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Joe Haldeman
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Mindbridge Paperback – February 1, 1978

by Joe Haldeman (Author)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 694 ratings
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    208 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Avon Books
  4. Publication date
    February 1, 1978
  5. ISBN-10
    0380016893
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0380016891
  7. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Avon Books (February 1, 1978)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 208 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0380016893
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0380016891
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4.8 ounces
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 694 ratings

About the author

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Joe Haldeman

Joe Haldeman

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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.

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
694 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars inventive and imaginative
Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2023
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Haven’t read this level of imaginative writing in years. No space opera, yet complete with some super hardware. Above all it caused me to think more than I did when I was forty years younger.
2 people found this helpful
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Wenn Schon
4.0 out of 5 stars well worth the read!
Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2023
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Well worth the read. A lot like Arthur C Clark’s work. Fair amount of action and what I’d call introspection plus some philosophical issues addressed in a novel way. A very pleasant and gripping read. Didn’t want to put it down. Only gripe is that the tables and graphs didn’t come across on kindle.
3 people found this helpful
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Myroslava Luzina
3.0 out of 5 stars Haphazardly constructed book; author must have been on a deadline to submit _something_ to his publisher.
Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2017
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I'd give this 3.5 stars, but in the absence of "half-stars", let it be three.

I feel funny writing this about a book which has apparently achieved a status of a classic, but the book is, while well-written, nevertheless poorly-constructed, and thus fails as a unified work. And I _don't_ mean its breakdown into chapters that are presented as various documents (regular third-person narration, excerpts from autobiography, personnel reports, excerpts from history/scientific works, technical memos with graphs and tables, etc.). All of this is perfectly fine and interesting to peruse.

The thing is, I think the writer has concocted one book from what had apparently been notes for two different books. One of those (the bridge part), he didn't know how to give a coherent ending to; the other one (the aggressive aliens) didn't seem expandable into a full-length book (would have been good for a short story). But, apparently, he had to submit something according to the contract with this publisher (again, funny, talking about this 40 years after the fact), and thus was "Mindbridge" born.

Unfortunately, this disjointedness, and thus, the imminence of a very hollow ending, doesn't become apparent until about 50 pages from said ending. The reader gets engrossed by a well-developed story framework (of the first proto-book) and by Haldeman's writing chops, which are undeniable. But then practically the whole plot of the "bridges" gets crumpled to a mere instrument to be used in mind communication with the second-part aliens and is never mentioned again; the explanation for how the bridges came into being and what they are is given in what I consider the crudest evidence of the author's laziness—a chapter titled "Crystal Ball I", where the reader is just given a succint account of how, several hundred years into the future, a certain person found out this and that. Way to slap the reader with a half-baked wrap-up of a long-developed elaborate story. Of these Crystal Balls, there are two. The second one, titled "Crystral Ball II" (sic, typo in the hardcover edition), consists of a part that didn't need to be a crystal ball, since it's not several hundred years into the future but rather still within the main character's lifespan (and should have been split into several "newsclips" or "personnel reports" if the book's character were to be preserved; at the same time, there is a chapter which needn't have been there and its content would have been perfectly good in form of a couple of lines in a crystal-ball-format chapter), and a second part which is too much of a crystal ball because it gives a hurried and overly general wrap-up of the whole story while the book still hasn't ended.

And of course, a SF book that delves too deep into the subject of the substance of being human can't but incorporate the topic of God or gods. This is done twice: the first time in the first Crystal Ball, and those gods seem to be token presences that are there only because the word "G/g/od" is supposed to be impressive; and the second time in the very last chapter, where it also doesn't make either sense, or rhyme, or reason.

