Humans travel to the stars and encounter an alien existence. Carmen and her crew - and pilot husband - venture to the alien homeworld and attempt to negotiate peace.But the humans are powerless. The aliens neither care, nor listen. And the sex. Sex is good, but Haldeman spent way too much time o...
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 de...
SF books written about the near future have a habit of retrospectively turning into alternative histories. This is the case with Haldeman's Worlds which was published in 1950, predicting the Vietnam war in surprisingly accurate detail - apart from the bit where the Communists are defeated, of cou...
With the Worlds trilogy, Haldeman has created one of the most vivid and commanding speculations in the arena of hard science-fiction. The trilogy is nothing less than a parable of Earth's destruction and humanity's subsequent doomed flight from it, as revealed by the journey of an intrepid band o...
Years have passed since the Forever War reached its conclusion, and William Mandella is settled on an icy backwater of a planet, a haven for the minority of remaining humans who aren’t part of the hivemind known as Man. He and his long-lost love are finally married, and together they have raised ...
In the 21st century, immortality via the complex operation known as the Stileman Process is attainable by a few wealthy and determined individuals, but the motivations that drive humans to live forever remain shrouded in mystery until "immortals" Dallas Barr and Maria Marconi stumble across a dan...
"Tool of the Trade" belongs to a sub-genre of SF that could be called "Simon Says". What if someone had the power to make other people do what they wanted, if free will came with an asterisk? This is entertaining source material that's mined over and over again in comic books (1 2. For the sto...
Otto McGavin is peacefully idealistic by nature, an Anglo-Buddhist, who seeks employment with the Confederacion because he believes in its mission to protect human & nonhuman rights. The only problem is that the Confederacion needs him as one of its twelve Prime Operators for its secret service, ...
Las antologías son libros complicados. Es difícil conseguir que todos los cuentos estén a un mismo nivel de calidad e interés, incluso si se trata de relatos de un mismo autor. Este caso no se trata de la excepción que confirma la regla. Me gusta Haldeman. Me gusta la honestidad con la que habla ...
Joe and Jack Haldeman’s “There Is No Darkness” (1983) has features that have a lot to do with how much of science fiction has been traditionally been marketed. It is a revised and retitled edition of a book titled “Starschool” (1979)—which was a better title than the Shakespearean tag used in the...
Together in one volume for the first time ever; his classic novel of epic future conflict, The Forever War, its sequel Forever Free, and the companion novel, Forever Peace.WARWilliam Mandella is a reluctant hero, drafted to fight in a distant interstellar war against unknowable and unconquerable...
The Arrival Is ImminentJoe Haldeman's novel The Comingis a tightly constructed near future thriller which begins by recapitulating a classic science fictional motif: the moment of first contact with an alien intelligence.The story begins on October 1, 2054. Aurora (Rory) Bell, a professor of astr...
Humanity discovers a translation mechanism allowing colonization of distant planets & an alien organism that acts as a mindbridge, pushing humanity towards telepathic communication. Both discoveries entail complications. Each comes with deadly caveats. As a result of the Levant-Meyer translation ...
A tour of duty through the worst that the world has to offer Before his time as a professor of writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, before penning multiple Nebula and Hugo Award–winning novels and stories, Joe Haldeman was a soldier in Vietnam, an experience that changed him an...
Here a British officer describes handling enemy casualties in World War I: I am afraid I ceased thinking of Germans as human beings from that time. I may as well frankly admit that through all my experiences in trench fighting since then, my habit became that of calling into a dug-out [of surrend...
We were walking up a gravel road from the beach at Armstrong Space Force Base, where we’d just watched, I don’t know, the end of the world? People were checking phones, watches—nothing electronic was working. Even my wrist tattoo was stuck at 10:23. That’s when the rocket we were watching lift of...
You might expect a professional diplomat to be likable, though in my “Mars Girl” experience that hasn’t been the case. Of course, those meetings have always been public and strained, physical contact limited to rubber-glove virtual reality. How odd-feeling and pleasant to ...
He pulled the top up over my shoulders. “You don't have to take anything off; just lie down here.” The act of lying down made me cough sharply, but I caught it in my palm.He took a tissue and gently wiped my hand, and looked at the blood. “Damn,” he said quietly. “You aren't a smoker. I mean on E...
He was holding a damp rag to the bruise on the side of his head. "You don't think I have to execute him?" "Stop twitching!" Diana was trying to get the lips of my wound to line up together so she could paint them shut. From the wrist down, the hand felt like a lump of ice. "Not by your own hand, ...
Kit stared at the last page and set it down carefully. “So he eats this guy’s balls and then shits on his bones and pisses on his grave. Couldn’t you be a little less tasteful?” “Well, actually, it’s his brother’s balls.” “Oh, okay. That’s all right...
I could admit the social necessity for it but have never had much patience for ceremony myself. Months before, I had declined to be in on the planning for it, figuring I would just be spoiling everybody else’s party, since I felt that anything more spectacular than a good-bye telegram was a waste...
He was holding a damp rag to the bruise on the side of his head.'You don't think I have to execute him?''Stop twitching!' Diana was trying to get the lips of my wound to line up together so she could paint them shut. From the wrist down, the hand felt like a lump of ice.'Not by your own hand, you...
There was one officious librarian who would always shoo me back to the children’s section (and try to make me read something besides that science fiction trash), but most of them tolerated my intrusion.My favorite adult book was a fat red tome called Henley’s Twentieth Century Book of Formulas, P...