Half Way Home by Hugh HoweyBroad Reach Publishing (ebook), 2010
368 Pages
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.
I was a blastocyst, once. A mere jumble of cells clinging to one another. A fertilized egg. Of course, we were all in just such a state at some point in our lives, but I excelled at it in a way you didn't. I spent more time in that condition than I have as a person.
Half Way Home is not as good as the author's other books. I fell in love with his work when I read the Silo series but this book fails to deliver.
I absolutely loved the idea behind Half Way Home. Humans waking up fifteen years too early to colonize a planet with only half the skills and training needed to get the job done. Sounds brilliant, right? Not really. The first issue is the narrator is not believable as a fifteen-year-old boy. I know the book is set in the future and humans and technology are described as being more advanced. Why give a character an age then if age is irrelevant? The character is supposed to be fifteen but sounds like someone in their thirties or even forties. I didn't buy it. I also had an issue with the main character being gay. I'm gay so love it when an author has a gay person as the protagonist. However, the narrator is such a stereotype - an effeminate gay man that it actually irritated me. The book is well written and I liked the way the story develops. I just felt this was not Hugh Howey's best work.
Half Way Home is a decent story but not the author's best work.
