Subject: Joe Haldeman: Worlds Enough And Time

From: [email-masked] (Dani Zweig)
Date: Fri, 07 Aug 92 05:20:39 GMT

Joe Haldeman's long-delayed "Worlds Enough and Time", the third book in
his 'Worlds' trilogy, was worth waiting for.  If it's not the best science
ficiton novel I've read this year, it's one of them.

Telling a story of apocalyptic times from the viewpoint of a single
character is one of the staples of science fiction.  The Worlds trilogy
turns this on its head:  The character is the object of the story, and
it is the apocalyptic times that are the plot device.

In this third book of the trilogy the focus is almost entirely upon the
character.  If momentous events occur, they usually occur offstage.  In 
"Worlds", the most nearly conventional book of the trilogy, we see the young 
Marianne engaged in non-stop adventure.  In "Worlds Apart", the older Marianne
is more involved with people and politics than with high drama.  And in
this book, the middle-aged Marianne's activities focus almost completely
upon family and friends, work and play.  But it works.  It works because the 
character is so engaging.  (She also has a well-defined voice which is not 
Haldeman's own -- a significant writing accomplishment in itself.)

Not that the science-fictional aspect should be discounted.  The story is
interesting and -- a key test of science-fictional integrity -- is not one
which could be transposed to a non-sf setting by changing the props.

The highly-improbable ending is not the flaw it would be if the book were
*about* the colonization of Epsilon Eridani:  It's about one of the colonists,
and occurances which add to the portrait which the author is painting add
to the story.

One of the best science-fiction novels to appear this year, then, is a
character study of a middle-aged woman.  (That's not the sort of thing
you'd expect to sell.  I seem to recall someone on the net saying that the
only way it Haldeman *was* able to sell it was as part of a trilogy which
began with the *young* Marianne O'Hara.)  The author pulls it off remarkably
well.

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Dani Zweig
[email-masked]

   Aphorism is better than none.