Joe Haldeman: Exploring the Life and Work of The Forever War Author

Joe William Haldeman was born June 9th, 1943 in Oklahoma City. His family moved often, and Haldeman's childhood and adolescence were spent in places as far-ranging as Alaska and Puerto Rico. In adulthood, he would say that these frequent re-locations gave him a sense of home as a fluctuating place. Throughout the family's many moves, young Haldeman oriented himself by looking at the stars, planning to one day visit the distant planets he saw through his telescope lens. 

Another constant in his life was science fiction. From the first sci-fi book he ever read—Rocket Jockey by Lester del Rey—Haldeman was hooked. He began writing his own sci-fi stories in grade four in the form of comic strips. 

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In 1963, Haldeman applied his fascination with sci-fi and space to studying physics and astronomy at the University of Maryland. In 1965, 22-year-old Haldeman married Mary Gay Haldeman (née Potter). As of this writing, the couple have been married 54 years.

After graduating with a degree in astronomy, Haldeman applied for a naval observatory job in Argentina. He was interested in the role in part because he felt the job would allow him time to explore his interest in writing. But while waiting to hear about the position, Haldeman and his family received the letter they had been dreading.  

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In 1967, the young couple returned from a vacation to find a draft notice had arrived. Haldeman had anticipated this moment; in addition to submitting for the naval job, he’d also already applied to the Peace Corps. As Haldeman later wrote on his website, "I had applied to the Peace Corps as well, saying I'd rather spend six years digging ditches in Africa than one year killing people in Vietnam, but they never responded.” 

Haldeman also attempted to apply for conscientious objector status, but as an atheist he couldn’t acquire the letter from a minister he understood the draft board needed to consider his request. And now, it was too late.  

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Hoping to avoid fighting a war he didn’t believe in, Haldeman even considered jail or moving to Canada as alternatives. However, he dreamed of becoming an astronaut through a now-retired NASA program which recruited scientists, an opportunity which he knew would disappear if he didn't go to Vietnam. 

Decades later, Haldeman wrote that America’s jingoism also had a subtle and unconscious impact on his reaction to the draft notice: “My pacifism was closely reasoned and, I thought, deeply felt — but I was a post-WWII American male who had grown up on John Wayne movies and GI Joe comics, and there was something in me that deeply wanted to prove that I could soldier.”

Haldeman arrived in Vietnam on February 29th, 1968. In his role as a combat engineer, he felt there was very little chance of he and his comrades getting out alive and unscathed. His prediction came true: While working as a demolition engineer, Haldeman and his squad were surprised by a booby-trapped cache of munitions. Haldeman survived, and was later awarded the Purple Heart. 

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When Haldeman eventually returned home after the injury, he found his writing had changed. As he later told National Public Radio, although he suspects he would have been a writer in some capacity no matter what, his experiences in combat contributed to his becoming a professional author.

Within weeks of returning from Vietnam, Haldeman sold two stories he had written before his service. At the time he still thought writing would be a side occupation, and prepared to pursue a career in computer science. But his passion for writing was nurtured by the Milford Writer’s Workshop, an annual writing group held by seminal sci-fi author Damon Knight, who in 1965 had founded the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA). At these writing retreats Haldeman collaborated with some of the biggest names in speculative fiction, including Harlan Ellison, Ben Bova, and Gardner Dozois. 

The Milford Workshop was pivotal for Haldeman's career. While sharing a beer, Haldeman told Bova about his ambition to write a literary fiction novel based on his time in combat. Bova offered to forward a recommendation to his publisher. Haldeman wrote sample chapters for War Year, Bova followed up on his half of the agreement, and eventually Haldeman was offered a contract for his first novel. 

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After Haldeman returned from Vietnam, he and his wife moved to Florida. There Haldeman wrote full time, penning short stories—some of which would later be published in his anthology Cosmic Laughter—and starting his novels All My Sins Remembered and The Forever War. 

In 1973 the couple drove from Florida to the Midwest so Haldeman could learn from the best of the best at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, an acclaimed program for developing writers. 

At Iowa, Haldeman studied with renowned authors like Raymond Carver and Stanley Elkin. The latter viewed science fiction as worthless, which prompted Haldeman to begin work on what would later become his novel 1968. This anti-sci-fi sentiment was present throughout his time at Iowa; at one point, Haldeman presented the beginning of his novel Mindbridge at a master class and was criticized for devoting his time and energy to science fiction. Soon after, he sold Mindbridge for a record-breaking price.

