Customer Reviews

Camouflage

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(45)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There is a sub-genre of science fiction that I like to think of as the alien-encounter procedural. Among its most famous of members is Arthur C. Clarke's "Rendezvous with Rama". Humans meet a new species of alien and must figure out what procedures to follow to make some kind of contact. Emphasis is on the technology of contact, with suspense created by the unknown nature of the aliens. Often there is no emphasis on character development or illuminating human society by the strange circumstances. To maintain my interest the twists of the encounter or the solutions required must really be clever.

All this is by way of saying that when I encountered "Camouflage", I expected just such a story and had set my techno-bableometer to dampen. Boy, was I surprised!

Instead the story is told from the point of view of the alien and explores one of the most basic of literary questions, "What does it mean to be human?"

Joe Haldeman's writing is simple and direct and he does not search for colorful language. Instead, he weaves together three separate story lines, each with its own time scale, that come together in the finale. Occasionally you might think the author was moving into irrelevant areas but ultimately he brings the unities home. Moreover, at the same time as the main character is developing, Haldeman uses the device of the doppelganger, that is, a parallel personality, to contrast with the character of the hero. Moreover, he sets the story against an historical perspective of the last two thirds of the twentieth century, with a major portion of the story set against the fall of the Philippines and the horror of the Bataan death march at the beginning of World War II. The purpose of this lengthy excursion into history is to fine tune our sense of the development of the hero.

There are a few things that stretched my belief, particularly the behavior of one of the main human characters when he learns a secret of the alien, but I allowed myself to step back from my incredulity and to see it as a further device to explore the main question.

The story moves along quickly, or at least as quickly as I could turn the pages. This may not be amongst the greatest of science fiction novels, but it certainly illustrates how a good premise and construction of a novel can not only sweep us along, but even provide food for thought.

Joe Haldeman is one of the top sci-fi writers around. This novel contains three interwoven stories:
1. A sympathetic shape-changer who has lived on earth for millions of years, but only as a human from the 1930's on.
2. An unrelated and malevolent shape-changer who's been around as long as man, whose favorite human is Josef Mengele.
3. A mysterious and impregnable metal artifact dredged up from the ocean floor by a science reasearch team in Samoa, drawing the attention of both aliens.

Thematically, the book is fascinating. The decidedly non-human characters highlight oddities of our behavior we simply take for granted, like courting rituals and various aspects of sexual and romantic love.

The plot, unfortunately, doesn't measure up. JH starts out strong, neatly interweaving the three stories, sweeping through time and setting up a profound mystery with the artifact. But eventually these stories bog down as JH concentrates on a love angle, pretty much dropping the more interesting (to me anyway) exploration of the artifact and the nature of the evil shape-changer. A rather contrived ending ties it all together, but I hope he does a sequel to further develop his intriguing ideas.

Joe Haldeman is a unique voice and innovator in Science Fiction. Each of his novels is a new experiment in the craft of writing. Similar to his changeling protagonist, "Camouflage" represents key elements of his writing style that have evolved over the past several novels and are now combined with his natural ability to weave a compelling tale. The result is an exceptionally well-crafted novel that tells a complex story in as parsimonious manner as possible. Writing in this manner is a tall-order for any author, and a departure from the increasingly long, convoluted science fiction novels that grace the shelves of our bookstores today. His pacing is on-the-money here and helps build a sense of excitement. The result is a wonderful page turner that will leave the Haldeman fan eagerly awaiting his next effort. Haldeman does an exceptional job with this novel.

Haldeman is on my short list of all time great authors, but his last few books haven't always met that standard. With Camouflage I feel Haldeman has found his old magic, but at the same time I can see him moving forward picking style elements used in books like The Coming and Forever Peace much more effectively here. Best of all the Haldeman we don't always see, the one who writes a damn good mystery is back in force. It makes want to go back and read All My Sins again.

This is page turner. Put an alien on Earth a million years ago, give it amnesia, make it immortal, but give it a touch of empathy, while you are at it, add an artifact discovered in the present time. Just as it's about to boil, add to this pot, a pinch of spice called love. No Carbs. What more can you ask for from Joe Haldeman novel. Enjoy.

With his last two novels - the very under-rated "The Coming" and his psuedo-alternate history "Guardian" - Joe Haldeman has taken the short but sweet approach to telling his story; a long and winding build-up which leads to the short, sharp ending/twist. I loathe to describe it as an long story or joke with a sharp punchline at the end, but the comparison seems apt. This approach has so far worked for Haldeman due to his strong approach in developing his characters through a time period based narrative. However, in "Camouflage", it seems that Haldeman is starting to get a bit lax.

The year is 2019 and marine biologist Russell Sutton is working in the Pacific with his company that specialises in deep-ocean salvaging (his crew achieved fame through their rising of The Titanic). Russell is approached by Jack, a retired naval officer who enlists him to retrieve a mysterious oval object lying off the coast of Samoa. In the second storyline, we follow the "Changeling", an alien that has been on Earth since the dawn of evolution. Having taken the form of marine animals for most of its time, the Changeling takes on a human form in the 1930's and begins its journey to learn about humans.

The secondary storyline of the alien's development over a period of a century is typical Haldeman - an entertaining memoir like account of events and happenings that brings us in to liking the character. However, problems arise when we jump back to the present with Russell and Jack. These characters are less developed than the Changeling and in the end they come across as one-dimensional characters. It is not a good thing when the alien character appears more human than the humans.

