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Half Way Home

Hugh Howey (Goodreads Author)

3.72 · Rating details · 11,843 ratings · 869 reviews

From the New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of Wool and the Molly Fyde saga comes a story of teenage colonists marooned on a distant planet.

WE WOKE IN FIRE
Five hundred colonists have been sent across the stars to settle an alien planet. Vat-grown in a dream-like state, they are educated through simulations by an artificial intelligence and should awaken at ...more

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Hardcover, 240 pages

Published October 1st 2019 by John Joseph Adams/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (first published May 1st 2010)

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· 11,843 ratings · 869 reviews

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Jul 01, 2017 Pouting Always rated it liked it · review of another edition

Ships are sent out to colonize planets containing 500 blastocyst that eventually become humans who are trained and educated before reaching the designated planet. The AI in charge of the ship, Colony, decides when reaching the planet whether at any point the mission needs to be aborted and whether to get rid of the potential humans in the ship it contains. Usually the AI makes the decision easily on whether or not the mission is to be continued but this time something unusual happens and the AI ...more

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Mar 02, 2012 Nataliya rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-reads

Well, I adored Hugh Howey's Wool series and The Plagiarist short story, but this one missed the mark quite a bit. Which is too bad, since Howey can do much better than that.

It's a sci-fi story, which I generally adore. A shipload of zygotes lands on a distant planet destined to become a home for a colony of settlers who would be released from their pods in 30 years as fully grown human beings taught to do certain jobs and taught to think in a certain way. Normally if a planet is determined to be ...more

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Jul 31, 2014 Jenna rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: post-apocalyptic, young-adult, science-fiction

I have a personal policy to not re-read books. 1) I might not like/love it as much as I did the first time around and will be disappointed, and 2) My TBR list is about 3.5 miles long with books I have yet to read for the first time. This book is an exception for the very simple reason that I didn't look at the title before requesting an ARC. I saw Hugh Howey's name, publication date October 1, 2019 and there I was:

Hyped Excited GIF - Hyped Excited Partying GIFs

Hyped Excited GIF - Hyped Excited Partying GIFs

I immediately requested the book for review and only then did I check the title an ...more

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Jan 03, 2012 Kris rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I cry easily … I’ll revise that. I have the urge to cry easily and often shed a tear or two. I’m not a sobber but I’m a very sensitive person. That said, I can’t remember the last time a book made me cry. It might have happened some time in my teenage years but I can’t think of an instance. For some reason, as much as I get into my reading, it doesn’t trigger the same response in me as a movie or hearing terrible things in the news.

Half Way Home made me cry. In a good way.

Porter is a boy who was I cry easily … I’ll revise that. I have the urge to cry easily and often shed a tear or two. I’m not a sobber but I’m a very sensitive person. That said, I can’t remember the last time a book made me cry. It might have happened some time in my teenage years but I can’t think of an instance. For some reason, as much as I get into my reading, it doesn’t trigger the same response in me as a movie or hearing terrible things in the news.

Half Way Home made me cry. In a good way.

Porter is a boy who was conceived on earth and born hundreds of years later … on another planet … at the age of fifteen.

Earth Has sent out tens of thousands of colonial space ships consisting of an AI that runs things and 500 carefully chosen human embryos. The ship arrives on a distant planet a few hundred years later and begins its work in determining whether the place is “viable” or not. If it is viable then the humans are grown but kept inside vats and taught their careers through a virtual reality world. In thirty years when their education is complete they are woken up in order to form a colony and work the planet’s mines, sending anything valuable back to Earth.

If the planet is not viable the AI can abort everything at any time by burning and then nuking itself (to make sure no patentable information can be stolen). On this planet the AI is in the middle of self destruct when it seemingly changes its mind and the result is about 50 naked fifteen year olds running from the burning vats and rushing around into the rain and mud of their new home.

One thing you’ll notice when you look at this book on Amazon is that there are no bad reviews and no ratings below 4 stars. Most of them are five star and the reviews are enthusiastic. I am just as enthusiastic about this book.

Half Way Home replaces The Four Fingers of Death as my latest and greatest and most favorite. I want to urge everyone to buy it along with Howey’s excellent series Wool. His works are extremely cheap as ebooks. ...more

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Sep 13, 2012 Garet Wirth rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Well, this was a pure delight! For the first 20 pages. And then it turned into... not a delight. Allow me to explain.

