Books like Infinite Dreams

Joe Haldeman is most known for his Hugo-Locus-Nebula-winning novel The Forever War, which I read last year and liked. But I wanted to read his short stories, mostly because I had heard the Forever sequels weren't as good.Counterpoint ★★★ | Two boys are born in very different circumstances, but as fate would have it, their lives intersect. Not very sfnal, but pretty good.Anniversary Project ★★★ | A twist on the "alien abduction so they can experience emotions again" trope. The "alienness" doesn't quite hold up, but everything else mostly does, especially the "Story of Your Life" (aka "Arrival") aspect of the ending.The Mazel Tov Revolution ★★★ | A somewhat goofy fable about breaking a monopoly IN SPACE!To Howard Hughes: A Modest Proposal ★★½ | Holding the world hostage until the nuclear powers disarm is not an uncommon trope, but Haldeman still pulls it off fairly well. I’m not sure the time-skipping narration is quite worth the trouble overall (apparently John Dos Passos was super influential in mainstream literature at the time) but it’s occasionally effective.A Mind of His Own ★★★★½ | A paraplegic war veteran loses everything, but will he also lose his personality to mind-rewriting therapy? Most of the story beats are pretty well-worn (especially in Vietnam-era fiction) but Haldeman really pours emotion into it (apparently this was inspired by the self-destruction of a friend of his), and the ending is sort of a bittersweet nihilism.All the Universe in a Mason Jar ★★★ | A retired professor and some Florida good ol’ boys encounter a UFO. Goofy as hell but Haldeman’s dialogue and character work make for a believable tale. (Except for, obviously, the alien.)The Private War of Private Jacob ★★★ | Creepy, paranoid, and bleak sketch of a mysterious, possibly endless war. Raises lots of questions and hints at disturbing answers.A Time to Live ★★★½ | A sort of “Christmas Carol” or “It’s a Wonderful Life” flavored time-travel story.Juryrigged ★★½ | The premise is interesting: “jury duty” for the Baltimore-Washington-Richmond megalopolis consists in leasing out your brain for computing power and maybe it won’t drive you mad in the process. The problem is that the story sort of loses track of its POV, so that I never ended up connecting with a character.Summer’s Lease ★★★½ | On a world scoured by solar flares every three generations, one man thinks the ancient “Godbuk” contains some answers to humanity’s very beginning on the planet. But is that just an ancient religion, and can society even afford such luxury? The ending is kind of a Take That, but I definitely felt something for the main characters.26 Days, On Earth ★★½ | A pompous gene-fixed homo mutandis young man from the Moon gets sent to an Earth academy for finishing, and learns that maybe he hasn’t quite figured everything out yet. Self-consciously written in the style of James Boswell’s diaries. It’s fine, I guess.Armaja Das ★★★ | An odd tale about a gypsy curse bringing about the end of the world. I… don’t know if that sort of thing would go over well today. But it was well written, for all that.Tricentennial ★★★ | Won a Hugo award, but I think several stories in the collection are superior. The science concepts were cool, but I’d already seen them before and they weren’t explored in a particularly in-depth way. (The simple-English news clippings were amusing, though.)OVERALL: ★★★½, rounded to ★★★★. Haldeman is quite a good sf writer, in my opinion. There are some real gems in here, and a few near-misses, but mostly the quality is well above average. Given that this collection draws from only a handful of years of Haldeman's writing career (1972–77), it can be amusing to see the same concepts pop up again and again: Boolean algebra and piezoelectric material, to name just two. The forewords to each story are also nice. Highly recommended.