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Half Life
In about two hundred years, the human race on Earth is perhaps facing extinction due to the rapid evolution of disease. A crew of young men and women travel to the moons of Saturn, to Titan, to investigate the biochemistry of the pre-life conditions there in the slim hope of discovering something that might save Earth. The whole story runs at high-speed, as they race to find answers across the surface of an alien landscape with death close behind . . . and gaining.
272 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published September 1, 1999
8 people are currently reading
111 people want to read
About the author
Hal Clement
178 books115 followersHarry Clement Stubbs better known by the pen name
Hal Clement
, was an American science fiction writer and a leader of the hard science fiction subgenre.
Further details at Wikipedia.
Further details at Wikipedia.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
December 30, 2020
'Half Life' by Hal Clement is the hardest science hard-science-fiction novel I have ever read in my life! It also is a very original book about an ongoing extinction of all life on Earth. However, most readers will not be able to understand a lot of what is happening unless they also enjoy science books or magazines that are not really for the general reader unless they've had at least introductory chemistry studies. For example, I have a superficial knowledge about elements and the periodic table. But I couldn't tell you anything about specific chemical reactions or how to read specific formulas. I know generally about how airplanes fly, but not every specific science intricacy of flying an airplane. In this novel, those subjects are used and described in depth and they are important parts of the plot involving scientific discoveries and dangers.
That said, I enjoyed reading this book. It is a challenging read, but it also is incredibly interesting!
Fifty science investigators were launched in a space ship to Saturn's moon Titan. Half of the crew have died already as the book opens, and except for three of them they are all afflicted with deadly diseases which will eventually kill them. Most of them are around thirty and forty years old. There are no cures for any of their diseases. They do not expect to physically be able to return to Earth. They can send messages and information which takes three hours one way.
No one knows why, but all of Humanity are getting sick and dying from viral and bacterial sicknesses, as well as other types of diseases, which scientists cannot keep up with. As soon as a vaccine is developed, the virus or bacteria mutates into another form very quickly. Also cancers and strange rare diseases have become common, striking everywhere in every country in the world. Some people think the slow killing off of all human life is intentional, others believe it is an unknown natural cause. The one thing that everyone can agree upon is unless the reason is found why Human Life itself is suddenly not viable in the long-term at all anywhere on the planet, it's the end of humans.
The twenty remaining scientific investigators are continuing to study Titan in an effort to seek knowledge of how Life begins. Success is not expected, but desperation has brought about this decision. There is nothing else possible to try except maybe if it can be seen how life processes work at the beginning, maybe an answer can be found to why Life is quitting on Earth. It has been determined Titan is a likely place for Life to start as it did on Earth even if it will be different. Their intention is to first examine and document every chemical process which is currently occurring on Titan in the atmosphere and on the ground. Then they intend to kickstart Life on Titan by messing with the ongoing natural chemical reactions taking place on Titan, some of which is prebiological, hoping to mix elements into the biological.
The investigators are helped by an AI called Status. They have a space station, Waldo suits, aircraft, portable labs - all kinds of amazing advanced tech. The aircraft use water as a fuel, and they fuel up by scooping water from Titan's clouds. Because each of them are very fragile physically, they all are quarantined in their cells on the space station. The technology they have enables them to each fly the aircraft and run equipment virtually. They have space suits for emergencies, and maybe one day they will land on Titan for real - if they aren't too sick or fragile. For the moment, they are exploring and studying Titan using VR.
This is a very different book from anything I have read before, and I don't mean only in the science fiction genre. It IS a science fiction novella, but the writing is dense with science description as if I were reading an article in Scientific American. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson is the closest as far as being about an imaginary process of studying an imaginary place with real science techniques and realistic thought-experiment 'what if' plot development, but 'Half Life' is really more science article than plot.
The characters have been given enough personality to exist on the page, but barely. They serve to explore Titan and get killed in accidents. Of course, they are sick and they are focused and they all know their only purpose is scientific study because basically they are doomed. They have all signed off on directives of polite behavior to minimize backbiting and sarcastic dealings with each other. Plus, there actually is a discovery made on Titan which might stop the extinction of Humanity! So.
I have made an effort to read science magazines and science articles somewhat above my pay grade for years. I understood the gist of not the detailed mechanics going on in the story. However, I don't recommend this read unless you are hard science geeks, not just the lesser category of being a nerd. The novella drew me in despite it's dense chemical and other types of speculative hard science which almost lost me in following what was going on sometimes. I liked it, but it was because of its novelty rather than its literary quality.