Half Way Home starts out with a great premise. Humanity is colonizing other planets by sending out "seed ships" that, once they land, activate the development of their stored embryos. As these human beings grow in vats aboard the spaceship, the computer AI trains them in their pre-selected profession. Then at age 30, they are "hatched" as fully-formed, fully-educated adults who bu ...more

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Oct 13, 2013 ✘✘ Sarah ✘✘ (former Nefarious Breeder of Murderous Crustaceans) rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, ya, 2013

I should start by saying that I wasn't aware this was a young adult novel when I started reading it. Had I known, I probably wouldn't have read it. I love Hugh Howey but I have been disappointed by so many YA novels lately that I tend to stay away from them.

Half Way Home wasn't such a bad read. The premise of the book is interesting and I enjoyed the first few pages a lot. But it went downhill from there... What made it really difficult for me to enjoy this book was the narrative style. Too dry, ...more

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Feb 11, 2011 oliviasbooks rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: male-point-of-view, thriller, scifi-dystopian-apocalyptic, other-creatures, young-adult-fiction, e-version, outer-space, read-2011

„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. Hundreds of years more, in fact.“

Thus begins Hugh Howey's short and sadly overlooked stand-alone young adult novel Half Way Home. If you are looking for something different among the dystopia rubble: Here you are. What is Half Way ...more

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Jul 31, 2014 Kaora rated it liked it · review of another edition

This book felt a little bit like a futuristic Lord of the Flies to start.

Fifty-nine kids awaken on a planet 15 years sooner than they should have with more than half of their numbers gone. Each has a special skill that has been programmed into them including Engineer, Psychologist, Electrician, Farmer, etc. The survivors start to rebuild with help from The Colony, an artificial intelligence program. But when the leadership is changed and becomes more like a work camp, some of the kids break off ...more

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Jan 06, 2015 Susan May rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015

I really enjoyed this book. It feels like an old-fashioned scifi story. I loved Wool series, but didn't love Sand and this one certainly proves to me what a great writer Hugh is. I wish it was double the size, which is the sign of a good book. It's a Lord of The Flies on an alien planet.

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Nov 03, 2016 Rebecca Carter rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopian, apocalyptic-post-apocalyptic, 2016-reads, fiction, sci-fi

Hugh Howey is a master storyteller, well imo. Everything he seems to write turns to gold and Halfway Home is no exception. The only thing I was surprised about was that it was a YA book. I've been disappointed with the majority of YA I've read recently, so had I known this book was YA, and although I love Hugh Howey's writing, I may not have bothered reading it. So I'm glad I didn't realise this until after I picked this one up. The only slight negative I have is the last fifth of the book, it f Hugh Howey is a master storyteller, well imo. Everything he seems to write turns to gold and Halfway Home is no exception. The only thing I was surprised about was that it was a YA book. I've been disappointed with the majority of YA I've read recently, so had I known this book was YA, and although I love Hugh Howey's writing, I may not have bothered reading it. So I'm glad I didn't realise this until after I picked this one up. The only slight negative I have is the last fifth of the book, it felt a bit rushed and some events didn't seem plausible. Other than that this is a typical Howey sci-fi/dystopian, and definitely among the best of a saturated dystopian genre.

A shorter book than some of his others, Halfway Home is set in the future when humankind have discovered interstellar travel, and are spreading out throughout the universe colonising plants deemed hospitable. Instead of sending grown humans hurtling through space for centuries, with all the necessary supplies and stocks to sustain generations of humans on each ship on its long journey towards its new planet, human cells are sent in an in vitro state. Only when the planet has been readied for humans to begin their new life are the cells fertilised and humans grown. Under normal circumstances, the soon to be 500 colonisers are grown in large cylinder contraptions with womb like similarities for 30 years, and given an education and knowledge via virtual reality stimulations and training programs. However, something goes disastrously wrong, and they are woken up before their training is complete 15 years too early, with the few survivors finding themselves faced with a bewildering new world.

