Review: Camouflage - Joe Haldeman

Title - Camouflage
Author - Joe Haldeman
Year - 2004
Stand Alone or Series - Stand Alone
Pages - 289
Reading Time - June 2010

This was my second time to a book of Joe Haldeman. First was the “Forever War” even if I didn’t finish I was liking the book. This book takes another turn and unfortunally I am not in favor of it. After some deep-ocean salvaging our protagonist (Russell) is approach by Jack (a retired naval officer) to retrieve a mysterious oval object in Samoa. There is a second storyline as we follow an alien that has being around since the beginning of time. This being is called a changeling and he has taken form of marine animals from most time. In the 30’s he takes the form of human to learn more ‘bout them. There is another alien called the Chameleon and this one has been around from the stone age.

I think that Haldeman gave much importance to this being and the main plotline was not as developed. This characters were in my opinion weak. In some way the alien appeared more human than the humans themselves. It remind me of Data from Star Trek.

After the first couple hundred pages we get to see the meeting between both immortal alien being and humankind. There is a little suspense in the end and in my opinion was the best part of the book.

Overall I didn’t enjoy the book that much. It’s a nice, fast read but besides that it isn’t nothing new in my opinion. 7/10