Dealing in Futures, by Joe Haldeman
Far from his best
(Review posted 9 Mar 2008 17:06:52)

Posted to the corresponding Amazon page with three stars.

Haldeman is strongest in his novels and his non-fictional essays, and in the occasional shorter story that really Hits It. The stories in this volume aren't the ones that really Hit It. They're perfectly passable, but not much more than that.

The two novelettes are too long for the ideas they contain (or in some sense too short; "You Can Never Go Back" is more powerful embedded within "The Forever War" than it is on its own here), and the short stories are nothing to write home about. The poetry would probably not have been published if it hadn't had Haldeman's name on it, and his description of how he came to write it is much more interesting and evocative than the verses themselves. (Caveat: I have a very high bar for poetry for some reason; maybe you'll love these, I dunno.)

In general the mini-essays between the stories are the best part of this book, but they're such a small part that they aren't enough to redeem it from the category of the relatively uninteresting. If you read it you probably won't regret it afterwards, but there are better things (many by the same author) to spend your time on.