That said, I enjoyed reading this book. It is a challenging read, but it also is incredibly interesting!
Fifty science investigators were launched in a space ship to Saturn's moon Titan. Half of the crew have died already as the book opens, and except for three of them they are all afflicted with deadly diseases which will eventually kill them. Most of them are around thirty and forty years old. There are no cures for any of their diseases. They do not expect to physically be able to return to Earth. They can send messages and information which takes three hours one way.
No one knows why, but all of Humanity are getting sick and dying from viral and bacterial sicknesses, as well as other types of diseases, which scientists cannot keep up with. As soon as a vaccine is developed, the virus or bacteria mutates into another form very quickly. Also cancers and strange rare diseases have become common, striking everywhere in every country in the world. Some people think the slow killing off of all human life is intentional, others believe it is an unknown natural cause. The one thing that everyone can agree upon is unless the reason is found why Human Life itself is suddenly not viable in the long-term at all anywhere on the planet, it's the end of humans.
The twenty remaining scientific investigators are continuing to study Titan in an effort to seek knowledge of how Life begins. Success is not expected, but desperation has brought about this decision. There is nothing else possible to try except maybe if it can be seen how life processes work at the beginning, maybe an answer can be found to why Life is quitting on Earth. It has been determined Titan is a likely place for Life to start as it did on Earth even if it will be different. Their intention is to first examine and document every chemical process which is currently occurring on Titan in the atmosphere and on the ground. Then they intend to kickstart Life on Titan by messing with the ongoing natural chemical reactions taking place on Titan, some of which is prebiological, hoping to mix elements into the biological.
The investigators are helped by an AI called Status. They have a space station, Waldo suits, aircraft, portable labs - all kinds of amazing advanced tech. The aircraft use water as a fuel, and they fuel up by scooping water from Titan's clouds. Because each of them are very fragile physically, they all are quarantined in their cells on the space station. The technology they have enables them to each fly the aircraft and run equipment virtually. They have space suits for emergencies, and maybe one day they will land on Titan for real - if they aren't too sick or fragile. For the moment, they are exploring and studying Titan using VR.
This is a very different book from anything I have read before, and I don't mean only in the science fiction genre. It IS a science fiction novella, but the writing is dense with science description as if I were reading an article in Scientific American. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson is the closest as far as being about an imaginary process of studying an imaginary place with real science techniques and realistic thought-experiment 'what if' plot development, but 'Half Life' is really more science article than plot.
The characters have been given enough personality to exist on the page, but barely. They serve to explore Titan and get killed in accidents. Of course, they are sick and they are focused and they all know their only purpose is scientific study because basically they are doomed. They have all signed off on directives of polite behavior to minimize backbiting and sarcastic dealings with each other. Plus, there actually is a discovery made on Titan which might stop the extinction of Humanity! So.
I have made an effort to read science magazines and science articles somewhat above my pay grade for years. I understood the gist of not the detailed mechanics going on in the story. However, I don't recommend this read unless you are hard science geeks, not just the lesser category of being a nerd. The novella drew me in despite it's dense chemical and other types of speculative hard science which almost lost me in following what was going on sometimes. I liked it, but it was because of its novelty rather than its literary quality.
May 22, 2014
The worst Hal Clement book. Normally, I don't fault him for cardboard characters or contrived plot, because his other books deliver on the science. The tension in this book comes from a mysterious disease that makes absolutely zero biomedical sense. This vision of Saturn's moon Titan is as much a stinky glob as the ending, and just as unsatisfying. There's no excuse for the flabbergasting lack of biological knowledge. This book was written in 2000. It just sucks. The ending sucks the hardest.
May 16, 2020
Half Life is set on Titan rather than on a wild fictional world of Clement's creation, so the setting is not as far-out and challenging as readers were used to encountering from him. It's a rather dark and depressing tale triggered by multiple global pandemics that cause a team of scientists, many of whom are terminally ill, to head off for research. The thrust of the story is for scientific research and chemical application; the characters are not well developed and the action seems secondary, and I prefer his speculations on physics and astronomy to chemistry and biology. Still, it's a well done hard-sf story, with all of his trademark thought-provoking speculation; I suppose I'm saying it's good, but not fun. I did not care for the ending, even though it may have been appropriate.
