Joe Haldeman
Joe William Haldeman (born June 9, 1943) is an American science fiction author and former college professor. He is best known for his novel The Forever War (1974), which was inspired by his experiences as a combat soldier in the Vietnam War. That novel and other works, including The Hemingway Hoax (1991) and Forever Peace (1997), have won science fiction awards, including the Hugo Award and Nebula Award.
Also recorded as Joe William Haldeman · Robert Graham
Joe Haldeman

Markku Lappalainen · https: "Photographs and texts by Markku Lappalainen (markku · CC BY 4.0
- Name
- Joe Haldeman
- Birth Name
- Joe William Haldeman
- Born
- 9 June 1943
- Birthplace
- Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S.
- Occupation
- Writer
- Education
- University of Maryland (BS)
- Movement
- Military sci-fi
- Spouse
- Mary Gay Potter (m. 1965)
- Nationality
- United States.
- Fields
- science fiction and military science fiction.
- Known for
- The Forever War.
- Honours
- Nebula Award for Best Novel, Hugo Award for Best Novel, Locus Award for Best Novel, Hugo Award for Best Short Story, Locus Award for Best Short Story and Phoenix Award.
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Documentary summary
Joe William Haldeman (born June 9, 1943) is an American science fiction author and former college professor. He is best known for his novel The Forever War (1974), which was inspired by his experiences as a combat soldier in the Vietnam War. That novel and other works, including The Hemingway Hoax (1991) and Forever Peace (1997), have won science fiction awards, including the Hugo Award and Nebula Award.
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Authority files
wikidata · Q347461 · wikipedia · Joe Haldeman
In this article
Biography
Biography
He received the SFWA Grand Master for career achievements. In 2012, he was inducted as a member of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. From 1983 to 2014, he was a professor teaching writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Joe Haldeman studied at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School and University of Iowa. The recorded working language is American English. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are science fiction and military science fiction. Places of work recorded in the authority are Gainesville. Residence is recorded at Oklahoma and Oklahoma City. Employment is recorded with Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Works named in the authority record are The Forever War. Distinctions recorded are Nebula Award for Best Novel, Hugo Award for Best Novel, Locus Award for Best Novel and Hugo Award for Best Short Story.
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Joe Haldeman • Pen Name — Robert Graham • Birth Name — Joe William Haldeman • Born — 9 June 1943 • Birthplace — Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S. • Occupation — Writer • Education — University of Maryland (BS) • Period — 1972–2015 • Genre — Science fiction • Movement — Military sci-fi • Notable Works — The Forever War • Spouse — Mary Gay Potter (m. 1965) • Relatives — Jack C. Haldeman II, brother • Website — joehaldeman.com
Life
Life
• Illustration — Gay Haldeman at Worldcon 75 in Helsinki in 2017 Haldeman was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His family traveled and he lived in Puerto Rico, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., Bethesda (Maryland) and Anchorage (Alaska) as a child. He had to repeatedly start classes as a new kid in local schools. In 1965, Haldeman married Mary Gay Potter, known as Gay Haldeman. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Maryland in 1967. He was immediately drafted into the United States Army. Serving as a combat engineer in the Vietnam War, he was wounded in combat and received a Purple Heart. He struggled to adjust to civilian life after returning home. His wartime experience inspired his debut novel, War Year; his later novels such as The Hemingway Hoax and The Forever War, continued to explore the experience of soldiers in wartime and after returning home. In 1975, he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. Haldeman has resided alternately in Gainesville, Florida, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1983 until his retirement in 2014, he was an adjunct professor of writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He set his 2007 novel, The Accidental Time Machine at MIT. Haldeman is also a painter. In 2009 and 2010, Haldeman was hospitalized for pancreatitis.
