As we head into the second-to-last weekend of Christmas shopping, some of you may have a problem: What to get the big reader on my list? Well, the stores are full of great options, but if the person you’re buying for has an adventurous mind (i.e., doesn’t limit their science-fiction intake to The Hunger Games-type YA material), then may we recommend Joe Haldeman?
The Atlantic‘s Ta-Nehisi Coates published a short, wonderfully fannish piece on Haldeman’s classic The Forever War last week that mixed up his appreciation of the book (and its take on permanent militarism and homosexuality, along with other themes) with his love of E.L. Doctorow historical fiction and hip-hop. Check it out.
Shocking that somebody like Coates, who seems to have a particular interest not just in military history but also fantasy and sci-fi, never got around to The Forever War before (it’s in the sci-fi welcome packet, along with Canticle for Leibowitz and any number of early Ballard and PKD).
But in any case, take his word for it, this is one hell of a book—even before you consider that the nation is in the middle of at least one unending conflict right at this moment.
Haldeman for “adventurous mind[s]“? Just read some of the sci-fi (perhaps you have) from the decade earlier – -the New Wave movement in sci-fi was adventuresome. This is a simplistically told straightforward tale…. But yes, I get your point!
I take it more as a work of satire — what do you think?
I love this book. Haldeman is a master storyteller, and this is his greatest work.