January 12, 2011
New, fatal diseases started appearing at a vastly faster rate than ever before in the early 21st century, and a few centuries later, humanity has managed only to bring the death rate roughly in line with an increased birth rate again. Science has become a semi-military discipline; it's responsible for the defense of humanity against its greatest threat. Against this background, an expedition is sent to Titan, to study, it is hoped, pre-biotic conditions, and gain an understanding of biological principles from the base up. This may lead to the knowledge that will enable scientists to figure out what has caused the runaway explosion of disease.
The expedition consists of fifty people, both men and women, most of them suffering from one terminal disease or another. Twenty-one are still alive by the time they are in orbit over Titan and have their space station operational. This is where the story really starts, and most of the action is discussion. For the most part, the members of the expedition stay in sealed quarters, having no direct contact with each other, and only rarely venturing out physically to the surface of Titan. They operate equipment via waldoes and virtual reality.
All of this creates a sense of distance from both the action and the characters that's hard to shake. Titan is an interesting intellectual puzzle, and so, sometimes, are the motives of the characters, but I felt little sense of emotional involvement in their problems. Granted that one expects a Hal Clement book to emphasize the intellectual over the emotional; this book seemed significantly more tilted that way than, say, Mission of Gravity, or Iceworld, or Close to Critical.
The expedition consists of fifty people, both men and women, most of them suffering from one terminal disease or another. Twenty-one are still alive by the time they are in orbit over Titan and have their space station operational. This is where the story really starts, and most of the action is discussion. For the most part, the members of the expedition stay in sealed quarters, having no direct contact with each other, and only rarely venturing out physically to the surface of Titan. They operate equipment via waldoes and virtual reality.
All of this creates a sense of distance from both the action and the characters that's hard to shake. Titan is an interesting intellectual puzzle, and so, sometimes, are the motives of the characters, but I felt little sense of emotional involvement in their problems. Granted that one expects a Hal Clement book to emphasize the intellectual over the emotional; this book seemed significantly more tilted that way than, say, Mission of Gravity, or Iceworld, or Close to Critical.
December 8, 2011
There is actual science in this book! My chemistry is a little rusty, so I found it hard to follow in places, but it was moderate amounts of fun. I think the premise was the most interesting part of the book.
January 25, 2022
One of those books I read when I'm trying to branch out and not read the same kind of stuff I always read. It was interesting. I disagree with the blurb on Amazon that describes this book as "fast paced." While, yes, there is a need to get information back to Earth (all of this is explained before the opening of the book) much of the action is talking heads as the individually quarantined team members discuss their next step. Because of G06 these discussions are carefully measured and each person's non verbal thoughts are included by the author so we can get how controlled society has become due to the plagues, pandemics and sharp rise of cancers. I kinda like that. Seems like in real life the actual pandemic has put common etiquette on the back burner.
I agree with some of the other reviewers that it is heavy on the chemistry and mechanics of space travel. It is a short book and took me surprizingly long to get through it for that reason. It helped to go back and re-read chapters because sometimes I had no idea what was going on, and I figured I'll skim over that and maybe it will become clearer later on. . . The third time I read the first chapter it made a lot more sense to me. I finally figured out what a "waldo" suit was, (it's not a striped shirt halloween costume, lol)
I agree with some of the other reviewers that it is heavy on the chemistry and mechanics of space travel. It is a short book and took me surprizingly long to get through it for that reason. It helped to go back and re-read chapters because sometimes I had no idea what was going on, and I figured I'll skim over that and maybe it will become clearer later on. . . The third time I read the first chapter it made a lot more sense to me. I finally figured out what a "waldo" suit was, (it's not a striped shirt halloween costume, lol)
June 6, 2022
I wish I remembered more chemistry than I do, parts of the book would have been more impressive.
I liked the story but sometimes the writing style made me think I had missed a few pages.
I prefer SF where its about big ideas or new discoveries, etc, I generally am less interested in the characters.
And this had a lot of science and engineering in it. It felt like Clarke or Asimov.
I liked the story but sometimes the writing style made me think I had missed a few pages.
I prefer SF where its about big ideas or new discoveries, etc, I generally am less interested in the characters.
And this had a lot of science and engineering in it. It felt like Clarke or Asimov.
January 25, 2025
This story had its intrigue. The author certainly had a good knowledge of astronomy and chemistry. The story was pretty dry at times filled with lots of moments of the crew talking in jargon about their research. Although the story did have some interesting twists and turns as some crew members died. The dangerous slimy stuff at the end was an interesting twist but the ending did not seem to make much sense. It doesn’t make sense why they are in space on Titan finding a cure for humanity. At the end they seem to find it but it isn’t clear what it is or how it relates to their mental conditions like Alzheimer’s. It was kind of confusing but a very interesting setting. The snow blizzard was an interesting environment.