Work
Work
Haldeman's first book was a 122-page novel, War Year, published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston in May 1972. The novel was sold with the help of fellow writer Ben Bova. It was based on his letters home from Vietnam and was marketed as mainstream and young adult. His most famous novel is his second, The Forever War (St. Martin's Press, 1974), which was inspired by his Vietnam experiences and originated as his MFA thesis for the Iowa Writers' Workshop. It won the year's "Best Novel" Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards. He later wrote sequels. In 1975, two Attar novels were published as Pocket Books paperback originals under the pen name Robert Graham. Haldeman also wrote two of the earliest original novels based on the 1960s Star Trek television series universe, Planet of Judgment (August 1977) and World Without End (February 1979). In a college creative writing class in 1967, Haldeman wrote the first two SF stories which he (later) sold. "Out of Phase" was published in the September 1969 Galaxy magazine, and "the other worked its way down to a penny-a-word market, Amazing Stories, and netted me all of $15 – but then years later it was adapted for The Twilight Zone, for fifty times as much. Not bad for a story banged out overnight to meet a class deadline." Haldeman has written at least one produced Hollywood movie script. The film, a low-budget science fiction film called Robot Jox, was released in 1990. He was not entirely happy with the product, saying "to me it's as if I'd had a child who started out well and then sustained brain damage". In a 2016 interview, Haldeman said, "Jack of all trades, master of none I think. It's a way to go. Not all writers go that way, but many of them do. On a day-to-day basis I wake up in the morning and I can do anything I feel like doing. I don't say, uh oh, I've gotta get back to that damn novel again. I can always write a poem or something.... "
Non-series novels
Non-series novels
• War Year (1972) – nongenre Vietnam War novel, hardcover and paperback endings differ • Mindbridge (1976) – Hugo nominee, placed second in annual Locus Poll • All My Sins Remembered (1977) • There Is No Darkness (1983) – cowritten with Jack C. Haldeman II • Tool of the Trade (1987) • Buying Time (1989) – published in the UK as The Long Habit of Living • The Hemingway Hoax (1990) • 1968 (1994) (novel) – Vietnam War novel • The Coming (2000) – Locus SF nominee, 2001 • Guardian (2002) • Camouflage (2004) – Nebula Award winner, 2005 • Old Twentieth (2005) • The Accidental Time Machine (2007) – Nebula Award nominee, 2007; placed fifth in annual Locus Poll • Work Done for Hire (2014)
Forever War series
Forever War series
• The Forever War (1974) (Nebula Award winner, 1975; Hugo and Locus Awards winner, 1976) • "A Separate War" (1999, short story; appeared first in 1999 in the anthology Far Horizons; collected in 2006 in War Stories and A Separate War and Other Stories. The story of Marygay Potter after she parts with William Mandella in The Forever War.) • Forever Free (1999) (a direct sequel to the first novel)
Attar (the Merman) series
Attar (the Merman) series
• Attar's Revenge (1975) (published under the pseudonym Robert Graham) • War of Nerves (1975) (published under the pseudonym Robert Graham)
Star Trek novels
Star Trek novels
• Planet of Judgment (1977) • World Without End (1979)
Worlds series
Worlds series
• Worlds (1981) • Worlds Apart (1983) • Worlds Enough and Time (1992)
Forever Peace series
Forever Peace series
• Forever Peace (1997) (Nebula Award winner, 1998; John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel winner, 1998; Hugo Awards winner, 1998) (while thematically linked to Haldeman's The Forever War series, Forever Peace is not set in the same universe) • "Forever Bound" (2010, short story; appears in the anthology Warriors) (a prequel to Forever Peace, it tells the story of Julian Class being drafted and trained as a soldierboy while falling in love with Carolyn)
Marsbound trilogy
Marsbound trilogy
• Marsbound (2008) (also serialized in Analog Science Fiction and Fact) – placed fifth in annual Locus Poll) • Starbound (2010) • Earthbound (2011)
Anthologies edited
Anthologies edited
• Cosmic Laughter (1974) • Study War No More (1977) • Nebula Award Stories Seventeen (1983) • Body Armor: 2000 (1986) (with Charles G. Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg) • Supertanks (1987) (with Charles G. Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg) • Space-Fighters (1988) (with Charles G. Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg) • Future Weapons of War (2007) (with Martin H. Greenberg)
Comics
Comics
• The Forever War drawn by Mark van Oppen (better known as Marvano) (original edition La Guerre éternelle (1988–1989)) • Forever Free drawn by Marvano (original edition Libre à jamais (2002)) • Dallas Barr drawn by Marvano based on Buying Time (1996–2005)
Poetry
Poetry
• Collections * • List of poems • Title — |Year — |First published — |Reprinted/collected • Rounder — 2013 • Ecopoiesis (NIAC Symposium 2015) — 2015
Interviews
Interviews
• Authors@ Google: Joe Haldeman as part of the Authors@Google series (2007) • Interview conducted by Roger Deforest (2006) • The Craft of Science Fiction hosted by MIT Communications Forum (2006) • All of Joe Haldeman's audio interviews on the podcast The Future And You (in which he describes his expectations of the future)
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
Explore 1943–1979
The full dated record · 4 entries
1943
Joe Haldeman born at Oklahoma City.
1974
The Forever War is dated 1974.
1977
Planet of Judgment is dated 1977.
1979
World Without End is dated 1979.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Oklahoma, Oklahoma City and Gainesville.
Residences
Oklahoma City.
Birth place
John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
• Forever Peace (1998)
Short fiction collections
Short fiction collections
• Infinite Dreams (1978) • Dealing in Futures (1985) • Vietnam and Other Alien Worlds (1993) • None So Blind (1996) • A Separate War and Other Stories (2006) • The Best of Joe Haldeman (2013)
Documents and archives
Primary material
Documents and archives
scholarly publication
- Review: <i>Joe Haldeman</i>, by Joan Gordon; <i>Fritz Leiber</i>, by Jeff Frane, Science Fiction Studies, 1981
Scholarly · Crossref registry · 1981
- Review: <i>Viet Nam and Other Alien Worlds</i>, by Haldeman, Joe, Science Fiction Studies, 1994
Scholarly · Crossref registry · 1994
- Warring Stories: Fighting for Truth in the Science Fiction of Joe Haldeman, Extrapolation, 1993
Scholarly · Crossref registry · 1993
Institutional database
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q347461: Joe Haldeman
Scholarly · Wikimedia Foundation
scholarly index
- OpenAlex author record A5010459654 for Joe Haldeman.
