Book Review – Mindbridge – by Joe Haldeman – 1976
I’ve been slowly reading my way through a pile of old Sci-Fi paperbacks that I bought at the used bookstore last year.
Haldeman is a prodigious and famous science fiction writer. He has won most of the big science fiction awards including the Nebula and Hugo.
His best-known work is ‘The Forever War’. I read it on a recommendation, and it is a powerful work of fiction and a powerful commentary on war and the impact war has on the men who fight it.
Haldeman based Forever War on his experience in Vietnam and it was his thesis project for his MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop where he studied under such literary luminaries as John Cheever.
Before his pivot to writing he graduated with a degree in physics and astronomy. Then went to war. Seems like an excellent cocktail of influences for science fiction success.
Mindbridge is one of his earlier works.
This novel that I just finished, Mindbridge, has a couple of central conceits that the story is built around.
The first is the ability of humans to temporarily transport themselves across the galaxy. The hitch is that they automatically get returned by the same transport mechanism, whether they like it or not. A bit like a boomerang. This leads to some interesting choices of how do you populate a distant planet when you can only stay for a few hours?
The second conceit is a creature, the eponymous mindbridge, that is telepathic and allows mind reading. The hitch here is that the first person to touch it dies and it is only the second and third person to read minds. Again, leading to some interesting choices. And it only works if you have the built in aptitude for it – which the hero does.
These shenanigans all culminate in humans encountering an inscrutable advanced alien, and as they say, ‘hilarity ensues’.
With these conceits the novel poses some interesting questions and plays with possible answers.
A couple things that stood out to me.
First the use of graphs and tables and equations to explain some finer points of the science. I understand, but no modern editor would let an author get away with this. Imagine Harry Potter with a graph showing the relative power of magic modes to wand types or something similar. It would cause a contemporary reader’s mind to explode, even without being the first to touch a Mindbridge.
I think this is because in the 70’s science fiction was still very much the property of a small cohort of science nerds, and they liked this nerdy stuff.
The second thing that stood out was the classic early sci-fi trope of the main female character being over sexualized. Icky and voyeuristic, but of its time. Because that small cohort of nerds really wanted to believe that they could get the girl.
Overall it was an easy read and asked some interesting, thought-provoking questions. Like all good Sci-Fi does. But, the narrative and the characters weren’t fully baked and it felt a little clunky and rushed. Like he opened a lot of doors for exploration, but then had to rush to the exit to make a deadline, and a bit more refinement would be needed to make it ultimately satisfying for the reader.
Chris Russell
ChrisRussellAuthor dot com