July 3, 2014
Clement's science fiction really was fiction about science - his day job was as a chemistry teacher, and he was interested in thinking in some detail about the consequences of of life under alien conditions. And sharing that thinking with his readers.
This leads to a particular kind of story that appeals to a particular kind of audience. Premise is all in his novels. What would life be like on a world that rotated so fast its gravity was 200 times greater at the poles than the equator? How would an alien from a much hotter world perceive Earth?
By this standard, Half Life does not overwhelm. The premise is a grim one, but not particularly exotic. A few hundred years from now, new, deadly diseases start to crop up faster than medical science can combat them, and humanity's long population growth turns into a decline, with a half-life of just under 70 years. Other species are dying too. Scientific research is placed on a quasi-military footing to try to find a way to halt the decline. The book follows a crew of scientists and engineers prospecting for possibly helpful scientific discoveries on Saturn's moon Titan. Titan is, in real life, a chemically interesting moon, with hydrocarbon lakes under a thick nitrogen atmosphere, and the hope in the book is that exploring the chemistry of such an alien environment might fill in gaps that could somehow help. The jackpot would be to catch a new form of life in the process of evolving from non-life.
The crew does not expect to return to Earth, and mostly suffer from the various terminal illnesses that have been afflicting humanity.
There are adventures, deaths, and injuries; puzzles and discoveries; and (characteristically) very little emotion. The portrayal of Titan is convincing (in some ways the best part of the book) and the landing of the Huygens Probe in 2005 did little to prove Clement wrong.
Even though this is far from Clements' most interesting or cleverest book, I wonder if it isn't one of his most personal ones. He was in his late seventies when he wrote it, and, as he looked around and saw more of his contemporaries dying, it must have felt on a small scale like what all of humanity faced in his book. As an older person living with diabetes, he could probably relate to his characters' challenges with their medical conditions. Also like his characters, he was a curious soul who took great pleasure from finding things out. I hope the last line if his book was true for him:
"They lived happily ever after while they lived."
This leads to a particular kind of story that appeals to a particular kind of audience. Premise is all in his novels. What would life be like on a world that rotated so fast its gravity was 200 times greater at the poles than the equator? How would an alien from a much hotter world perceive Earth?
By this standard, Half Life does not overwhelm. The premise is a grim one, but not particularly exotic. A few hundred years from now, new, deadly diseases start to crop up faster than medical science can combat them, and humanity's long population growth turns into a decline, with a half-life of just under 70 years. Other species are dying too. Scientific research is placed on a quasi-military footing to try to find a way to halt the decline. The book follows a crew of scientists and engineers prospecting for possibly helpful scientific discoveries on Saturn's moon Titan. Titan is, in real life, a chemically interesting moon, with hydrocarbon lakes under a thick nitrogen atmosphere, and the hope in the book is that exploring the chemistry of such an alien environment might fill in gaps that could somehow help. The jackpot would be to catch a new form of life in the process of evolving from non-life.
The crew does not expect to return to Earth, and mostly suffer from the various terminal illnesses that have been afflicting humanity.
There are adventures, deaths, and injuries; puzzles and discoveries; and (characteristically) very little emotion. The portrayal of Titan is convincing (in some ways the best part of the book) and the landing of the Huygens Probe in 2005 did little to prove Clement wrong.
Even though this is far from Clements' most interesting or cleverest book, I wonder if it isn't one of his most personal ones. He was in his late seventies when he wrote it, and, as he looked around and saw more of his contemporaries dying, it must have felt on a small scale like what all of humanity faced in his book. As an older person living with diabetes, he could probably relate to his characters' challenges with their medical conditions. Also like his characters, he was a curious soul who took great pleasure from finding things out. I hope the last line if his book was true for him:
"They lived happily ever after while they lived."
May 17, 2013
This is fairly hard science fiction. There are three premises. First, humanity is dying, because disease outbreaks are more and more frequent and virulent, medicine produces cures but never fast enough. Second, a lot of the remaining population has joined a military-science culture that enforces thinking rationally and detachedly. Thirdly (and this makes no sense), this post-scarcity but collapsing culture somehow decides sending a bunch of people to Titan will help with medical problems on Earth....?