Unverified · OpenAlex
Major awards
Major awards
• Illustration — Haldeman at Worldcon 2026 The Science Fiction Writers of America officers and past presidents selected Haldeman as the 27th SFWA Grand Master in 2009, and he received the corresponding Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement as a writer during Nebula Awards weekend in 2010. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted him in June 2012. He has also won numerous annual awards for particular works. He is a lifetime member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), and past president. His filk song "The Ballad of Stan Long (a sexist epic)" received a Pegasus Award in 2005. He received the Inkpot Award in 1991.
Hugo Award
Hugo Award
• The Forever War (1976) – novel • "Tricentennial" (1977) – short story • The Hemingway Hoax (1991) – novella • "None So Blind" (1995) – short story • Forever Peace (1998) – novel
Nebula Award
Nebula Award
• The Forever War (1975) – novel • The Hemingway Hoax (1990) – novella • "Graves" (1993) – short story • Forever Peace (1998) – novel • Camouflage (2004) – novel
Locus Award
Locus Award
• The Forever War (1976) – SF novel • None So Blind (1995) Locus Award for Best Short Story • None So Blind (1997) Locus Award for Best Collection
Rhysling Award
Rhysling Award
• "Saul's Death" (1984) – long poem • "Eighteen Years Old, October Eleventh" (1991) – short poem • "January Fires" (2001) – long poem
World Fantasy Award
World Fantasy Award
• "Graves" (1993) – Short Fiction
James Tiptree, Jr. Award
James Tiptree, Jr. Award
• Camouflage (2004)
Pegasus Award
Pegasus Award
• "The Ballad of Stan Long (a sexist epic)" (2005) – Best Space Opera Song
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Summary Bibliography: Joe Haldeman. www.isfdb.org.
- 2.According to the author's note (page 278) in the SF-novel The Accidental Time Machine
- 3.Joe Haldeman |. www.joehaldeman.com.
- 4.Macmillan entry for author.
- 5.Whitacre, Andrew. Slideshow: Joe Haldeman's retirement party. MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing. MIT. September 16, 2014.
- 6.MIT. Faculty. Writing and Humanistic Studies.
- 7.Haldeman, Joe. [homepage]. Joe Haldeman [website].
- 8.Joe Haldeman: Art for Art's Sake. Locus. October 2001.
- 9.Hamit: LepreCon 38: A Con The Way They Used To Be. File770.com.
- 10.Sci-fi legend Joe Haldeman in intensive care. September 24, 2009.
- 11.Autobiographical ramble by Joe Haldeman
- 12.IMDB. Robot Jox.
- 13.Michael McGraw-Herdeg. Prof. Haldeman's Novel 'Forever War' Picked Up By 20th Century Fox Film. The Tech. October 17, 2008.
- 14.Joy Ward interviews Joe Haldeman , Galaxy's Edge magazine, January 2016
- 15."Foxhole Pizza and Interstellar Quail: Cooking the Books with Joe and Gay Haldeman" . Sfwa.org.
- 16.Pegasus Awards - Ballad of Stan Long. www.ovff.org.
- 17.Inkpot Award.
- 18.1976 Award Winners & Nominees. Worlds Without End.
- 19.1998 Award Winners & Nominees. Worlds Without End.
- 20.1975 Award Winners & Nominees. Worlds Without End.
- 21.2004 Award Winners & Nominees. Worlds Without End.
- 22.Locus Awards 1995.
- 23.Locus Awards 1997.
- 24.World Fantasy Convention. Award Winners and Nominees.
- 25.2001 Award Winners & Nominees. Worlds Without End.
- 26.2005 Award Winners & Nominees. Worlds Without End.
- 27.2007 Award Winners & Nominees. Worlds Without End.
- 28.(ISFDB). Retrieved April 4, 2013.
- 29."Haldeman, Joe" . Locus Index to SF Awards: Index of Literary Nominees. Locus Publications. Retrieved April 4, 2013.
- 30."Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master" . Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). Retrieved April 4, 2013.
- 31."Science Fiction Hall of Fame: EMP Museum Announces the 2012 Science Fiction Hall of Fame Inductees". May/June 2012. EMP Museum (empmuseum.org). Archived July 22, 2012. Retrieved March 19, 2013.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
scholarly publication
Review: <i>Joe Haldeman</i>, by Joan Gordon; <i>Fritz Leiber</i>, by Jeff Frane, Science Fiction Studies, 1981Crossref registry
Verifiedscholarly publication
Review: <i>Viet Nam and Other Alien Worlds</i>, by Haldeman, Joe, Science Fiction Studies, 1994Crossref registry
Verifiedscholarly publication
Warring Stories: Fighting for Truth in the Science Fiction of Joe Haldeman, Extrapolation, 1993Crossref registry
VerifiedInstitutional database
Wikidata, structured authority record Q347461: Joe HaldemanWikimedia Foundation
Verifiedscholarly index
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
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