Customer Reviews

1968

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4 star:		(8)
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While I love many of Haldeman's science fiction novels, I think 1968 is his best work. He dealt with his Vietnam experience in a very different way in The Forever War by presenting it in a futuristic setting. Here, he confronts it head on, and I think that's what makes 1968 even more powerful than The Forever War. It's amazing to me how little has changed as far as military life goes after reading this book. I was in the Marine Corps infantry in the early nineties, and the same lingo is still being used--like taking "pogey bait" out to the field with you, for example. Even though I, nor others of my generation, can imagine what the Vietname war was really like, I think Haldeman's novel is one of the best at giving us a taste of what it was like. But there's much more to 1968 than just a soldier's Vietnam experience. Much of the book takes place after the main character, Spider, returns home. He arrives a changed man, and the home he remembered has also changed. Haldeman doesn't give us a neat, clean resolution to the story, but what he does give us--a bitter taste of reality--seems so much more real than most novels. I also really enjoyed Tim O'Briens The Things They Carried, but 1968 was slightly more powerful for me. If you also like science fiction, you might enjoy some of the details in 1968--at one point Spider is reading Glory Road by Robert Heinlein, and at another point a soldier is reading The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. There's also a little bit of astronomy thrown in, if that's your thing. So personally, 1968 had a lot going for it in addition to its main motive. I think this is Haldeman's crowning acheivement, and I'd like to see it back in print. Also, I think Haldeman has at least one more good Vietnam novel in him.

1968 is wonderfully written, brilliantly clear and brutally honest -- my favorite kind of book. Having lived (barely) through my own personal hell that year, I can attest to this novel's piercing insight. I was captivated by the concise portrayal of Spider's suffering at the hands of the military industrial complex and Beverly's dazed trip through the counter-culture of Peace & Love. 1968 is a historical novel whose history is far more accurate that the 'official' accounts pawned off on the public. This book deserves no less than #1 'Best Seller' status.

This is a great novel, and harrowing journey inside the soul of 1968. If you were there then this is you, or someone you knew. If you weren't then prepare take a step back to a very strange time. Haldeman tells it straight on Vietnam. No Full Metal Jacket bull here, this is what we did. The writing is superb, and the story intense. This is the book I'm giving my kids when they are old enough, to help them understand what their old man thinks about.

Without a doubt, Joe Haldenman recaptures the historical and turbulent moments of a year that will always be remembered for its political and social issues. Not only is the story multi-dimesional and historically accurate, but the characters are also multi-dimensional. Ones that you will feel sympathy for in the end. If you enjoy studying, or reading about the turbulent '60's, then 1968 is the novel for you.

My father was in Vietnam, and he doesn't talk much about it. All my information on what the war was about/like has come from authors who were there, like Haldeman. As a matter of fact, the only reason I knew about this title is because I'm an avid fan of Haldeman's SF; therefore, I had to give this a try, and I'm glad I did. This book is quite depressing, maybe better or worse than others' experiences, but it gets the message across. The last chapter wraps the book up in an unexpectedly tight fashion.

Fans of Haldeman's science fiction might be expecting an autobiographical novel when they find out that this is the story of a nineteen year old draftee who serves as a combat engineer in the Vietnam of 1968. That was the year Haldeman was a combat engineer there, and, like protagonist Spider, he was wounded then. But much of the novel doesn't seem specifically autobiographical though Haldeman's lean prose certainly uses his own experiences to recreate everything from the details of Vietnam's red soil, the contents of an engineer's demolition pack while on patrol, boobytraps, and the workings and non-workings of various weapons. Haldeman's dry, ironic prose has the right air of understatement for horrors that need no exaggeration. Science fiction fans will also be interested to see how the horrors that drove Spider psychotic are worked into the genre fiction he writes at his therapist's request.