Another problem is Haldeman's idea - the idea of an ancient alien artifact which involves 2 alien species, in a time where humans are ready for such a discovery is not new, but is interesting enough. However, Haldeman does not develop it well enough. It seems like the idea came as an afterthought. The end result is we follow the characters but to where, we do not know. The pace of the novel builds up in intensity like a thriller, but the only mystery we have here is the mystery of whether anything will actually happen.

Haldeman's development of characters is still engaging but here, he has failed to make them of any use. Here, he is failing to develop a proper story, which makes Camouflage seem stale and pointless. Those are two words which I never imagined I would use for a writer which gave the word the powerful novel, "The Forever War". In Camouflage, it seems Haldeman is writing on auto-pilot and following a template.

Haldeman's early works are among my all-time favorites. Since then he's cranked out a seemingly endless stream of almost-great but ultimately forgettable copy.

Of Camouflage's three parts, one is as good as it gets. An alien shapeshifter has been on the planet for eons, so long that it's forgotten it ever was anything but a marine predator at the very tippy-top of the food chain. Then it comes ashore and undertakes the project of learning how to fit into the much more complex social structure of that environment's top species. Fascinating, and well worth a book in itself.

"But wait," I can hear some editor saying. "We need a quest for origin." Okay, throw in a mysterious and impenetrable object salvaged from the bottom of an ocean trench. Problem; the reader already knows the object and the alien will come together at the end, memories will be restored, sidetracked destinies fulfilled, blah, blah. Boring.

"But wait," says some other editor. "Don't we need conflict?" (I'm assuming meddling editors are demanding these changes, because Haldeman is a better writer than this.) Anyway, JH sighs "No problem," and adds a second, completely superfluous evil shapechanging alien which seems to serve no purpose in the entire book. I have to presume its origin is identical to the first shapechanging alien, but the differences between them are never explained. I think it's supposed to be a big surprise when the evil alien's identity is revealed, but it just wasn't important enough to the story for me to give a damn.

"But wait," says a third editor. "We need a romance angle!" At which point there really should have been a complete - and if necessary violent - refusal. Alas, that's not the way it worked out.

In total, the book reads as if Haldeman originally intended a thousand-page epic and so could afford 300 pages of build-up, but then someone - possibly a fourth meddling editor - said, "Time's up!" As many other reviewers have already mentioned. there's a lot of great, leisurely material and then an abrupt, tacked-on ending.

All in all, Haldeman's done a lot better.

Camouflage was pretty darned good.

Mr. Haldeman's writing seems to go in two directions normally. On the one hand, he writes books like Forever XXX (War, Peace, Free), All My Sins Remembered, Mindbridge (a personal favorite) or Tool of the Trade. These are gripping remarkable stories that I hate to see end.

On the other hand, there are the Worlds novels, the Vietnam era things (I know Mr. Haldeman is a veteran but did not enjoy these as much) Buying Time and a number of others. They aren't bad, but if I hadn't tricked onto Mindbridge early in my game, I wouldn't have found the rest.

When Mr. Haldeman is good, there's no one better. I really dig his stuff and Camouflage is one of those.

With this new novel, it seems Mr. Haldeman saw the movie Species and came up with some interesting variants of his own. His aliens are pretty cool and the story rocks. If I have any complaint, it is the standard Haldeman complaint that it ended very abruptly. I hope that there will be a sequel and that Mr. Haldeman is almost done writing it.

I have followed Haldeman's work since I read "The Forever War" about ten years ago. I loved that book, and many of his short stories (available in a few anthologies). But his last few books didn't engage me - I thought "Guardian" moved too slowly, and "The Coming" wasn't my thing.

But this one read like one of Haldeman's best works. I couldn't put it down - I was swept away by all three of the intertwining stories. I'd recommend this for any Haldeman fan. And if you haven't read "The Forever War", why the heck haven't you?

In 2019 Baja, California, Russell Sutton owns Poseidon Projects, a relatively small marine biological research firm. Russell targets two to three projects a year, but none involving the American military having worked in the government back at the turn of the century. Thus, his highly regarded staff (six PhDs) is stunned when Russell accepts US Navy Admiral Jack Halliburton deep-water salvage proposal. Lying on the bottom of an oceanic trench, seven miles form the surface, sits a metallic object that Jack wants raised.

Russell succeeds in lifting the small object out of the sea. In Samoa, they investigate the find, but the object is impregnable to their probes. While the scientific team continually fails in its query, two aliens roam the planet. The Changeling lived in the sea for millenniums before arriving on land nearly a century ago and dons any identity including an inanimate; the Chameleon has become the world's richest person. He also will kill without feeling any remorse. News surfaces about the object; along with the usual whackos in and out of the media and some intrigued scientists, the Changeling and the Chameleon have personal interests as both know that this is the key to their finally going home.

This futuristic aliens among us tale is a terrific story line that hooks the audience from the moment the object is lifted from the sea as readers will want to know what this artifact is as well as who are the Changeling and the Chameleon. Russell is a fabulous lead human protagonist, but clearly, the mystery of the two ETs and their "key" is what grips the audience in a fabulous thriller that needs a chlorine-based sequel.

Harriet Klausner