Disappointed. Have been misled by a couple of reviews that touted this as one of the greatest SF books of all time. Nope. It's not a book that won't be thrown out once I have no more space on my bookshelves.
16 people found this helpful
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Jhawk
5.0 out of 5 stars Fun and Engaging
Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2021
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Some writers you just can’t get enough of. Joe Haldeman is one of those authors for me. His character development is subtle and engaging throughout without being direct. His stories are fun to read and imagine, just what a book should be. Imaginative and enjoyable. Mind ridge is an enjoyable read from start to finish.
One person found this helpful
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M. Mangano
4.0 out of 5 stars Meanders a bit
Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2022
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It’s Haldeman, so it’s good, but it has a large sweep of events and people to keep track of. Overall it’s a satisfying book that touches on several interesting and probably controversial subjects. Not my favorite Haldeman, but well worth the read.
3 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome read!!!
Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2021
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A unique vision of space travel and first contact, very engaging, well written, and entertaining. A must read for fans of classic science fiction.
One person found this helpful
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Nikolais L.
4.0 out of 5 stars Keeps Moving
Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2021
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Very enjoyable with some really interesting ideas. The story keeps moving at a brisk pace without a dull moment. This is a rare quality, with many books overly long. There were however, a few leaps in the plot that broke the drama and perhaps stretched my ‘suspension if disbelief’. Overall very enjoyable though. N
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Michael G Kurilla
3.0 out of 5 stars Conceptually intriguing, but poorly executed
Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2018
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Joe Haldeman's Mindbridge is a mashup of two poorly developed concepts that almost make up a good story. Interstellar travel, albeit transitory, opens the door for planetary exploration that identifies a unique species of life with the ability to form a "mindbridge" between individuals such that mind reading is possible. At the same time, an intelligent alien presence is encountered where communications is all but impossible and seems on a collision course with Earth.

Haldeman creates quite a bit of appealing conceptualizations including the mindbridge and an alien intelligence that cannot communicate with humans, along with a novel form of interstellar travel that is instantaneous, but transitory in nature. The resulting exploitation of this phenomenon is a pioneer spirit of exploration to study and then geoform receptive planets for eventual human migration. Conveniently, the mindbridge creature allows for a last desperate attempt at communication that averts total disaster.

The tale suffers from several issues. In this future, human life is pretty cheap with the pioneers experiencing a high fatality rate. In the case of the mindbridge creature, first contact is eventually lethal, while subsequent contact leads to a weaker, but nonfatal mindbridge. As a result, individuals who wish to commit suicide are recruited to "charge" the creature. Because of the unique properties of interstellar travel, women are recruited to function as "breeders" on the distant worlds as this is the only way to establish early colonies, but there is a cavalier attitude by both genders to this arrangement and the children are merely handed off to others to raise. As such, this future society seems a bit off kilter.
9 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Bingo Little
5.0 out of 5 stars Classic novel
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 19, 2023
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I haven't read this book in many years. Really glad that it us every bit as good as I remember.
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Michael
3.0 out of 5 stars Cover of book was not as advertised otherwise a good read
Reviewed in Germany on October 6, 2013
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Cover of book was not as advertised otherwise a good read. Book could have been better condition for the price.
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F. M. Havicon
4.0 out of 5 stars Worthy of hall of fame status
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 8, 2020
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Nice use of format and writing style variations, but this does simply cover the fact that the story idea itself is an old sci fi cliché. Written in the 1970s when 200 pages was a decent length for a novel. Nowadays it would be described as a novella or novelette. Worth a place in any collection.
2 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
3.0 out of 5 stars Just alrighty
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 11, 2024
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Just alrighty
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Steve Gardiner
5.0 out of 5 stars A classic SF tale - but...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 17, 2014
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This is one of my favourite Haldeman novels, along with Forever War and Forever Peace. A strong character study of a flawed and conflicted faced with extraordinary dilemmas, It was inevitable that I would buy this as an e-book, It's one of those books you like to read every year or two, just to remind yourself how good it is.

HOWEVER:

I should point out that as usual with the Gollancz / Gateway e-books, this is absolutely riddled with OCR errors. I find it shocking that a respected name such as Gollancz should allow this level of sloppiness, but it happens time after time. I buy a lot of e-books, and this is absolutely the worst publisher. The Megapacks (by Wildside Press) you can buy on Amazon for as little as 37p have gone through far more thorough proofreading!

Please, Gollancz / Gateway, employ a proofreader for your e-books! (I'm available at very low rates!)
16 people found this helpful
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