A Separate War and Other Stories

May 22, 2006
Old pro Haldeman (Camouflage
) has a gift for seeing issues in a sympathetic but dispassionate perspective, as shown by the 15 tales in this collection. How can we live as human beings in an uncaring universe? he asks. The title story returns to the conclusion of the Hugo- and Nebula-winning novel The Forever War
as seen by another character, discovering uncomfortable but ultimately encouraging things about our capacity to adapt and endure. Other selections, such as "Finding My Shadow" and "Civil Disobedience," are much bleaker, as they angrily extrapolate trends in American politics and our abuse of the environment. Set on a far future Earth, "For White Hill" is one of the most memorable tragic love stories ever written as SF. While the book includes a few minor pieces, notably two early stories that contain the basis for Camouflage
, Haldeman's work is never less than clever and sometimes much more.

July 1, 2006
Ever since his Hugo- and Nebula-winning debut novel, " The Forever War "(1975), Haldeman has racked up trophies and award nominations almost yearly. His last novel, " Camouflage" (2004), garnered the James Tiptree Award, and the latest collection of his short fiction, encompassing primarily stories from the late 1990s through 2005, includes three recent prizewinners. Drawing on Haldeman's background as a Vietnam vet, many stories feature military themes or battle-driven plots. "A Separate War" resurrects the heroine of Haldeman's first novel, who discovers that not only doesn't the war last forever, but en route to making peace, humans have become a hive-mind species like their former enemy. In "Giza," a group of genetically altered asteroid miners reacts to the discovery of built-in sterility by sending their asteroid on a collision course with Earth. An introduction about developing "those crazy ideas" and an afterword revealing the inspiration for each story should please Haldeman fans as well as aspiring sf writers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)