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Thank you for your even treatment of this book, which I haven't read yet. Buchanan takes on quite a task to challenge the stature of Churchill. Talk about iconoclasm! I'm a Churchill nut myself but that is probably due to Manchester's worhipful treatment.
Guess Buchanan's officially beyond the pale now.
I'm reading one called "That Ain't My America" (or something like that) where the author tries to show that *true* conservatives are isolationist. It would be an interesting history of the old America First-Taft era were it not filled with cheap shots at Bush, Cheney and the neocons.
You're welcome. Yes, Buchanan's paleo-con line about Bush and the neocons was annoying and I thought it unnecessarily detracted from his larger point. While I like reading paleo-con journals like Chronicles and websites like Taki's Magazine, their monomania about neocons has become tiresome.
You know, the anti-military message of The Forever War didn't bother me. I mean, hell, I like some of Joan Baez's music so why not anti-military writing?
But the thing that really bugged me about it was the sheer military ineptitude at all levels. Okay, okay, Haldeman saw it that way, but it was a worm's eye point of view and an internally inconsistent one.
One example, among many; remember in the last battle, where Mandella used the stasis field? Why, oh, why, knowing that he might have to use that field, and fall back on hand weapons, didn't he have the troops build a little castle? He had all the time in the world, it would have helped keep the troops busy, and think of the lives saved from the little darts the Taurans flipped in, sometimes in waves, once the field was on.
Having built that, why not tunnel down to create a room well under the field where the troops could get out of their protective suits? It's the kind of thing someone with the training Mandella was alleged to have would have thought of. The failure to do so just ruined the story for me.
Mr. Kratman, here is a story from the Olden Days of the New Wave of SF that is relevant to your question (that is, the Olden Days of the 1960s).
James Blish wrote a novel called "A Torrent of Faces." In it, a vastly overpopulated Earth is faced by an asteroid on a collision course, ten years away. Resources are so balanced that there is nothing to do be done...or so it seems.
Blish talked about the book at a big convention. Larry Niven, then a New Turk, asked "Couldn't they shine a powerful laser on the asteroid? The ablated material would act like a slow rocket. After a decade, wouldn't the laser move the asteroid off the collision course with Earth?"
Blish said "I hope not."
Haldeman wanted the imagery and the loss of people to drive the plotline, I think. And he was still pretty bitter after Viet-Nam, so he had some metaphorical spit saved up.
To me, it is like why the bad guys always monologue the hero, rather than just shooting them in the head.
The closest was in an old Bond flick. Bond introduces himself to the scary urban villain as "Bond. James Bond."
The scary urban villain doesn't even pause: "Names is for tombstones. Take this honkey out and waste him."
Just my two cents.
Oh, I get equally unhappy when I read about genetics and molecular biology in most SF...
But then, I ain't selling novels, so what do I know?
I'll take a pro's opinion any day---like your own!
I think I just figured out who you are, Eric. ;)
Sure, I understand he wanted the imagery. But imagery absent reality is nothing. Hell, the castle might not even have worked well after the earthquake, but _it_should_have_been_built_! (I'll stop now, because there were so many things a well read pro would have done with that company to prepare them...I'll stop...except...HE DIDN'T START FRAKING _TRAINING_ UNTIL THE TAURANS WERE UPON THEM? THAT'S ABSURD!...) Were it not his universe, I'd write something showing how it would have been done. (Hell, I'd have had them tunneling everywhere so the stasis field could be moved under their landing sites and turned on...Caltrops? Why weren't there any fraking caltrops? Mandella was supposed to have been a _trained_ officer, even if he didn't have any talent for the thing.)
Sigh.
I think Joe Haldeman has lost his touch. His last novel, The Accidental Time Machine, was dreary, depressing, and gave the reader no reason to care about the main character.
Mr. Kratman, I do owe you a note! And you are correct in your criticism of Haldeman, don't get me wrong. Joe has *never* been all that concerned with accuracy! It's the difference between Old Skool fiction and the New Wave.
I think David Drake cares more about accuracy in his military SF, but your mileage and taste may vary. I mean, this series by Buettner I am reading is fun, popcorn fiction---but I surely can poke holes in it. Still, I doubt Buettner cares---he is telling a story. Radiation on the surface of Ganymede, alienformed or not, would fry a human within an hour or so.
It's a tough balance. So it comes back to storytelling...but I do like to "play tennis with the net up," as well.
Professor LaRoche, tru freakin' dat. Some people are best suited for short fiction, and I think JH is one of them. He also likes play postmodern games.
Me, I like a protagonist with whom I can identify. That's just me.
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