For someone who follows this stuff and likes Joe Haldeman I noticed exactly one new piece of information in the interview: Heinlein didn't just like The Forever War, he read it three times. High praise.
War Year is interesting in that it was originally written to be published as part of a series of novels for students of adult literacy programs which never took off. You wouldn't notice that the novel deliberately avoids ten-dollar words and overly complex sentences. It was a good (but pretty dark) book. Interesting to see it discussed in a new interview.
Nice interview. He's a terrific guy (a bunch of us spent an evening with him in Sydney after a "writer's workshop" he gave at the Powerhouse Museum). Another great book of his is Worlds.
One thing I observed about his SF novels is that the futuristic weapons are invariably practical and brutally efficient, rather than pew pew weapons that are ultimately no more useful, and often rather less, than modern firearms.
In case anyone else was slightly mixed up like I was: Joe Haldeman the author is not H.R. "Bob" Haldeman of the Nixon administration, who died in 1993. It was Howard Hunt who was the novelist (and Watergate burglar), not the White House Chief of Staff.
I have no idea if I'm the only ex-journalist geek who might possibly mix this up, but I figured I'd share. It doesn't help that Forever War was published in 1974, the year Nixon resigned... it just mashes it all together in my brain.
War Year is interesting in that it was originally written to be published as part of a series of novels for students of adult literacy programs which never took off. You wouldn't notice that the novel deliberately avoids ten-dollar words and overly complex sentences. It was a good (but pretty dark) book. Interesting to see it discussed in a new interview.