Joe Haldeman: Worlds Apart; Vikings Press; New York.
It’s widely reported that in the event of a nuclear holocaust, the highly adaptive life form known by the sobriquet “cockroach” will inherit the remains. Joe Haldeman, in this science fiction sludge, posits a variation on this theme: the order Blattaria, in 2085, will include bipedal creatures that are now part of the Homo sapiens species. Not only will these noxious bugs have all of the qualities of the present-day roaches, but they will also have libidos that can be characterized by a Shakespearean epithet, “Goats and monkeys!” As the heroine of the tale says at one point, “What I do with my plumbing is my own business,” and the polygamous lass is not referring to matters of pipes and wrenches. Haldeman’s vision of progress is, quite clearly, regressive.
Leave a Reply