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JMW: Hello, this is Jean Marie Ward for buzzymultimedia.com. With me today
is the multi-award winning author of "The Forever War", as well
as many other novels, stories and poems, Joe Haldeman. Thank you
for joining us here today, Joe.
Joe Haldeman: I'm glad to be here.
JMW: Good. In 2008, Ridley Scott acquired the rights to "The Forever War".
In 2010 the script was in its fourth revision. Where is the
project now?
Joe Haldeman: Well, they don't tell me. I'm just the author of the book. I have no
inside track at all. In fact, I find out about it when fans
write to me...
JMW: Oh, my goodness.
Joe Haldeman: ...on the website. People who live in Hollywood know a lot more than
I do. In fact, I found out about the new revision, we were at a
cocktail party, which was not a science fiction cocktail party,
but just a thing in L.A. Somebody had heard from her
hairdresser, who heard at her yoga class that Scott was doing
"The Forever War". I thought, "Well, it's got to be true."
JMW: I have seen it in various places on the web that he waited 25 years
to get the rights.
Joe Haldeman: Well, the fact is somebody else had them and he had to wait for the
contract to run out.
JMW: Oh, I understand that. But the idea that somebody would wait 25 years
to get the rights...
Joe Haldeman: Yeah.
JMW: ...to a book that is now 35 years old. That's amazing. The idea that
something would have that kind of resonance over time is
absolutely wonderful. What do you think is the secret to the
book's longevity?
Joe Haldeman: Well, in a way it's the prototypical modern science fiction war
story. The military science fiction novel is now a large sub-
genre. It was not at the time that I wrote the book. People talk
about the book being a response to Heinlein's "Starship
Troopers", and it was not intended as such.
In fact, if you looked at science fiction at the time there was
"Starship Troopers" and there was "Build a Galactic Hero" and
there was Gordon Dickson's "The Dorsai Cycle". They formed this
sort of primitive kind of universe of military science fiction
and I added mine to it. What mine added was the antiwar
sensibility that came from the Vietnam era, and so it wasn't
just a novel of heroic behavior.
JMW: I think that sensibility resonates with the small wars we've been
fighting ever since.
Joe Haldeman: Yeah.
JMW: But it's only one in four works related. Correct? As I understand it,
"Forever War", "Forever Peace", "Forever Free" and "A Separate
War"? Do I have that right?
Joe Haldeman: Well, no. "A Separate War" - well, let me see now. When I wrote "The
Forever War", I said I would never write a sequel to it because
I thought it was a complete novel. Then I wrote a novel called
"Forever Peace", which is unrelated to "The Forever War". It
looks at some of the same questions but from a totally different
viewpoint.
Then I got a contract from Robert Silverberg to write a novella,
which was an extension of "The Forever War". Well that became
the novel "Forever Free", and so that is a two novel sequence.
Now, there's a short story coming out which is called "Forever
Bound". That is a prequel to "Forever Peace". So, the thing is
getting almost impossibly complicated.
JMW: It sounds like it. It sounds like it. But you've got some other works
coming out very soon. Would you care to talk about them?
Joe Haldeman: Well I wrote a novel called "Mars Bound" several years ago. When I
finished it I realized it needed a sequel. As I was writing up
the proposal for the sequel, I realized it had to have two
sequels, so it would become the first book of a trilogy. So I
wrote "Mars Bound", and then I wrote its sequel "Starbound", and
I'm finishing it up with the novel "Earthbound ", which I just
mailed in a few months ago. It'll be out in December of this
year.
JMW: "Starbound", is that the one coming out in December, or "Earthbound
"?
Joe Haldeman: Well, "Starbound" is out in hardback. I think it's out in paperback
now. But "Earthbound " is the last one and that'll be out in
December.
JMW: Very, very cool. We may be seeing you here next year with one of the
nominations.
Joe Haldeman: Oh, I hope so. Wouldn't that be nice?
