Joe Haldeman
Joe William Haldeman is an American science fiction author and former college professor. He is best known for his novel The Forever War, which was inspired by his experiences as a combat soldier in the Vietnam War. That novel and other works, including The Hemingway Hoax and Forever Peace, have won science fiction awards, including the Hugo Award and Nebula Award. He received the SFWA Grand Master for career achievements. In 2012, he was inducted as a member of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. From 1983 to 2014, he was a professor teaching writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Life
[file:Gay Haldeman Worldcon 75 in Helsinki 2017 (cropped).jpg|thumb|Gay Haldeman at Worldcon 75 in Helsinki in 2017|alt=]Haldeman was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His family traveled and he lived in Puerto Rico, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., Bethesda and Anchorage as a child. He had to repeatedly start classes as a new kid in local schools.
In 1965, Haldeman married Mary Gay Potter, known as Gay Haldeman. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Maryland in 1967.
He was immediately drafted into the United States Army. Serving as a combat engineer in the Vietnam War, he was wounded in combat and received a Purple Heart. He struggled to adjust to civilian life after returning home. His wartime experience inspired his debut novel, War Year; his later novels such as The Hemingway Hoax and The Forever War, continued to explore the experience of soldiers in wartime and after returning home.
In 1975, he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Haldeman has resided alternately in Gainesville, Florida, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1983 until his retirement in 2014, he was an adjunct professor of writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He set his 2007 novel, The Accidental Time Machine at MIT. Haldeman is also a painter.
In 2009 and 2010, Haldeman was hospitalized for pancreatitis.
Work
Haldeman's first book was a 122-page novel, War Year, published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston in May 1972. The novel was sold with the help of fellow writer Ben Bova. It was based on his letters home from Vietnam and was marketed as mainstream and young adult. His most famous novel is his second, The Forever War, which was inspired by his Vietnam experiences and originated as his MFA thesis for the Iowa Writers' Workshop. It won the year's "Best Novel" Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards. He later wrote sequels.In 1975, two Attar novels were published as Pocket Books paperback originals under the pen name Robert Graham. Haldeman also wrote two of the earliest original novels based on the 1960s Star Trek television series universe, Planet of Judgment and World Without End.
In a college creative writing class in 1967, Haldeman wrote the first two SF stories which he sold. "Out of Phase" was published in the September 1969 Galaxy magazine, and "the other worked its way down to a penny-a-word market, Amazing Stories, and netted me all of $15 – but then years later it was adapted for The Twilight Zone, for fifty times as much. Not bad for a story banged out overnight to meet a class deadline."
Haldeman has written at least one produced Hollywood movie script. The film, a low-budget science fiction film called Robot Jox, was released in 1990. He was not entirely happy with the product, saying "to me it's as if I'd had a child who started out well and then sustained brain damage".
In a 2016 interview, Haldeman said, "Jack of all trades, master of none I think. It's a way to go. Not all writers go that way, but many of them do. On a day-to-day basis I wake up in the morning and I can do anything I feel like doing. I don't say, uh oh, I've gotta get back to that damn novel again. I can always write a poem or something.... "
Major awards
The Science Fiction Writers of America officers and past presidents selected Haldeman as the 27th SFWA Grand Master in 2009, and he received the corresponding Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement as a writer during Nebula Awards weekend in 2010. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted him in June 2012.He has also won numerous annual awards for particular works.
He is a lifetime member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and past president.
His filk song "The Ballad of Stan Long " received a Pegasus Award in 2005.
He received the Inkpot Award in 1991.
[Hugo Award]
The Forever War – novel- "Tricentennial" – short storyThe Hemingway Hoax – novella
- "None So Blind" – short storyForever Peace – novel
[John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel]
- ''Forever Peace''
[Nebula Award]
The Forever War – novelThe Hemingway Hoax – novella- "Graves" – short storyForever Peace – novelCamouflage – novel
[Locus Award]
The Forever War – SF novel[Rhysling Award]
- "Saul's Death" – long poem
- "Eighteen Years Old, October Eleventh" – short poem
- "January Fires" – long poem
[World Fantasy Award]
- "Graves" – Short Fiction
[James Tiptree, Jr. Award]
- ''Camouflage''
[Pegasus Award]
- "The Ballad of Stan Long " – Best Space Opera Song
Non-series
War Year – nongenre Vietnam War novel, hardcover and paperback endings differMindbridge – Hugo nominee, placed second in annual Locus PollAll My Sins Remembered There Is No Darkness – cowritten with Jack C. Haldeman IITool of the Trade Buying Time – published in the UK as The Long Habit of LivingThe Hemingway Hoax 1968 – Vietnam War novelThe Coming – Locus SF nominee, 2001Guardian Camouflage – Nebula Award winner, 2005Old Twentieth The Accidental Time Machine – Nebula Award nominee, 2007; placed fifth in annual Locus Poll- ''Work Done for Hire''
''Forever War'' series
The Forever War- "A Separate War"
- ''Forever Free''
''Attar'' (the Merman) series
Attar's Revenge- ''War of Nerves''
''Star Trek'' novels
Planet of Judgment''Worlds'' series
Worlds Worlds Apart- ''Worlds Enough and Time''
''Forever Peace'' series
Forever Peace- "Forever Bound"
''Marsbound'' trilogy
Marsbound Starbound- ''Earthbound''
Short fiction collection
Infinite Dreams Dealing in Futures Vietnam and Other Alien Worlds None So Blind A Separate War and Other Stories- ''The Best of Joe Haldeman''
Anthologies edited
Cosmic Laughter Study War No More Nebula Award Stories Seventeen Body Armor: 2000 Supertanks Space-Fighters- ''Future Weapons of War''
Comics
The Forever War drawn by Mark van Oppen Forever Free drawn by Marvano Dallas Barr drawn by Marvano based on ''Buying Time''Poetry
;Collections;List of poems
| Title | Year | First published | Reprinted/collected |
| Rounder | 2013 | ||
| Ecopoiesis | 2015 | - |
Interviews
- as part of the
- conducted by Roger Deforest
- hosted by