Haldeman's most famous work, THE FOREVER WAR, was a metaphoric look at Vietnam. Here he shuns obliqueness to recreate an America at war. Using the novelistic techniques of Dos Passos, we learn about the persons and events of the time in documentary sections interspersed between accounts of Spider and his one time girlfriend, Beverly, whose journey skims the oceans of political dissent and counterculture existing on the homefront. Spider's troubles are only beginning when he's evacuated back home after being wounded in an ambush that wipes out most of his patrol. The entropic workings of bureaucracy and malfunctioning machinery coincide to strip him of home, family, friends, and gainful employment. Only rarely does coincidence -- and Haldeman's coincidences are always plausible -- work in his favor. One instance leads to the book's powerful ending.

Anyone seeking a compelling account of the year or any fan of Haldeman will want to read this novel.

My only complaint is that I would have liked to continue some of the characters' lives past 1968, but Haldeman is faithful to the title and ends his novel on Dec. 31, 1968.

If you read this book you will learn why 1969 was such a great year! By the time we had gotten through 1968 we were entitled to something good and it came. Like everything in the 60's, 1969 did not live up to its promise but we did learn from it -- and we had a lot of fun too.

In 1968 I graduated from high school. My awareness was limited and in that I was a lot like Spider. However it was impossible NOT to be aware of some things. Assasinations left and right; rioting in city after city; Prague; "My fellow American, I come to you tonight with a heavy heart"; Humphrey refusing to promise peace; Chicago; the election of Nixon. Pretty grim.

So this is a pretty grim book, how could it be otherwise. It is faithful to its subject and describes it well, which makes for a downer. Almost every page had me saying "Yep, that's how it was."

But you know, it might have been better without the retrospectives. I think Joe tried to alleviate the bummer by putting in intermezzos or in-between chapters which give today's views on certain things. This gives a sense of "everything's gonna be okay, we made it to the future intact" whereas that was no sure thing at the time -- another reason to celebrate in 1969.

Joe, why don't you do Spider a favor and let him experience the Summer of Love? After the Summer of Hate, he deserves it!

If you love Vietnam books, this novel is for you. It gives a detailed and factual story of an American engineer in Vietnam. However if you are looking for a great Joe Haldeman novel, 1968, is not great. I would rate it as good when compared to his other novels. I recommend 1968.

This is a book that stretches and enfolds the year 1968's wonder and horror. Haldeman has moved from strength to strength -- Robert Heinlein and Orson Scott Card fans will recognize the other side of the story told in _Starship Troopers_ and _Ender's Game_. They will also recognize the next step Haldeman has taken to go beyond his marvelous _The Forever War_.

1968 is a tight epic, and while dark, is full of gorgeous irony, dry wit, and melancholy cheer, very much like mid-period Vonnegut (_Slaughterhouse-Five_). It is a book about fate, about time, but also about redemption and kinship.

This is a serious novel, well worth reading. It evokes Pynchon, Vonnegut, Mailer, even Toni Morrison, but best of all, shows us Haldeman as a mature and powerful author.

Read it.

Joe Haldeman is well known as a science fiction writer. The Forever War, remains an SF classic, having won the Hugo award, and serves as a fascinating counterpoint to Heinlein's Starship Troopers.

1968 is not a science fiction novel. It's a mainstream novel that, per the title, takes place in 1968.

I'd been looking for a copy for a while, and managed to pick up a used library copy on Amazon (yea Amazon)

This is Spider's story. Spider is a young draftee in "The 'Nam", assigned to a combat engineering squadron. The story also follows the life of Beverly, Spider's girfriend, but it's Spider's story.

It's very tightly written, many "chapters" are a half page or less. While Spider is the protagonist, he's not a "hero" in the normal sense; things happen TO Spider, not because of him.

And in case you didn't figure it out reading The Forever War, Vietnam was NOT a fun place in 1968. Then again, neither was Chicago during the convention.

Ultimately, it's a slice of life story, and a rather sad one.

I recommend it if you get the chance to read it.