None So Blind

by Joe Haldeman, Robertson Dean (Narrator)

An award-winning visionary and true master of worlds and wonders, the man whom author David Brin calls "one of the best prophetic writers of our times," once again demonstrates the breathtaking scope and startling power of his imagination, transporting listeners across space and time, into the heart of darkness and the soul of madness. From the spine-tingling account of an intergalactic poacher's rite of passage to an erotic and ultimately uplifting modern fable of inner scars and otherworldly transformation, here are fifteen remarkable tales, including the classic novella The Hemingway Hoax. These are stories that sing with a unique and haunting voice--stories of war's monsters, of brutal art and lost stars, and a brief, miraculous moment called childhood, when a young girl can actually fly.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Poetry, Audiobook, War, Anthologies

MP3 CD

First published November 1, 1994

About the author

Brother of Jack C. Haldeman II

Haldeman is the author of 20 novels and five collections. The Forever War won the Nebula, Hugo and Ditmar Awards for best science fiction novel in 1975. Other notable titles include Camouflage, The Accidental Time Machine and Marsbound as well as the short works "Graves," "Tricentennial" and "The Hemingway Hoax." Starbound is scheduled for a January release. SFWA president Russell Davis called Haldeman "an extraordinarily talented writer, a respected teacher and mentor in our community, and a good friend."

Haldeman officially received the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master for 2010 by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America at the Nebula Awards Weekend in May, 2010 in Hollywood, Fla.

Reviews

[FernandoG · Rating 4 out of 5]

En este corto relato, el autor busca la perfección del ser humano y lo encuentra en la ceguera... Ante una limitación, se dirige a una concepción de perfección mayor... 3.8/5

[César Bustíos · Rating 4 out of 5]

¿Por qué no todos los ciegos son genios?

Y tú, ¿sacrificarías tu vista para ser más inteligente? Interesante.

Esta historia corta ganó nada menos que los premios Hugo y Locus en 1995.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collected stories, 1985-1994. Some of Haldeman’s best work, including his masterwork. 2019 reread. More chaff than I recalled. The author's story afterwords (in this edition, the 1996 hc) are unusually helpful.

TOC: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?2...
• Feedback • (1993) • novelette. Expensive art lessons. Remarkable story, 5 stars
• Passages • (1990) • novelette. SF hunting horror story. 3.5 stars
• Job Security • (1992) •vignette. Cute astronomy short-short.
• The Hemingway Hoax • (1990) • novella. Haldeman’s masterwork, I think. Not to be missed. 5+ stars! Here’s my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
179 • Images • (1991) • short story. An unusual actor and an unlikely romance. 3 stars.
197 • Beachhead • (1991) • short story. What if? Just OK, 2.5 stars
204 • The Monster • (1986) • short story. Vietnam horrors. 2 stars.
217 • If I Had the Wings of an Angel • (1991) • short story. Orbital sketch, 2.5 stars
223 • The Cure • (1994) • short story. Drama therapy goes bad, 2.5 stars.
239 • Graves • (1992) • short story. Vietnam horrors, prize winner, 4 stars.
250 • None So Blind • (1994) • short story. Strange story about removing one’s eyes for the intelligence boost. 3+ stars, award winner.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each short story is followed by a few paragraphs telling more about where the story came from & such. Very much influenced by his time in Vietnam, but a lot of other stuff & some surprising skills mixed in. The stories are all 3 stars or better & the afterwords were fantastic.

1 • Introduction: What You Don't Know Can't Hurt You • essay: Haldeman makes a case for NOT writing what you know, since he says he can't with SF. He says writing what you know applies to the mundane. Short & interesting.

