Guardian

This is a good historical novel: well researched and very believable. It has just a touch of Haldeman's traditional science-fiction themes. It seems he is exploring new ground and it works quite well.

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.

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.

This guy is why I keep reading science fiction (though this is more fiction than science). It's good to know there are a few sci-fi writers left who can write (publishers are letting too much drivel through). This might be one for my top ten list. I may give it a while to settle in, but right now I think it's on my "keep forever give copies to friends list".

She was only a child when the civil war started but her parents were wise enough to send her up North to relatives when it looked like the south would lose. She stayed at a boarding school until she went to Wellestey College where she met and later married Edward Tolliver, a rich and powerful man. The marriage wasn't a happy one but when Rosa saw her husband sodomize their son Daniel, she knew it was time to leave.Rosa and Daniel traveled to Dodge City where they had many happy years together until a Pinkerton agent hired by Edward arrived on the scene to take Daniel back to his father. Daniel conked the agent over the head, allowing them to escape and they decide to see if they could get rich in Alaska. While Daniel is in the field panning for gold, a drunken miner kills him and Rosa decides to kill herself until a spirit guide named Raven takes her around the universe. When Rosa returns, her actions change the course of history and save millions of lives.Award winning author Joe Haldeman has written a very simple story about a woman's fight to survive and triumph. What is not so simple is the way the protagonist has to learn those lessons but what would defeat another person doesn't even phase Rose. She takes what she learns and applies it to her everyday life and in doing so makes the world a better place.Harriet Klausner