "very good" condition, but it was dirty, wrinkled and the cover was creased. I'm not buying from this company ever again.(A 3rd party bookseller-Not Amazon)

2009-05-16 | RC (Virginia) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 2

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Another good book by Joe Haldeman
_Old Twentieth_ by Joe Haldeman is another good work by this outstanding author. I didn't think it as good as either _Forever War_ or _Forever Peace_ but nonetheless found it engaging.

The book opens up with a battle scene in 1915, Gallipoli, something that shouldn't surprise the reader too much as one of the basic premises of the book, as relayed on the back cover, is that in the future many people use a time machine of sorts, an incredibly sophisticated virtual reality program that lets its users vividly relive just about any aspect of life in the 20th century. So completely immersive is the experience that the users while in the machine are unaware that they are in a virtual reality program and they actually think they are the characters they inhabit.

Why the 20th century? It addition to I imagine the copious amounts of research and in particular media images from the era, it was the last century in world history in which the "life-to-death-arc" still existed for everyone on the planet, something fascinating to many of the characters in the story. Starting in the 21st century actual immortality became a viable option. Thanks to the Becker-Cendrek Process (or the BCP pill as it was popularly known), one's body can become a self-repairing machine, immune to disease and many injuries. In a lengthy but still interesting chapter of nearly pure exposition, we learn that the pill was available at first only to the extremely wealthy and that this generated great jealousy, jealousy so immense and far-reaching that a war resulted, the Immortality War (or just the War), a conflict that eventually resulted in the death of nearly everyone that had not taken the pill (7 billion people), leaving 200 million immortals left alive.

Fast forward to the future. It took many decades of work to get the world running to any degree again, as most of those who took the BCP pill were not those who actually made society run at the nuts-and-bolts level (your nurses, mechanics, farmers, garbage collectors, plumbers, police officers, fire fighters, construction workers, etc.). However society had recovered enough to send a fleet of five ships on a thousand year journey to a planet discovered orbiting Beta Hydrii, a planet with at least one planet with free oxygen in its atmosphere and liquid water.

The substantially sized crew of the five ships settle in for a long journey to their incredibly distant location, many people with more than one job and a number of hobbies to keep them entertained. One of them, Jacob Brewer, in addition to being an accomplished musician and a chef of French and Spanish cuisine, is a virtual reality engineer, working hard to keep the fleet's "time machine" running, making sure not only its technical aspects are up to standards but making sure that there are no anomalies or anachronisms in what the machine displays to its users (for instance making sure a famous art exhibition is not in two places at the same time).

The fun starts when Jacob finds there are some subtle, minor anomalies. He finds that New York City in certain year in the middle twentieth century starts to smell too clean. Not an absence of smell, but some of the olfactory substrata of the city is absent. While investigating this relatively minor problem someone dies in New York, in the simulator. This is not supposed to happen, not for an immortal, certainly not in virtual reality.

What is going on? Is the machine accidentally killing people? Does it need repair or need to be shut off entirely? Or is it deliberately killing people? Perhaps the incredibly sophisticated program has grown to hate humans, or just certain humans, or that some of the characters in the program - a mobster perhaps - have taken on a life of their own. What is the cause?

The majority of the book is Jacob and his fellow engineers trying to track down the problem and fix it, a quest that leads them to some surprising places. Against this backdrop we see some of the complicated mission aspects of the fleet on its way to the final destination and some of the trials and tribulations of Jacob in his personal life, his up and down relationship to his new wife. Though perhaps necessary parts of Jacob's story, as his life didn't occur only in a vacuum, focused only on the machine, sometimes they were a bit distracting (particularly the relationship aspects).

The ending of the book, the answer to the mystery, was intriguing though a bit abrupt. Questions are answered though and it was an interesting ending.

Overall I liked the book, it was a very fast read and I really liked the amount of historical detail that Haldeman packed into the various forays into various virtual reality trips, describing places and events from the 20th century.

2009-03-28 (Madison, AL United States) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Multi-faceted mix of disenfranchised immortals
Haldeman is a man who usually writes military sci-fi... actually, his best works are all about the military. Now here is Old Twentieth, where he stirs in the flavors of military-SF, cyber-SF and historical fiction. Such a rich combination resulted in a multi-faceted portrayal of an immortal people disenfranchised with the modern state of affairs, who also look back at the twentieth century as a time of calm and peace. They escape to the twentieth century by way of a virtual reality machine in which they can interact with the environment and people for 12 hours at a time. Attention has been paid to the details of the times, so that the client can experience an authentic reality (sights, sounds and smells are all important). This form of escapism is addictive, it seems, so nearly everyone on the generation ship takes part in the vise. Further, the construction of the generation ships is a detailed report, adding crucial elements to an already explored area of sci-fi literature. Haldeman may actually trump is military-SF with this unsual mix of history, cyber-SF and military-SF.