7 • Feedback • (1993) • novelette: This was Haldeman's pick for the title & he kept it as the first story. What if a person could mesh enough with someone to use their skills? He has an artist who rents his talent out this way. Interesting, but too much painting technique. 3 stars

40 • Passages • [Confederación] • (1990) • novelette: I'm mixed about this & there's a lot to think about. I'd have liked it better if some information had been kept back a little longer. Still, the ending had a good punch & twist. 3.5 stars

66 • Job Security • (1992) • short story: Short & to the point. 4 stars

69 • The Hemingway Hoax • (1990) • novella: This was also published as the novel The Hemingway Hoax the same year. I don't get it, but it's an interesting story. It's a fun way to learn a bit more about Hemingway. 3 stars

179 • Images • (1991) • short story: interesting idea that kept me hooked the whole way. 4 stars

197 • Beachhead • (1991) • short story: Very nice twist! 4 stars

204 • The Monster • (1986) • short story: Interesting idea, but it never really sucked me in. Too busy. 2.5 stars

217 • If I Had the Wings of an Angel • (1991) • short story: Not much of a story unless you're a fan of RAH's The Menace from Earth & Haldeman's Worlds trilogy. I liked both, recognized what was going on, & enjoyed it. 3 stars

223 • The Cure • (1994) • short story: Well, that was odd. I think it was a nice twist, but I'm still wondering just what happened. 3 stars, maybe 4.

239 • Graves • (1992) • short story: horror story set in Vietnam.

250 • None So Blind • (1994) • short story: Wow! Excellent idea, but there was something a bit off about the delivery. Too much emphasis on the early life which made the end feel rushed. It sure makes a person think, though. 5 stars

263 • The Homecoming • (1990) • poem (variant of Homecoming)
268 • Fire, Ice • (1994) • poem
275 • Time Lapse • (1989) • poem
279 • DX • (1987) • poem: Poems aren't really my thing. They weren't bad, though.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good collection of Haldeman's short work, most of which first appeared in the early half of the 1990s. The award-winning novella The Hemingway Hoax is anchor piece of the book, and is a terrific piece of multidimensional literary fraud, but the titular story is poignantly memorable, too. There are several enjoyable poems included, and each story is accompanied by interesting commentary. Haldeman is one of those writers in the field known best as a novelist, but may be stronger at the short length.

[John Devlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Haldeman is an excellent storyteller. Interested more in the people than what they create.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a lot to think about in this collection and I now see why Haldeman is held in such respect. He's clearly an excellent storyteller and knows just the right buttons to push. Though many of the topics here could be considered dated, particularly since the Vietnam War is something often referenced, the stories themselves are still quite relevant. I am a sucker for the mix of genre topics alongside well-crafted prose and appreciate genre authors that take the writing aspect seriously. The Hemingway story is a real mind-bender and an excellent example of literary and genre existing side by side. I very much enjoyed his notes at the end of each piece where he explained which parts of the stories had roots in his actual experience. It is also a relief to read fiction from a white male in sci-fi where the politics don't make you cringe. The occasional gay character and the male protagonist who is a jerk by design and not by default were unexpected surprises.

[ernest (Ellen) · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Review for title work)

the brain as a universal substrate partitioned to do specific tasks (like a Unix disk partition) - what if the theory of equipotentiality were true? What if the brain, like a shepherdess moving a herd across a meadow, could have complete reconfigurability? Haldeman leans into this extreme to explore what would happen if all blind people could tap into their unused partitions and became geniuses.

“For thirteen years she had been using it to say what she would not say with her voice, perhaps to see what she could not see with her eyes, and on the deceptively simple romantic matrix that Massenet built to present the beautiful courtesan Thaïs gloriously reborn as the bride of Christ, Amy forgave her Godless universe for taking her sight, and praised it for what she was given in return”

[Buck · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read None So Blind by Joe Haldeman because his The Forever War is not available in eBook or audiobook format for download from my public library. I hadn't read Haldeman before. So, now, I've added him to my mental list of good authors.

One thing I liked about None so Blind is the author's afterword following each story. It was clear that his service in Viet Nam and his wounds had a significant impact on his writing, and presumably, his life.

The stories are mostly good. The narrator of the audiobook, Tom Weiner, was okay, but his voice seems a little hard and expressionless. After a while, not so much. But I think the audiobook might have been even better with a different reader.

Looks like I'll be going to the library to check out the book The Forever War.

[Little Timmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great collection of short stories by Haldeman. If you like SiFi short stories or full length novels Haldeman has written something for you. My favorite modern SiFi writer. Very recommended

[Autumn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing collection of short stories with a good breadth of subjects all (to varying degrees) in the sci-fi genre. This was my first Joe Haldeman book. Loved his writing style, so I feel inclined to seek out more of his writing.