The characters are nearly indistinguishable, presumably because of the military-science culture.
The action is okay, but not exactly exciting - you aren't invested in the characters directly and rarely do events impinge on the big mystery.
The ending is a travesty - we go from hard science fiction to, well, hard nonsense.
The characters are nearly indistinguishable, presumably because of the military-science culture.
The action is okay, but not exactly exciting - you aren't invested in the characters directly and rarely do events impinge on the big mystery.
The ending is a travesty - we go from hard science fiction to, well, hard nonsense.
January 8, 2015
This is a strange book, full of science sounding phrases and high speed crashes and jet handling.
I liked it, but i have to say it was difficult to read because of all the confusing concepts. You just have to let them go, let them pass over your head so you can actually enjoy the things that happen in the story.
The gist of it is that humanity is being kicked in the 'nads' by diseases, which are mutating at a rate unheard of. So the logical solution is, of course, to send a mission of fatally sick non-specialist to Titan (that is a moon on Saturn) to study possible cradles of life as a way to find an answer to the disease mutation problem.
Ok, so the central line is a bit far-fetched. But the story is well structured, the characters well developed and the technology my man Hal visualized is great.
I give 3 stars on the account of so many over-anyone-head concepts and explanations. It made me pause the read for some weeks.
I liked it, but i have to say it was difficult to read because of all the confusing concepts. You just have to let them go, let them pass over your head so you can actually enjoy the things that happen in the story.
The gist of it is that humanity is being kicked in the 'nads' by diseases, which are mutating at a rate unheard of. So the logical solution is, of course, to send a mission of fatally sick non-specialist to Titan (that is a moon on Saturn) to study possible cradles of life as a way to find an answer to the disease mutation problem.
Ok, so the central line is a bit far-fetched. But the story is well structured, the characters well developed and the technology my man Hal visualized is great.
I give 3 stars on the account of so many over-anyone-head concepts and explanations. It made me pause the read for some weeks.
December 11, 2014
Hal Clement is a favorite of mine, because he is one of only a handful of true science fiction writers. By "true" I mean a book that stays solidly in the realm of what we understand as the laws of physics - no warp drives, transporters, or time travel. Moreover, he writes with the insight of a scientist, and solves logical problems by reasoning, hypothesis, and experiment. Within that framework, he tells an adventure story of a group of a few dozen human beings, all doing research into the fundamental issues of how life comes about, because the human race is dying out and they desperately need some new understanding to turn the tide.
May 8, 2016
Hard SF at it's best.
"His rank was irrelevant; he was a doctor, and rational people still tended to follow doctors' recommendations even with the full knowledge that they amounted to experiments with no two identical subjects. Human beings vary in more than hair color."
"The Saturn group of educated nonspecialists was presumably better qualified than most to judge whether a silly conclusion was due to a faulty assumptions, but its members still had the normal human difficulty believing anything which would make for personal inconvenience." [and my ex comes roaring to mind.]
"His rank was irrelevant; he was a doctor, and rational people still tended to follow doctors' recommendations even with the full knowledge that they amounted to experiments with no two identical subjects. Human beings vary in more than hair color."
"The Saturn group of educated nonspecialists was presumably better qualified than most to judge whether a silly conclusion was due to a faulty assumptions, but its members still had the normal human difficulty believing anything which would make for personal inconvenience." [and my ex comes roaring to mind.]
June 1, 2011
I've tried reading this twice and both times couldn't finish it. To me it was rather boring. The writing style was too technical (and I usually enjoy Hard SF), and the plot just seemed to be going everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Interesting premise though I will admit. This is the only Clement novel I've ever attempted, but, I'm sure his other work is much better. I don't recommend this novel.
January 29, 2015
This was a funny little book. Almost clinical in its telling, doing its best, like the characters involved, to keep the emotions at bay. But an interesting story, and after the last few books I've read, where I hated the characters and how damaged and unprofessional they all were, it was refreshing to read about people with some discipline who were putting the needs of the many over the needs of themselves.
May 16, 2009
I am not a huge fan of hard sci-fi and this book would definitely be classified as such. A lot of scientific jargon that went way over my head and made the plot hard to follow. The characters were not very well developed. I had no idea who was who. I stuck with it but did think about giving it up a couple times. Just not my kind of sci-fi.
October 21, 2010
Got better towards the end. There's no way I would have kept reading this if I didn't like all of his other books so much. Not recommended nearly as much as his other work.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews