Book Review: "Camouflage" by Joe Haldeman

- by Kazekun, 26 July 2013

When I was younger I used to read all the time. But then at some point I discovered comics and the internet and my reading amount decreased. Now I've been reading more books again lately, and what better place to start than one of my favorite genres: Sci-fi.

Unknown to anyone, two creatures have wandered the Earth for generations. The aliens have no knowledge of each other, but share a residual memory of a mysterious, sunken relic – and an affinity for deep water. One, the changeling, has survived by adaptation, taking the shapes of many different organisms. The other, the chameleon, has survived solely by destroying anything or anyone that threatens it.

Now, finally brought up from the bottom of the sea by marine biologist Russell Sutton, the relic calls to them both… to come home. For all these generations, there have been two invincible creatures on Earth. But the chameleon has decided there’s only room for one…  
(From the back cover of the book)

If that summary sounds at all interesting and awesome to you, well that’s because it should. This is my first foray into the works of Joe Haldeman, known very well for his Forever War series, and I’m glad I dipped my toes. This is a one-shot sci-fi adventure spanning the distant past to the now not so distant future. The ground covered here jumps from the birth of our planet Earth to the year 2021 in anodyssey about coming to terms with who you are and learning to adapt to the world you live on.

The changeling is our guide; we get to see its journey as it learns about humanity and about itself, going through hell and back again. For an invincible creature, I felt Mr. Haldeman did a wonderful job at making me sympathize with the changeling during the most brutal moments of witnessing human nature, and he made me feel for a creature not of this Earth just hoping to find out what itself is. Many writers forget that one can make a completely alien creature worth following as the protagonist as long as you make the situations and the emotions human enough for one to understand and sympathize with.

All the situations presented in this book are 100% human and through the eyes of the changeling we get a real hard look at human nature throughout the years and what it means to find yourself in this topsy-turvy world. Why does one exist? Could we learn to be content with not knowing if we just found something or someone worth being content with?

The answers may not be 100% satisfactory, but looking at it deeper the answers can really be left up to the reader.

The chameleon unfortunately gets the shaft in this book, coming up only a few times just to let us know this creature exists so that the grand finale can come full circle. But the chameleon never truly gets a character arc and stays pretty one note throughout the book. This is the weakest story thread and probably could’ve been taken out altogether and replaced with the CIA who also factor into this book at one point.

The story jumps around as well, giving us many different characters to watch as they deal with the unknown, whether it be the changeling and the human experience, or Russell Sutton and the artifact that won’t give in to probing. The plot threads feel disjointed for majority of the book, making for an awkward experience until the end. Perhaps the story didn’t need to be told in this format, but then again maybe this really was the most effective way. 


The ending is also very abrupt, and isn’t 100% satisfying to those looking for all the answers, but if you’re anything like me, sometimes you don’t need all the answers, just enough to feel as if the experience was well worth the journey.

And honestly, yeah it really was.

Final Score: 3 Other-worldly Aliens out of 5


Have you read "Camouflage"? Enjoyed the review? Drop us a line in the comments!

Tagged: books, Reviews.

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