Review: Worlds

 I remember being at a Worldcon where a group of writers talked about fiction vs non-fiction. They asserted that since they wrote fiction, their works would never be obsolete and would sell year after year. Worlds shows how untrue that point of view is.

Worlds is set in a future where artificial satellites ("Worlds") orbit the earth, each a colony of hundreds of thousands. Yet these Worlds are still dependent on the Earth for hydrocarbons for which they exchange power from solar panels in space.

The protagonist, Marianne O'Hara, is a political science student who does a year on Earth in New York. The novel is written in the form of letters from her or entries in her diary. The point of view of the novel is as obsolete as you can get. For instance, the USSR is still in one piece, with several satellite countries and completely intact. Haldeman has his protagonist have to pay to send letters to her friends and lovers in space. She even buys the New York Times for $5 a copy to read on a transatlantic visit.

Similarly, New York City is just as dangerous in the far future as it was in the 1970s, with rape and murder a common occurrence. Haldeman couldn't imagine a future in which New York City was actually a safe place to visit.

As the plot unfolds, we finish the book with the Earth embroiled in a nuclear war, with plague weapons unleashed, while the remaining Worlds remain mostly intact despite sustaining damage. The writing is classic Haldeman, transparent and easy to read, but it's quite clear that science fiction becomes just as obsolete as any work of science writing or other non fiction.