Joe Haldeman's novel is that loner working out in the corner of the local gym's weights room. He's a shredded hulk of definition and focus, but he doesn't parade in a full-length mirror with a bluetooth headset and watch his own biceps curl. He keeps to his corner and works out. Not to the point that his humanity is sacrificed on the altar of vanity, but enough that you know not to question his technique.

The novel is a 200 page banquet of what we'll call military sci-fi. There are smatterings of military sci-fi all over mainstream science fiction but in the dedicated brand there is a particular focus on the plight of the soldier and his quarrel with his own existence. Haldeman's book picks up this theme particularly - the novel being a clear allegory for the Vietnam war - and runs a dazzling gauntlet of fantastic prose and finely tuned pace. Following the journey of one soldier's rise through the ranks of a military at odds with time itself, Haldeman examines the disjointed psyche of the soldier in a way that will be forever relevant and readable: he does so with sympathy. His take on the life of a soldier is one that is as informed as it is honest and it's as revelatory a parable on the life of a soldier as many modern texts purport to be.

The author's eye for a set-piece is an aid to the less creatively driven reader too. Haldeman's action doesn't drive action, it drives atmosphere and tension and a sense of otherworldly place with creatures and designs pillaged/homaged ever since. His universe is far-out enough that we can gaze at his prosaic stars with awe but crucially his explanatory tone is straight-forward enough that we don't feel patronized by the machinations of his brain.

In allowing the loose ends of the paradox of the military and the soldier to meet on a canvas so near yet so far, Joe Haldeman's novel manages to be that most wonderful of things: meaningful.

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