[Redsteve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of this collection of Haldeman short fiction (and 4 poems) from the early 1990s, I was really only grabbed by "The Hemingway Hoax," which is OK because it's the longest story (novella actually) in the collection. Also fairly enjoyable were "Monster," "The Cure," "Graves," and "None so Blind." Most of the other stories seemed either too brief, too basic SF-y, or both. Especially "Job Security," which the author states he wrote in a couple of hours - this is have NO trouble believing. I actually liked most of the poetry. While, there is a pretty good range of themes, pretty much all have some Viet Nam war aspect (because, you know, Haldeman) - part or whole of the story set during the war, characters' backgrounds in the war, and/or dreams/hallucinations of the war. Solid 3 stars. 3.5 if you eliminate the first three stories.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joe Haldeman has been a major figure in SF since he first burst on the scene in the 1970s, and is best known for his Hugo and Nebula award winning novels "The Forever War", "Forever Peace", and "Camouflage". Here, he demonstrates his mastery of the short form in this superb short story collection. While all of the selections are excellent, the standouts are "Graves" , a horror-fantasy based in part on his own experiences in Vietnam and the winner of the Nebula and the World Fantasy Awards, the Hugo Award winning title story, and most of all, the Hugo and Nebula award winning novella "The Hemingway Hoax". Here Haldeman, who is also a creative writing and literature professor, crafts a SF tinged explanation of what happened to the famous suitcase full of manuscripts that was stolen from a French train station in the 1920s. What makes the novella so special is how Haldeman tells it - each section of the story is written in Hemingway 's style as it evolved throughout his career, so that the piece is also homage to and an analysis of Hemingway's greatness as a writer. It is a tour de force by a writer who himself has been called the Hemingway of Science Fiction. This book is not to be missed.

[Christie K.Rowling · Rating 1 out of 5]

"No hay mayor ciego"......para leer esto es mejor estarlo 😷

[Brad Guy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joe Haldeman has been sadly absent from my library. I've read a couple novels, a short story here and there, little else. This collection and one other, (Infinite Dreams), helps to patch that gap. Of the eleven stories and four poems in None So Blind, there were none that I didn't like, and a few that I felt were very good. Especially the title story, which in addition to being an interesting story, seemed especially well written. "Cletus knew that he was ugly and his mother dressed him funny. He was also short and pudgy and could not throw a ball in any direction. None of this bothered him until his ductless glands started cooking up chemicals that weren't in his chemistry set." Some books are lucky to have a handful of lines like that, this story is completely full of them.

There are a couple thematic elements that run consistently through these stories. One is the Vietnam veteran who got his balls blown off during the war. A lot of his characters had to face this trauma. It gets a little hard to take after a while, but I can understand why it keeps showing up in his stories. Another is the old science fiction shape-shifting trope. A shape-shifter is the main character in his 2004 novel Camouflage, and now I see that Haldeman had written a lot about them in his earlier work too. I especially liked the short story Images, where a shape shifting alien helps a couple hippies find true love, despite their perceived handicaps.

Of all the stories in this collection, the poem The Homecoming is one that brought me to tears. About a guy who spent his life along the Florida coast, watching launches. I've spent my life watching those same launches on TV, but I can totally relate to this.

I like it when an author spends a few minutes before or after a story explaining himself. Where the idea came from, why he wrote it just so, when and where it was published, etc. The preface to this collection was especially good. Haldeman points out something so obvious it's a wonder it isn't more common: There is an old rule in writing fiction that Joe calls "...a pernicious lie: Write what you know. Teachers from the fourth grade through graduate school keep telling their students to write what they know, and it's a principle that seems so self-evident that neither students nor teachers question it. ( It's also why there are so many novels about college professors committing adultery with their students, or at least fantasizing about it.) I'm a science fiction writer, and I would certainly be paralyzed if I were restricted to writing about what I, or anybody else, actually knew from experience. Nobody has ever talked to a Martian, or used mental telepathy to control others, or travel through time." In short, science fiction could not exist if people only wrote what they knew. He then goes on for several paragraphs about how it's important to get your details right, insofar as it's possible. This is well worth remembering.

With luck this won't be my last reading of Joe Haldeman.

