Half Way Home

Half Way Home
by Hugh Howey


Blurb:

Five hundred of us were sent to colonize this planet. Only fifty or so survived.

We woke up fifteen years too early, we had only half our training, and they expected us to not only survive... They expected us to conquer this place.

The problem is: it isn't safe here.

We aren't even safe from each other.

My Reaction:
(This was a DNF-- Did Not Finish.  First, I tried this as a shared read with Donald, selected on a whim because it was a temporary freebie.  We got bored and abandoned it, but I decided to continue on my own, thinking it might be better suited for reading alone.  I didn't get very far before giving up in disgust and skimming the last two chapters.)

The premise was promising, and it started out pretty well, but before long it felt as though the author stepped aside and let someone else pick up where he'd left off.  The quality of the writing went downhill, and I was endlessly irritated by the author's sledgehammer-weight "social issues" overtones.  Prepare for a heavy-handed message of "religion is bad/dangerous (and believers are insufferable and stupid)".  Oh, and you'll thrill to the totally-not-done-to-death cliche of the evil corporations that care about nothing but profit.  There's also a very odd focus on a character's sexuality (see spoiler section below).  That's not really what I expect (or want) to be the focus of a book that's ostensibly a sci-fi tale of survival in a hostile environment!

Amusingly (?), there's also a bit toward the end that is rather scathingly anti-abortion (see section below for direct quote), which I imagine would displease many of the same readers who thoroughly enjoyed the other "messages" in the book... Sure, in this book the ones being aborted are 15-year-olds-- so obviously it's wrong-wrong-wrong-- but we mustn't have the word "abortion" being sullied by association.  Didn't the author get the memo that it's not cool to question the morality of abortion?

I didn't realize this was supposed to be YA literature until after I'd started reading it-- and to be honest, I probably wouldn't have chosen it, if I'd known.  Some YA lit is great, but there's just so much dross to wade through to find the good ones-- unless you have a reliable recommendation to steer you aright.  (Of course, that's not true for just YA...)

I enjoyed the author's Wool series (though even those I felt were uneven in quality-- strong in premise, somewhat weaker in execution), but this was not nearly as interesting (beyond the "intro" section).  When I read his novella, The Hurricane, I had a similar sense of disappointment-- though that at least I managed to finish reading.  (That, too, was written for a YA audience; make of that what you will.)  Too bad... I wouldn't recommend this.


Specifics (with SPOILERS):
--The narrator is homosexual, and in the first quarter of the book that I read before skipping to the end, he seemed to struggle to come to terms with this fact.  It just kept cropping up, which felt weird and uncomfortable-- and frankly, completely out of place, given what I thought the focus of the book was going to be (i.e. a fight for survival on an alien planet).

Then, to make things even stranger, it's revealed at the end of the book that all the psychologists for the various colonization groups have been carefully selected to be homosexual (because apparently it's as easy as looking for some handy dandy gay gene).  Each psychologist is the only gay colonist in his/her group.  Since they won't be able to have a romantic relationship with another colonist, these psychologists will be completely impartial and clear-eyed (or something).  Enforced celibacy/monkhood.  Um, okay...  Yeah, it's not like people can form platonic bonds strong enough to make them emotionally involved, biased, or whatever else.

--"Note the pit in the earth where Geiger counters register the death of five hundred potential humans.  And know that you killed more than just them in your ruthless calculations.  You killed every generation that may have come after, if only you'd given them a chance."

If this sentiment is true when applied to 15-year-old colonists-in-goo, why isn't it true when applied to a fetus/unborn child?  Believe what you will.  Speak and vote for what you want-- but be honest with yourself about the results of what you're advocating.  (No wonder some readers get in a twist over this aspect of the book!)

--One review I've skimmed indicates that there are caterpillar-type creatures with golden poop.  As in, their "droppings" are literally made of gold.  (insert blank expression here)  If that's true... I no longer feel the slightest twinge of regret for giving this a one-star rating.