Review: All My Sins Remembered

All My Sins Remembered by Joe Haldeman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"When it came to searing laser murder, Otto was one of the best," says the teaser page inside the cover. I knew I'd found a perfect road trip book.

It's a series of (connected) spy stories, where our superspy hero makes use of his hypnotic and physical conditioning by the interstellar Confederacion to infiltrate human colonies on different worlds to make sure they don't mess up the aliens too badly.

Most striking about Haldeman's writing is how concrete everything feels. Even with the most bizarre premises, his stories play out on ground level with the footsoldiers. The shadows of his experience in the Vietnam War stretch long - always there is struggle between following orders and following conscience, the dubious morality of government, and the disorientation of being thrust into an alien land.

Don't get me wrong - the book still delivers on it's "searing laser murder" promise, but it's a thinking reader's searing laser murder.

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