[Israel Laureano · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es un cuento corto (un poco más de 4,000 palabras). Un genio se pregunta ¿por qué no todos los ciegos son genios?, es decir, todas las zonas que usa el cerebro para procesamiento de imagen están sin uso, entonces, ¿por qué el cerebro no las reutiliza?
Con el tiempo el genio conoce a una mujer ciega; congenian, se hace novios y finalmente se casan. Él es chaparro, regordete y bastante feo, y siendo un nerd, tampoco tiene una simpatía arrolladora; ella tampoco es muy agraciada físicamente, pero al ser él un genio intelectual, y ella ciega, la relación se centra en su afinidad intelectual. Ella es inteligente a nivel normal, donde muestra su genialidad es como intérprete musical, sobre todo cuando toca el violín.
Pero él sí es un genio en muchos campos intelectuales, al grado que muchas universidades y hasta el prestigioso MIT le ofrecen becas y le ruegan que estudie con ellos (para ganar prestigio). Estudia varias carreras y hace varios doctorados, y finalmente diseña un procedimiento y operación neuronal para aprovechar las zonas en desuso de los ciegos. Busca a varios cirujanos hábiles y de moralidad dudosa y opera a su amada. La operación implica la destrucción de todo el sentido de la vista (implica incluso quitarles los ojos a los pacientes) pero eleva la habilidad intelectual a niveles sobrehumanos, al grado que el genio ahora parece lerdo y tontín junto a su amada (que renueva totalmente su amor mientras va disfrutando las ventajas de su nueva superinteligencia). A pesar de que el procesamiento y la operación están prohibidas por todos los comités de ética médica en el mundo, mucha gente gustosa sacrifica su vista con tal de volverse superinteligentes, así que los pacientes van aumentando: 10, 200, 1000, 10000, 20000…
El cuento cierra mencionando que la especie humana se ha automejorado, y que los que no han sido operados y conservan su vista, so ahora sensiblemente inferiores.

El estilo narrativo de Haldeman es trabajoso, enrevesado, da muchas vueltas en sus descripciones, nunca es directo. Pero todo se equilibra por la imaginación y brillo de sus ideas.
Otra cosa que quería comentar, pero se me había olvidado: estoy casi seguro que este es un libro rebelde. Lo estuve buscando en Apple Books, en Amazon y en Google Books. Solamente encontré dos ediciones en inglés en presentación de árbol muerto en Amazon y en Google. Creo que no existe en español mas que en esta edición libre.

[Pat Rolston · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this as a follow up to Haldeman’s, ‘Forever War,’ and I am pleased with the decision. I especially enjoy well executed short stories as they often reveal an author’s peak creativity. This doesn’t require any plot reveals or inducement from my perspective as the stories stand on their own and confirmed my aforementioned idea as valid. The experience the author had in Vietnam greatly impacts his story lines and style, so be prepared for themes that do involve war and graphic content.

[Chad Gayle · Rating 3 out of 5]

A couple of the stories in this collection were just awful, and "The Hemingway Hoax," which I was looking forward to reading, wasn't nearly as good as I'd been led to believe it would be.

A lot more machismo in these tales than was necessary. I think Infinite Dreams is a better collection overall.

[Cristina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Only read "None so blind" - the winner of Hugo Award for short story in 1995 - speculative fiction on the subject of body integrity identity disorder and voluntary self-mutilation... it's not as bad as it sounds :)

[Amanda Felice · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful collection of thought provoking short stories. Each one is unique and well written.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book of shortstories. Pretty much all shortstory collections are hit and miss. This one had more hits than most.

[Glimmer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Review only for the titular short story None So Blind

[Julie Capell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although more than one of the stories in this collection have won prestigious awards (Hugos, Nebulas, etc.), the selections I enjoyed the most were not the award winners.

The first story, “Feedback,” focused on a painter and was the most obviously science-fictional of all the stories. It brought up some very interesting ideas that I have not seen in scifi before, and the art angle was also unique.
The second story, “Passages,” featured two men hunting on another planet. At first I thought there was nothing new here, but then the ending had one of those twists that I really enjoy in short fiction.

“Job Security” is a short-short story, and reminded me of several other stories and novels including Nightfall (Asimov) and Spin (Wilson) but from a different angle. If you enjoyed this short story I would highly recommend these other books.

The novella “The Hemingway Hoax” takes up about half of the book, and is a Hugo and Nebula award winner but it felt overly long to me. Also, since I am not a huge fan of Hemingway that probably diminished my appreciation of this piece.