2009-01-05 | 2theD (Ban Chang, Rayong, Thailand) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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The Forever War

Product Details

• ISBN13: 9780312536633
• Mould: NEW
• Notes: Make New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Description

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In the 1970s Joe Haldeman approached more than a dozen different publishers before he finally found one interested in The Forever War. The book went on to win both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, although a large chunk of the story had been cut out before it saw publication. Now Haldeman and Avon Books have released the definitive version of The Forever War, published for the first time as Haldeman originally intended. The book tells the timeless story of war, in this case a conflict between humanity and the alien Taurans. Humans first bumped heads with the Taurans when we began using collapsars to travel the stars. Although the collapsars provide nearly instantaneous travel across vast distances, the relativistic speeds associated with the process means that time passes slower for those aboard ship. For William Mandella, a physics student drafted as a soldier, that means more than 27 years will have passed between his first encounter with the Taurans and his homecoming, though he himself will have aged only a year. When Mandella finds that he can't adjust to Earth after being gone so long from home, he reenlists, only to find himself shuttled endlessly from battle to battle as the centuries pass. --Craig E. Engler

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Customer Reviews

This Classic Novel Still Holds Up
Recently I found out they'd reissued this old favorite. I wanted to see if it was as good as I remembered, and it is. Forever War is chock full of action and snappy dialogue, but it can be haunting, too. There's an incredible loneliness and horror in the far-away and overwhelming situations the characters face. It's rare to see intergalactic war described this way. Usually space fleets jump wherever they want in a few seconds, ala Star Wars or Star Trek. Forever War brings a much higher level of realism to the limitations and demands that people would need to endure, and that may be the heart of this classic's staying power. I'm most of the way into the sequel now and it's equally gripping.

2010-03-14 (Flagstaff) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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One of the Best (But First Published Version Better)
This is an excellent novel - hard-hitting, lean, and inventive, while also psychologically deep. A friend gave it to me in high school, before I even knew what the Nebula and Hugo awards were, and not only was I taken right in by it, but it's remained a favorite.

The other reviews cover the story and its worth better than I can, so I'll just focus on the different editions. I was given the original version, in the 1976 paperback. This is the version that won the awards, and the edition on this page is the third version, the definitive author's edition. I bought it for my nephew and was surprised at the change.

The difference is that the middle section - when Mandella returns to Earth between tours of duty - used to be ten pages. Now it's forty pages and tells a very different story. The first version worked well as a calm between the space battles, but now Mandella's blowing away rapists and thieves with shotguns.

It's as if Ender, in Ender's Game, when he's taking a break on Earth between sessions at Battle School, didn't lounge out by a lake, but got into a forty-page battle with raiding outlaw gangs. It'd not only be a long tangent and distraction from the story, but it'd make it seem as if the Earth wasn't even worth saving. That's the way this section plays out, and perhaps why Haldeman's editor, Ben Bova, cut it.

The earlier, ten-page version presents Mandella's break from duty as boring and bureaucratic, which is much more accurate for a soldier returning to civilian life. There's also scenes that are much more meaningful to the story, such as when Mandella's words are twisted by the media.

I admire Haldeman a great deal, and I even admire how he stuck to his guns and put out the version of the story he favors, but in this case I have to agree with Ben Bova's idea to cut that section out.

Still, you can always skip those forty pages and read it later as a short story of the world gone wrong.

2010-02-07 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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What a shock ... another believer
This is one of the finest science fiction novels of all time and deserves to be made into a serious movie. There are two different slightly different versions of the tale (based on a few parts in the middle that were changed from the original at the request of the editor) but either version is a winner.

2010-01-25 | Eric Gorman (Portland OR) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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War and Loneliness
The Forever War is a great novel by Haldeman that touches on loneliness and war. This book obviously draws parallels with the Vietnam War, however I tried to approach this more as a sci-fi novel rather then a Vietnam War turned space-opera.

In this book you are Mandella, a man drafted into war. Nothing about this is safe, not even the training missions. You are at war with Taurens, you are out for revenge, well somebody is anyways. You travel through space using 'collapsars' which are like worm-holes that allow you to travel through space, hundreds of lightyears, in an instant. The problem here is that as you travel through these you age much slower, so you may have only been gone for a couple months but perhaps Earth has aged dozens of years. You work your way up the ranks not because you're a great soldier, more because you just happen to survive.

The Forever War is mostly good. Rarely did I find myself bored - it seems as though something interesting happens on just about every page. The problem is that Haldeman didn't explore some of the most interesting aspects as much as I would have liked, especially the aging issue. Sure, it's discussed, but not enough to really affect the reader. Also, there is a lot of pot use and such which just didn't seem very fitting. I have nothing against marijuana (far from it), it just seems really out of place - it almost feels forced, like the author included it only to appeal to the kids of the 70s (which is when this book was written). Character development is a bit spotty too. I feel that this book could have been fleshed out a little bit more, then maybe it would have had even more of an impact on me.

So this book isn't absolutely perfect, but it is still a very engaging read that I highly recommend. If you are looking for a sci-fi page-turner that keeps you interested from the first page to the last then pick this up!

2010-01-22 (Colorado, USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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The best science-fiction satire.
A great satire that manages to hit everything from STARSHIP TROOPERS to VietNam strategists to STAR WARS.

Some military conventions are deliberately inverted. The draft targets well-educated young people instead of giving them deferments for college. Instead of punishing insubordinate soldiers, this army encourages them to let off steam by cursing their officers in unison (F*** YOU, SIR!). Coed units (a novelty in the 1970s) are organized in the hope that sex will distract the soldiers from other deprivations.

Likewise science fiction conventions. By leaving out the usual conveniences like hyperdrive and computer-translators, we get a convincing war that cannot end because messages take years to reach their destinations and nobody understands enough of the alien language to even ask for peace terms.

It helps that Halderman actually had experience in VietNam and even likes some elements of military service, rather than being an attack by an ivory-tower ideologue.

Some of the other reviewers don't seem to understand satire. They complain about the loose plot, flat characters, frequent references to sex, or the deliberate deus-ex-machina ending, all of which are traditional in satirical works ( CANDIDE, GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, the plays of Aristophanes)

2010-01-16 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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