In his final semester at Iowa, Haldeman did his part to spread the good news of science fiction around campus. He taught a science fiction class which eventually evolved into a club called Science Fiction League of Iowa Students (SFLIS)—an unfortunate acronym Haldeman himself claims responsibility for. Additionally, his sci-fi MFA thesis novel The Forever War went on to win both a Hugo and a Nebula Award, and to be one of the most enduring novels about the Vietnam War in any genre. 

After graduating in 1975, Haldeman explored a number of exciting new projects, including a series of Star Trek novels. Since he had been in Vietnam when the show came out, Haldeman had to prepare by immersing himself in the fandom. His first Star Trek novel, Planet of Judgment, hit shelves in 1977. It follows the Enterprise crew as they explore the planet Anomaly, so-called for the malfunctions it causes in their weapons and other equipment.

Star Trek wasn't the only property Haldeman brought his literary credentials to. He also worked as an imagineer for Disney's Epcot park alongside George Lucas, and briefly worked with Steven Spielberg on the novelization of Poltergeist. Haldeman was fired from the latter project after writing in editing notes that a draft of the script “suck[ed] eggs.” His time on Poltergeist was representative of many of his writing collaborations; as Haldeman told The Portalist in 2018, "My experiences with collaborating on novels and stories have been almost all negative, unless the project is a goof."

But Haldeman wasn't just adapting others' work: In 1983, the same year he became an adjunct professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he wrote a play adaptation of The Forever War that ran in Chicago. Soon after, he began work on Worlds, the first novel in his trilogy of the same name. Haldeman later described the novel as the first he had written about a narrator fundamentally different from himself. 

The near-future series explores the life of Marianne O’Hara, a resident of the satellite world called New New York. Haldeman later said that he unconsciously wrote the novel about his own mother, who was in failing health at the time. She passed away a week after he completed the final novel in the series, Worlds Enough and Time. 

Soon after, Haldeman collaborated with his brother, author and scientist Jack C. Haldeman, on the novel There Is No Darkness. In the late 80s he also experimented with genre, penning his first Cold War-set espionage novel, Tool of the Trade.  

In addition to his teaching obligations at MIT and his work on other projects, Haldeman continued to write prolifically in the 80s and 90s, publishing ten books and seven short story collections from 1980-2000. During this time he also won numerous awards, including (but not limited to!) three Hugos, one John W. Campbell Memorial Award, three Nebula Awards, and one World Fantasy Award.

Over the past two decades, Haldeman has continued to publish novels which demonstrate the potential of hard science fiction to change how we see the world around us — and the world of our future. He has maintained a staggering publication pace all while balancing his responsibilities at MIT, where he taught until retiring in 2014. 

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In 2009, Haldeman was named a 2010 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The award recognizes lifetime achievements to the field of science fiction. Russell Davis, then-president of SFWA, described Haldeman as "an extraordinarily talented writer, a respected teacher and mentor in our community, and a good friend.”

In 2012, he was also inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

Despite these accolades, Haldeman is not content to rest on his laurels. In addition to maintaining an impressive writing schedule, the now-76-year-old also explores his other passions, such as art and traveling (and sometimes both combined, as seen in the journal page below depicting a visit to Paris).

Haldeman, who has won three Rhysling Awards for his poems, also continues to write poetry. Below, we are thrilled to share one of his poems from 2019, "upon their clay."

upon their clay

girls’ pottery:

a thousand or thousands of years
from now the clay they shaped and fired to amuse themselves

will have been broken up
into mysterious shards that still bear their fingerprints.

Statesmen who changed the boundaries of the planet

will be dust and their names forgotten,

while the girls’ identities
hide safe inside the earth

upon their clay.

In addition to his poetry and other creative outlets, Haldeman continues to be a prolific novelist, and intends to continue writing for the foreseeable future. As he told Locus in 2013 soon after retiring from MIT, "I’m not retiring from writing. The main reason for retiring from teaching is so I have more time to write. When you’re seventy you have to admit to yourself you’re an old man, and you have to ask yourself, 'How do I wish to spend my remaining time?' In my case, I want to write."

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