The next story, “Images,” begins a trend that continues for most of the rest of the book: the protagonists deal in various ways with the aftereffects of combat. In “Images” the main character deals with his own self-image after receiving grievous injuries in battle. “Beachhead” has a subtext of survivor’s guilt wrapped in a scifi setting. “The Monster,” “The Cure” and “Graves” (winner of a World Fantasy and a Nebula award) all involve PTSD scenarios. Each story was well written but the subject matter didn’t particularly connect with me.

I appreciated much more the non-combat story “If I had the Wings of an Angel” and even looked into reading the full trilogy about this spirited female character (The “Worlds” trilogy).

“None So Blind,” winner of yet another Hugo and the final short story in the collection, had an intriguing premise which isn’t so very far-fetched, if you’ve been staying on top of medical research trends of late.

The real revelation of the collection for me, however, was the poetry at the end. These poems were refreshing because their content was very different from most poetry I’ve read. In fact, I think this may be the only science fictional poetry I’ve ever seen. I wish more authors would include some poetry along with their short works.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an unintentional but interesting juxtaposition to follow The Things They Carried. Both authors are Vietnam vets; both are clearly processing their experiences through their writing. But unlike O'Brien's searing nonfiction, Haldeman chooses to mix in some elements of the fantastic. There's some common threads through some of these stories--a couple have similar "there's a monster in the jungle and it's coming to get you" themes that I can see easily arising from long nights of peering into the darkness.

But many of them merely deal with the returned veteran, in which the past is merely a character detail. "The Hemingway Hoax", for example, features a war-wounded protagonist whose injuries do not drive the plot but do offer him insight into Hemingway's own injuries, which become strangely relevant as time- and world-jumping creep into the story.

Others have nothing to do with the war. "Feedback" showcases the intersection between art and passion. "Job Security" is a lovely, brief little gem about the role of the "normal folks" during a galactic catastrophe. The title story is an effervescent introduction to a world of horror.

The collection is rounded out with a handful of excellent poems that are every bit as engaging as the stories.

[Alex Shrugged · Rating 2 out of 5]

"None So Blind" is set of short stories interesting for those who remember the Vietnam War because much of the book deals with short stories about that war. The book is dated though not terribly so.

Probably the most interesting story in this collection is one about a college professor who decides to create a forgery of lost works of Earnest Hemingway. Most of the story has nothing to do with Hemingway. It is a story of multi-universes... somewhat like the movie Source Code.

BTW, the book is quite immodest so adults only.

Joe Haldeman made his name with "The Forever War", a great book about a space soldier who lives long enough to see the end of war...mirroring the Vietnam experience and carrying it to a logical conclusion...In SPACE!

[Julieta Steyr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Todo empezó cuando Cletus Jefferson se preguntó: "¿Por qué no todos los ciegos son genios?"

Debo admitir que al principio, Cletus es un personaje defectuosamente encantador, gusta, queremos que triunfe. Una vez que los años pasan y él se va especializando, se convierte en un ser amoral pero de eso se trata esta historia, de preguntarse qué ocurriría si ciertas cosas sucedieran.
Sumamente recomendable y como siempre, la ciencia ficción tiene los premios más confiables de todo el universo de los libros.

[Andrew Obrigewitsch · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a real mixed bag, a few of the stories where quite good, however it felt like all of them kept repeating some of the same themes, namely his time in Viet Nam and the wounds he took there. It was interesting a few times, but Joe, please come up with something else, it felt like every story in here was a fictionalized version of your life, I'm sure you can think of new concepts that don't involve wounded Viet Nam vets.

[Brigid · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audiobook: Solid collection of some of Haldeman's most famous stories, most of which are connected by some hint of the author's own experiences in Vietnam. I appreciated the author's notes at the end of each story. My favorite one was about warmongers and how much your reality depends on what people tell you.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of short stories including the novella "The Hemingway Hoax." All were very readable. Some were slightly pointless in my opinion, but others made up for it. His straightforward style makes for easy and quick reading.

[Mike Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of short stories by Joe Haldeman, I absolutely loved them! The Hemingway story was awesome. I had never heard of Joe Haldeman before, I will most certainly be looking for more of his work.