Guardian

Rating:
Summary: It's no Forever War...
Review: ... but then what is. Solidly written, the story moves well and is enjoyable. Haldeman begins to move back to his solid foundation established in the likes of Forever War and Mindbridge.

Rating:
Summary: An engaging read, even though it's light on the SF
Review: After panning Haldeman's "The Coming", I'm glad to be able to give a positive review of "The Guardian". Though very light on the SF, the characterizations are good and the pace is brisk.

Fair warning - the SF elements don't come in until past the half-way point. There is one section that is an intense look at speculative worlds, and the ending smacks of classic alternative history. However, you don't want to buy this book for the SF/alternative history elements, because everything included has been done elsewhere, and better. It's the seamless integration of these elements with the story and characterization that makes this a worthwhile read.

This is not a classic, and I don't expect to read it again. But I enjoyed it as a one-timer, and passed it on to another reader who also enjoyed it.

Rating:
Summary: If At First You Don't Succeed
Review: Guardian is a science ficion novel that reads like fantasy, resembling The Hemingway Hoax in many ways. The main premise is similar to Attanasio's Radix series; a probability multiverse where someone is trying to optimize the outcome.

The protaganist is an old woman, Rosa Coleman, who has left a fictionalized account of her life which her grandson has published as the novel Guardian. Sound like a familiar gimmick? Born in 1858 in Helen Mills, Georgia, Rosa leads an interesting but fairly dull life until 1894, when she decides to leave her husband for good and sufficient reasons. She lets Daniel, her 14 year old son, select the destination, so they flee to Dodge City, Kansas, with visions of gunfighters in Daniel's head.

After being found by the Pinkertons in Dodge City, Rosa and son leave for Denver enroute to the Yukon gold fields. They meet Doc and Chuck Coleman on the way and accompany them to Alaska. In Sitka, she has a profound experience that changes her life and the world around her.

The story includes a raven who shows up at critical times and other American Indian symbols and customs which strongly affect Rosa, yet the story is still not a fantasy.

Guardian moves a little slowly at times, yet with frequent and sudden instrusions of casual violence as would be expected of that time and place. The abrupt transition to the transcendental portion of the story is probably deliberately so. The next segment is filled with confusing images and ideas, leading literally to a new direction in Rosa's life.

This novel is not high adventure, but portrays a life similar to many others lived in the decades following the Civil War. The metaphysics is interesting yet remains strangely insignificant; Rosa is the center of interest in the story and the weirdness is only a passing oddity. Recommended to those who like history, strong but likable characters, and philosophical speculation.

Rating:
Summary: none
Review: Haldeman continually changes and reshapes the face of SF with the precision of a plastic surgeon. His plots, pace, and characters are honed, scalpel sharp, to continually astound and amaze the reader. 'Guardian' is a trip into an Alaska during the 1860s, that is far more remote and alien than Pluto. An incredible journey fraught with danger, filled with courage in the face of adversity, and first contact. Haldeman has out done himself - again! Gary S. Potter Author/Poet

Rating:
Summary: Great book but not typical Haldeman
Review: I have not read Joe Haldeman before and if this is an example I will definitely pass the next time someone offers me one of his books. Okay, I thought the book was science fiction. I was reading it expecting a life changing first contact novel. Instead, I got a travelogue of Americana circa 1890. The first part of the book was written like a travel journal but the only character is Rosa. We only experience what she experiences even though there are other characters in the story. We do not learn very much about them. We only see what Rosa shows us, which is usually scenery. It did not take long before I was bored out of my mind.

This book was very unsatisfying. Alas, the one redeeming quality about this novel is that it is short.

Rating:
Summary: Leave this one at the beach house
Review: I have not read Joe Haldeman before and if this is an example I will definitely pass the next time someone offers me one of his books. Okay, I thought the book was science fiction. I was reading it expecting a life changing first contact novel. Instead, I got a travelogue of Americana circa 1890. The first part of the book was written like a travel journal but the only character is Rosa. We only experience what she experiences even though there are other characters in the story. We do not learn very much about them. We only see what Rosa shows us, which is usually scenery. It did not take long before I was bored out of my mind.

This book was very unsatisfying. Alas, the one redeeming quality about this novel is that it is short.

Rating:
Summary: Did Joe get bored and chang ethe story?
Review: I picked up Guardian because of the unique historical and character pov. I really liked the first 85% of the book. It was interesting to follow the Rosa and her son as they moved west and then to Alaska in the late 1800's.
But every once in a while she would hint and something that would "change everything she knew" or "change the world". They always seemed to be tacked onto the end of the chapters.
Suddenly, the end of the book throws us a twist and takes us on a short field trip across the universe. A spirit guardian takes Rosa to visit a couple of planets and what is supposedly the afterlife.
Up until then, the book was pretty interesting. The whole raven/guardian and space theme seemed to be tacked on after Haldeman lost interest in writing the original story.
I wish the sci-fi aspect was more than the last couple of chapters. So much more could have been done with this story, but Joe just ends it. There is no climax, just a very boring alternative history wrap-up.
Was it historical fiction of a fascinating episode in our nation's history? Or the first book in a fascinating sci-fi series with an 19th century schoolmarm as the heroine? It seems to be neither. Which is too bad.

Rating:
Summary: Good historical fiction; a bit thin on the science fiction
Review: It is difficult to imagine that the author of this also wrote the Forever War. Though it has been over 25 years between the two. Nonetheless, the latter is exemplary hard military science fiction. But what about this book?

Its descriptions, told in the first person, of the late nineteenth century in the United States, are wonderfully done. They span the Civil War to the Alaskan gold rush. Reconstruction and the Gilded Age. But unlike say Jack Finney's "Time and Again", there is little intrigue here. Rather, we see society through the eyes of a single woman trying to raise her son. The constraints and norms it imposes on her seem so confining to us, but she describes them matter-of-factly, which deliberately adds to the dissonance that the author intends between the subject's experiences and ours.

Read this if you want some understanding of what it meant to be female and not wealthy or powerful in that United States.

Ah, but what about the SCIENCE fiction? A little sparse. Such as it is appears only in the last quarter or less of the book. The first three quarters is straight historical fiction, though within which, the subject keeps alluding to this mysterious thing. Slightly annoying. When it finally does happen, it is rather hokey. Bloody risible, actually. I found it unconvincing and simply not up to the author's standards in his earlier books.

Rating:
Summary: Great book but not typical Haldeman
Review: It took a little bit for me to adjust to this book. After all, we like to type cast our authors and we don't expect them to change genres. Of course Haldeman has been peaking into new genres for a while (Hemmingway Hoax and Buying Time come to mind) so I've come to expect new things in each of his novels. However this is a pretty big departure for him. What is it? Well basically it's a really good turn of the century adventure/drama though Haldeman does dabble his toe into the sci-fi waters a bit at the end.

In short this is a novel about a woman's journey with her son across late 1800s America as she flees an abusive husband. That physical journey mirrors here spiritual development as a person, which builds to the surprising twist at the end of the novel that makes it science fiction. So yes, it's a great book, but it is definitely not hard science fiction.

Rating:
Summary: Engrossing enough to prove hard to put down
Review: Readers might anticipate a story of an encounter with alien powers from the description - and might be disappointed. In reality this is the story of Rosa, a woman who escapes an abusive husband and journeys across country with her child in post-Civil War days, to make a new life for herself. While the hints of encounters with a world-changing alien lie throughout the story line, it's only in the final third of the account that any science fiction elements shine through. Guardian is still engrossing enough to prove hard to put down, despite its lack of emphasis on the alien experience itself.