Denver Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Club

CAMOUFLAGE
by
JOE HALDEMAN
Camouflage cover Camouflage (2004)
Nebula Award winner

Ace books hardcover
Jacket illustration by Craig White
296 pages (left)		  
From the inside flap of the hardcover:
       The artifact is found seven miles below the surface of the sea and beneath forty more feet of sand.  The Navy's efforts to raise a wrecked submarine uncover it -- and set in motion a scientific race to retrieve it, to discover just what it is and where it came from.  Denser than any substance known to man, it has broken every drill bit they've tried on it and will not budge an inch.  It resists every effort to breach it -- or communicate with it.  So the government turns to marine biologist Russell Sutton for help.
      Meanwhile, unknown to any of them, two creatures have wandered the earth for generations.  The aliens have no knowledge  of each other, but possess a residual memory of the artifact -- and an affinity for deep water.  One, which calls itself the changeling, has survived by adaptation, by taking on many different forms: man, woman, snake, shark.  The other, which calls itself the chameleon, has survived solely by destroying anything or anyone that threatens it.
      Now, finally brought up from the bottom of the sea, the artifact calls to them both...to come home.  For all these generations there have been two invincible creatures on Earth.  But the chameleon has decided there's only room for one.

Read for group discussion on January 13, 2010
RATINGS:
How we each rated this book
Dan 6 Amy 6 stack of books 10   Wow! Don't miss it
8-9  Highly recommended
7    Recommended
5-6  Mild recommendation
3-4  Take your chances
1-2  Below average; skip it
0    Get out the flamethrower!
U    Unfinishable or unreadable
-    Skipped or no rating given
Cheri 5 Barb -
Aaron 4 Cynthia -
Jackie 6.5 Ron 6
Bob 3    
Our book group has also read the following books by Joe Haldeman:
-- The Forever War  in March 1997
-- Forever Peace  in January 1999
Bibliography:
Joe Haldeman (1943-     ) is a US writer.

Awards
1976 Nebula Award for best novel The Forever War
1976 Hugo Award for best novel The Forever War
1977 Hugo Award for best short story "Tricentennial"
1991 Nebula Award for best novella  "The Hemingway Hoax"
1991 Hugo Award for best novella "The Hemingway Hoax"
1994 Nebula Award for short story "Graves"
1995 Hugo Award for short story "None So Blind"
1998 Hugo Award for Best Novel Forever Peace
1999 Nebula Award for Best Novel Forever Peace
2006 Nebula Award for Camouflage

The Forever War series
-- The Forever War (1974)
-- Forever Peace (1997), separate but thematically linked
-- Forever Free (1999), proper sequel to The Forever War

Worlds trilogy, set after a nuclear war
-- Worlds (1981)
-- Worlds Apart (1983)
-- Worlds Enough and Time (1992)

Novels
-- War Year (1972), his first book, about Vietnam
-- Mindbridge (1976), a space epic
-- All My Sins Remembered (1977), set on Earth
-- There is No Darkness (1983, with his brother Jack C. Haldeman II)
-- Tool of the Trade (1987), a technothriller
-- Buying Time (1989, AKA The Long Habit of Living (UK)), features immortality
-- The Hemingway Hoax (1990), alternate worlds
-- 1968 (1995), features a returning Vietnam veteran
-- The Coming (2000), a first contact story
-- Guardian (2002), hard SF
-- Camouflage (2004)
-- Old Twentieth (2005), going back in a virtual reality device
-- The Accidental Time Machine (2007)
-- Marsbound (2008), first in a trilogy
-- Starbound (2010), sequel to Marsbound

Short story, nonfiction, and poem collections
-- Infinite Dreams (1978)
-- Dealing in Futures (1985)
-- Vietnam and Other Alien Worlds (1993)
-- None So Blind (1996)
-- Saul's Death and other poems (1997)
-- War Stories (2006)
-- A Separate War and Other Stories (2006)

Star Trek: TOS novels
-- Planet of Judgment (1977)
-- World Without End (1979)

Books written under pseudonym Robert Graham, Attar the Merman novels
-- Attar's Revenge (1975)
-- War of Nerves (1975)
Links:
Aaron's review of Forever Free by Joe Haldeman on Fantastic Reviews
Joe Haldeman - Wikipedia
Joe Haldeman's Tangled Web Site

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 This page was last updated January 27, 2010