Earthbound
Written by Joe Haldeman
Narrated by Annie Henk
2.5/5
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About this audiobook
Joe Haldeman
Joe Haldeman began his writing career while he was still in the army. Drafted in 1967, he fought in the Central Highlands of Vietnam as a combat engineer with the Fourth Division. He was awarded several medals, including a Purple Heart. Haldeman sold his first story in 1969 and has since written over two dozen novels and five collections of short stories and poetry. He has won the Nebula and Hugo Awards for his novels, novellas, poems, and short stories, as well as the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Locus Award, the Rhysling Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. His works include The Forever War, Forever Peace, Camouflage, 1968, the Worlds saga, and the Marsbound series. Haldeman recently retired after many years as an associate professor in the Department of Writing and Humanistic Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He and his wife, Gay, live in Florida, where he also paints, plays the guitar, rides his bicycle, and studies the skies with his telescope.
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Starbound Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Earthbound Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
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Reviews for Earthbound
5 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I found this really boring and struggled to finish reading it. I didn't feel any connection with any of the characters and it feels like the narrator didn't either. It neatly ties up the story started in Marsbound and it does so in Joe Haldeman's usually abrupt style and that's all I can really say about it.I would only recommend this for people who have read Marsbound and Earthbound and want to know how the story ends. Don't bother reading it if you haven't read the others as you will have no idea who the characters are and why you are suppose to care because I've read those two books and by the end of this, I didn't care what happened to the people.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This was the third book in the Marsbound trilogy and I had not read the other two. i was very disappointed in the book in that there was very little 'meat' to it -- especially given that it was from a Hugo Award author. Character development must have occurred in a previous book as there wasn't much here -- to the extent that one was not at all emotionally attached as various ones met their demise in the wars following the 'Others' turning off the energy on Earth. I would not recommend this book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5With Earthbound (a Marsbound Novel), Joe Haldeman, the Hugo and Nebula award-winning author, wraps up his fascinating three-book story that began with Marsbound and continued with Starbound. Carmen Dula, who voyaged to Mars with her family in Marsbound and discovered Martians is the main character, and first person narrator, of Earthbound. She and her husband, whom she met on Mars, are back on Earth after they had voyaged to a distant star system in Starbound to try to negotiate a truce with a strange and powerful race known as “The Others” who’s anger toward the human race in Marsbound had some very serious consequences on Earth. Namir a soldier and some others, including one Martian, also made the trip to negotiate with “The Others” are back on Earth with Carmen, in this novel. Unfortunately, the negotiations did not go well and the people of Earth had angered “The Others” by building a fleet of warships to try to protect Earth from the aliens. “The Others” punish the population of Earth severely and Earthbound enables the reader to see the tragic consequences of angering “The Others”. The wrath of “The Others” creates global chaos and extreme hardship on Earth. Carmen and her group of space diplomats are caught in the violence created by frightened and desperate people trying to cope with the conditions imposed by “The Others”. It is a grim but interesting book that provides some closure for many of the characters, although not a desirable closure for some of them. Haldeman also displays his ability to depict the brutality and desperation of people fighting for their lives, which he has done very adeptly since The Forever War (1974). I am a big fan of Joe Haldeman’s work, and I have read (and own) 24 of his novels. In my opinion, Earthbound did not provide a very satisfactory resolution of the three-book story. It wasn’t a bad read, but it wasn’t consistent with the author’s usual standards. However, it is an interesting read and I certainly recommend this book to everyone who enjoyed Marsbound and Starbound.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5In this third novel in the Marsbound series, the crew of the Ad Astra return to Earth after their brief and unsatisfying meeting with the mysterious “Others.” Their welcome back celebration has barely begun before the virtually omnipotent aliens to decide to torment humanity again. We never learn much about them from direct communication, but from their actions, it is clear the Others are a sadistic bunch, treating humanity they way a budding psychopath might treat a fly, pulling off one wing and then one leg at a time for whatever amusement that might provide.
Humanity itself is presented as almost as bad. One of the torments the Others impose on Earth is to deprive it of electricity. Any technology requiring electricity stops functioning. Generators, no matter how simple, cannot create a current. Batteries won’t store it. Nothing electrical will work. Within an hour of this happening, people start shooting one another. Those whose veneer of civilization is not so thin and do not respond to disaster by immediately visiting their neighbor, murdering them, and stealing their canned goods are apparently in the minority.
Carmen Dula, the Mars Girl, from the previous two books again provides the first person point of view in this book. She has matured and not nearly as irritating as she was in the other two. Many of the other characters are back as well, but some of them die. New characters are introduced, and many of them die. Several unnamed characters die, and billions of nameless people are presumed to die quickly from violence or ultimately from starvation. This is not an uplifting story.
One interesting character, a humanoid construct of the Others called “Spy,” appears -- and then disappears. He pops in and out of existence and we never learn much about him.
This trilogy (so far) begins with humanity reaching for the stars and discovering new life and ends with it a squashed from outside, its achievements destroyed, and its ability to recover denied. I can’t say it was a fun read for me.
Sorry if that’s a spoiler.