JMW: When I arrived here at Nebula Weekend, the first thing I asked was
how did the Nebula's get from banquet to a whole weekend with
stuff? Including tours in the DC area, seminars - it's
practically a convention. When I said, "Who can tell me about
this transformation?" they said, "You have to talk to Joe
Haldeman." So could you please give me this? How did it happen?
How did we go from a banquet to a convention?
Joe Haldeman: It was on its way to happening when I became president. I believe the
year preceding my presidency it was already a weekend.
JMW: What year was that?
Joe Haldeman: 1989, 1990, I'm not sure.
JMW: Okay, we're talking the significant past.
Joe Haldeman: Quite some time ago.
JMW: Yeah.
Joe Haldeman: Then I headed it for two years, as I was president for two years. One
year was up in Washington State/Oregon, and the next year it was
in New Orleans, which was fun. By the time I left it had become
sort of a long weekend deal with programming on two days. Now I
believe there is programming on three days, and God knows how
long it'll be before it's all year round and we just never
leave.
JMW: Oh, yeah, the Forever Weekend.
Joe Haldeman: Yeah, right. Now, let me expand on one little thing.
JMW: Oh, please.
Joe Haldeman: Because when we started going, and my wife is here and she'll correct
me if I'm wrong, I believe that there was just the Nebula Awards
Banquet. Then sometime in the 70's, I believe, they started to
add in some programming that day, before the banquet.
Then probably somebody says, "Well, we're paying all this money
to go to whatever city for one day, and then coming back home.
So why don't we just make it two days? It's not that much more
expensive to stay in New York for two days, and then we'll have
more programming and more exposure and so forth." I suppose that
was the logical process.
[inaudible 00:08:17] does not have like a scrapbook or anything
that keeps an institutional memory going, big mistake. But it's
kind of late to start now, I guess.
JMW: Well, it's never too late. Especially not while people like you can
remember what it was before.
Joe Haldeman: Yeah. Or attempt to remember.
JMW: Well, yeah, but you've got a lot of notes squirreled away.
Joe Haldeman: Yeah.
Jean: I've seen your website. You've been taking notes for a long, long
time.
Joe Haldeman: Yeah.
JMW: Okay, we mentioned "Mars Bound", "Starbound", and "Earthbound ". What
else is on your horizon?
Joe Haldeman: Well, right now I'm working on a novel called, "Work Done For Hire".
It's the first novel I've ever written that has a writer as a
protagonist. So, it's kind of fun that way. It's automatically
autobiographical in certain regards, and automatically kind of
sarcastic in certain ways too, because you can't be deadly
serious about writing.
JMW: No. Not if you're a writer, that's for darn sure, absolutely. Is
there anything you'd like to add that I haven't covered here,
about your poetry, about your painting?
Joe Haldeman: Yes. One should write poetry and paint pictures. No. I started out as
a poet. I wrote poetry for a long time before I ever wrote a
story. I think that writers of fiction could benefit from
studying and writing poetry. It gives you a sensitivity to
individual words and to phrases and to the music of the
language, which is disregarded, I think, at your peril if you
want your work to last longer than a season.
JMW: The word matters.
Joe Haldeman: Yeah.
JMW: Absolutely. Where can your fans find you on the web?
Joe Haldeman: At my website. Anybody who Googles Joe Haldeman in quotes, so it's
one word the first thing that comes up is my website. Yeah, and
I have a daily diary on SSF.net, which is mirrored on my
journal. The one on LiveJournal is actually better in a way
because I can put pictures on it. I do draw and paint, and so
forth, and I put my pictures up for all to enjoy.
JMW: So that would be joehaldeman/livejournal.com?
Joe Haldeman: I am not sure. I find it just by going "Joe Haldeman LiveJournal".
JMW: Okay.
Joe Haldeman: That's the first thing that comes up.
JMW: That's good, and that's where they can find your paintings.
Joe Haldeman: Yes.
JMW: Anyplace else?
Joe Haldeman: On my website. I've got several. I've sold a couple through my
website. Wow. Who would have thought?
JMW: That's wonderful.
Joe Haldeman: Yeah.
JMW: Thank you so much, and thank you for watching.