
The Hemingway Hoax
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Narrated by:
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Eric Michael Summerer
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By:
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Joe Haldeman
BONUS AUDIO: Author Joe Haldeman explains how, fittingly, the idea for The Hemingway Hoax wasn't entirely his.
©1990 Joe Haldeman (P)2008 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
- Hugo Award Winner, Best Novella, 1991
"A dazzling entertainment that builds to an astonishing and moving conclusion." (Peter Straub)
"Haldeman at his best: fast, literate, suspenseful, and mordantly funny." (San Francisco Chronicle)
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The only oddity I noted was when the reader mentioned "the belt buckle with Gott Mit Uns," and the pronunciation seemed to blur the words together into "Got mittens?" It took me a moment to realize what it actually was, and I dismissed the mental picture of a kitten seeking his lost mittens. I listen to my audio books on the fastest setting, but usually this doesn't change words in this way.
Otherwise the book is perfectly satisfactory, and one I shall listen to again. As a novella, it's suited to trips of modest length, though I wish it were full length, as I really did enjoy it.
Well written, well read
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long to develop
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Disappointed
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While on vacation in Key West, John Baird, a Hemingway scholar, meets a conman named Castle in a bar. After telling Castle about Hemingway’s missing manuscript, Castle suggests that they forge it and make a lot of money. Baird refuses, of course, but Castle enlists Baird’s wife Lena and the two of them talk John into creating a forgery. Under pressure from his wife and his rapidly dwindling finances, John goes along with the plan but, unbeknownst to his co-conspirators, he makes a backup plan to protect himself in case of detection. Meanwhile, Lena and Castle are working another angle and the stage is set for betrayal, adultery, and murder.
Up to this point, Joe Haldeman’s short novel, The Hemingway Hoax, is a thriller, and it’d make a great movie. But Haldeman throws in a science fiction element involving Hemingway’s ghost, time travel, parallel universes, and metaphysics that will probably disappoint some readers because the hoax scheme was compelling enough without it. When the strange stuff starts, the focus of the story changes from the hoax to the parallel universes and readers who were hoping to see John create and publish a successful forgery will be disappointed.
However, fans of the Weird will appreciate the PKD-style deviation from the expected course of events, though they would probably like a few more explanations, including one for why each alternate universe John inhabits gets more violent. (The obvious explanation is simply that it increases the reader’s tension and allows Haldeman to add some explicit sex and violence scenes). Some readers will probably be irked that Haldeman is vague about why John Baird has certain abilities in parallel universes or exactly how Hemingway’s writings are so vital to the omniverse, but I enjoyed thinking about this possibility and the effects that literature could have on world history.
The Hemingway Hoax suffers slightly (at least from my perspective) from a lack of likable characters. At first it’s easy to appreciate John Baird, a mild-mannered academic who really wants to do the right thing. Later, though, we’re disappointed to learn that he’s just as willing to betray his wife as she is to betray him.
Overall, The Hemingway Hoax is entertaining if you go in knowing to expect it to turn weird and, eventually, gory. A shorter version of The Hemingway Hoax was originally published in 1990 in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine edited by Gardner Dozois and it won both the Nebula and Hugo awards for best novella. I listened to the audio production created by Audible Frontiers which is 4.5 hours long. It’s introduced by Joe Haldeman and excellently narrated by Eric Michael Summerer.
Award-winning novella
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Ok but not one of Haldeman's best
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not the right book
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What did you love best about The Hemingway Hoax?
The combination of historical Hemmingway information and time-travel/multi-verse ideas was incredible. Science and suspense at the same time .... loved it.What other book might you compare The Hemingway Hoax to and why?
Perhaps Time & Again by Jack Finney - a solid time-travel story combined with dramatic historical events.Which scene was your favorite?
Don't want to spoil anything ... the train scene was brilliant. "Close your mouth, John. You'll catch flies."Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Not especially; mostly just a very good read, some wonderful surprises at the end, and some hard thinking needed to keep up.Any additional comments?
Listen carefully, pay attention. Some of that stuff at the beginning matters at the end!Great story!
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Clever idea; distracted focus
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Gave me the creeps
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A waste of time
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