Hiding Out
Sep. 8th, 2005 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threemonkeysDid Joe Haldeman lose his mojo? I thought so with Forever Free. A very poor sequel which included two immortal aliens hiding on earth - deus ex machina devices which was no kind of decent story telling. It was such a disappointment. I had to hope it was just a one off - Joe has too much talent for that and in any case he is a nice guy and I didn't like to see him fall like that.
The blurb on Camouflage, the most recent Haldeman to come into my possession, was therefore more than a little disconcerting. It described a book about two immortal aliens wandering around the earth. Invincible shape-changing aliens at that. Just a bit of a worry as I started to read it.
First, it is nothing much like Forever Free. That is quite a plus. However, it seems to me to be a minor tale. More personal journey than plot driven story it just seems to amble along from personal story snippet to social observation to chunk of technophile chatter and all finishing with a rather abrupt ending. It was all competently told and an enjoyable enough read but it just seemed to be lacking something. I suspect that emotional engagement was the missing ingredient but that might just be me. In any case, I don't really thing it answers the question posed at the beginning of this post.
For various reasons, it looks like I have missed out on a couple of Joe's books because of some distribution hole. Dymocks, being the friendly folks that they are have undertaken to remedy the situation. Maybe these will answer the question.
The blurb on Camouflage, the most recent Haldeman to come into my possession, was therefore more than a little disconcerting. It described a book about two immortal aliens wandering around the earth. Invincible shape-changing aliens at that. Just a bit of a worry as I started to read it.
First, it is nothing much like Forever Free. That is quite a plus. However, it seems to me to be a minor tale. More personal journey than plot driven story it just seems to amble along from personal story snippet to social observation to chunk of technophile chatter and all finishing with a rather abrupt ending. It was all competently told and an enjoyable enough read but it just seemed to be lacking something. I suspect that emotional engagement was the missing ingredient but that might just be me. In any case, I don't really thing it answers the question posed at the beginning of this post.
For various reasons, it looks like I have missed out on a couple of Joe's books because of some distribution hole. Dymocks, being the friendly folks that they are have undertaken to remedy the situation. Maybe these will answer the question.
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Date: 2005-09-08 09:29 pm (UTC)