11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A True Classic, 8 Nov 2003
This review is from: All My Sins Remembered (Gollancz S.F.) (Hardcover)
It's difficult for me to talk about this book because I love it so much. I've read it many times and each time I come away with another angle or notice another fine touch Haldeman executed.
Haldeman takes the old story of an undercover agent and gives it a brilliant SF twist. As with all great SF, the twist delivers the essence of the story here: just what makes you who you are? And is that essence fixed or plastic? How far can someone with a particular set of ethics (like the protagonists Anglo-buddhism) be pushed before they snap?
I'll give no spoilers but I will say that this book is one of the most hearfelt, moving stories I've ever read. Like Iain M Banks or William Gibson, Haldeman uses the SF genre to examine the human condition minutely. If the last part of the story doesn't bring an angry tear to your cheek, you're beyond hope.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Remember, Remember..., 20 Dec 2008
This review is from: All My Sins Remembered (Gollancz S.F.) (Hardcover)
As a huge fan of Haldemans work, when i was bought this as a gift by my father from a second ahnd store, i was so hugely enamoured and grateful i read the entire thing inn a single afternoon.
I am so glad i did, as it is so beautifully poignant and explorative in places that you wonder exactly why Sci-Fi is so looked down upon by certain slices of the literary world.
Otto McGavin is a anglo-buddhist trained to work as a spy and assassin (should the need arise) for a secret future multi-world government - he is disguised through surgery as members of these worlds, and infiltrates to spy on anyone working against the charter that is established by the Confederacion to harm alien species or civilisations.
In his capacity as an agent, he sees and does things that are programmed into him that go against his otherwise calm and pacifist nature - so much so that he literally remebers every man, woman and child he has killed - every way he killed them and the very day, date and details of every death...
ALL MY SINS REMEMBERED works upon Haldemans usual skills of building the world around teh story, Otto McGavin jumps from 21 to 46 through out the multi story strands of the tale - and by the end, you feel so much for his plaight that the ending is - without giving anything away - so moving and though provoking, that you demand to have this made into a film immediately to see it play out in fornt of your eyes.
If you like SF with brains and heart and guts then this is the book for you - Haldeman is a genius within this genre, and after FOREVER WAR and FORVER PEACE this is one of his best short novels.
Devour it in one sitting and let the brilliance envelop you.
Brilliant stuff.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
All my short stories forgotten, 22 Jun 2010
Joe Haldeman's novels are much more interesting than these short stories. Nevertheless, the collection is mostly perfectly readable and the book is well worth buying for Haldeman fans.
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