Earthbound

This winds up the trilogy begun in Marsbound and continued in Starbound. It didn't strike me as being as clear of a narrative as the earlier books, and Haldeman seemed to be throwing in all of his notes and notions... most of which were interesting, but didn't add to the clarity of the theme. It has......more

Conclusion of Joe Haldeman's trilogy that began with Marsbound. The trajectory of this series is surprising, in that with the first volume we begin with a fairly standard, high-optimism first contact story revolving around a teenager whose family moves to the Mars colony and becomes the focus of hum......more

Earthbound really seems like a book that was required to round out a "trilogy". Marsbound and Starbound were both fun titles with lots of ideas. Earthbound is a collection of "and then this happened, then that happened, and finally this happened", without any greater ideas or revelations.......more

This is an ugly book. Part of the ugliness is structural. Earthbound doesn't really have a plot. Characters move from point A to point B and so on until the book ends. Characterization is sparse. Unattributed dialogue fills the pages, and it's hard to tell who's speaking. But then, it doesn't really......more

Haldeman seems completely lost here, and when when he hits 250 pages he whips out his own deus ex machina and delivers salvation to the main character and the book just, inexplicably, ENDS. Which is probably for the best. A disappointing end to a disappointing trilogy. This book meanders with no rea......more