I often enjoy books that make you think about things and that open your mind to possibilities. Halfway Home achieved that - this is way out there, but just maybe, many generations ago, we were sent to the planet Earth to conquer it. Maybe there was a first generation who settled here, to discover and pillage its natural resources and unlock its secrets, until we exhaust the planet. Possibly for some ancient nation on a similar but distant rock. Once Earths resources are dried up, what will become of the inhabitants of Earth? Will we be left to our own devices, to maybe one day discover interstellar travel and start conquering new planets ourselves? Or something darker? It's a crazy thought but maybe this has been kept as a huge secret among a few, for thousands of years...We ourselves could be alien civilisations sent to earth to colonise it, by some ancient human race light years ahead of us.

Alternative theories aside, Howeys idea for this book is more than likely where humanity is eventually heading. One day millions of years from now, the sun will die, along with earth and us, if we were just willing to accept that fact. However humankind won't just simply sit by and wait for this cataclysmic event to occur, we will attempt to spread out and discover other habitable planets, and possible new homes, well before the sun burns itself out. Whether it will be our first time colonising other planets, or something humankind has done previously and is a hidden secret, is something most of us will never know.
That's what makes Howey a fantastic author, he awakens the readers imaginations and makes us ponder, which is what the best writers do. I always tell people to read the Wool series, and I'll continue recommending that trilogy to people as their first taste of Hugh Howey's works as I still think it's the best introduction to his writing. ...more

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Aug 25, 2012 Cass rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, shorter-stories, books-i-own-ebook, sci-fi

In the first episode of Stargate, Samantha Carter entered the room and attention was drawn to her being a woman. She was doubted and she was defensive. Her gender dominated the room.
Ten years later after the series ended the producers reworked and rereleased that episode. They cut those bits and let us focus on the sci-fi.

This novella is a bit like that. The storyline is really interesting but it is dominated, in my mind, by the homosexual nature of the main character. It is handled badly. He ...more

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Aug 28, 2015 The Behrg rated it liked it · review of another edition

This one took me a lot longer to get through than it should have. It just never hooked me like I was hoping, nor was there ever any sense that things wouldn't work out. I loved the concept, a very Orson Scott Card-esque novel, complete with children characters that think much more adult-like than they should for their age. There's really not a lot bad here, just little that was great. It felt "undercooked" for me. Great ideas and concepts that were never given the time to fully evolve.

That bein ...more

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Jan 16, 2016 Anthony Vicino rated it liked it · review of another edition

15 year old narrator who sounds like he's 40? Check.
Oversimplification of sexuality through the use of "gay gene"? Check.
All knowing AI launching into the quintessential bad-guy monologue? Check.
Oh yeah, how about the all knowing AI who sounds like a bitter middle-aged shoe salesman? Check.
Female character present only so that the threat of raping her can be used against the main character? Check.
Galaxy spanning civilization inexplicably concerned with the mining of gold...or any other metal? Ch ...more

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Nov 20, 2012 E.L. Hine rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Unlike some of the other reviews posted here, I thought that the novel was original and intriguing. Howey gets extra points for bizarre aliens - I have always enjoyed stories with bizarre aliens in them: never forget the Puppeteers from Larry Niven's Known Space universe, for example. Here, I think Howey took a few chances: first of all, the subtle but definite portrayal of Porter, who comes to realize, in fits and starts, that unlike the other surviving boys in the colony, he is not attracted t ...more

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Feb 21, 2015 Roberta Jayne rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: excellent-fantasy, read-in-2015

4.5 stars. I loved everything about this book; I love everything Hugh Howey writes, to be honest, and it's no surprise that he has managed to totally captivate and entertain me once again through his fantastic world-building skills and incredible writing talent.

I read this book on my Kindle and, I can definitely say that, this is the first book I've read in e-book form that I've properly enjoyed and actually really want to read again. Usually reading digital books affects my enjoyment of the st ...more

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Sep 28, 2015 Wade Lake rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Fun. Sure, a lot of reviewers have given this book a hard time, but ... hey, it was a quick, fun read. And that's all I was in the mood for so ... worked for me. Fun.

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Oct 02, 2019 Tracy Robinson rated it liked it

Shelves: tbr-own

Review is up on Sci Fi and Scary now. Here it is.

I want to preface this by saying that I absolutely adore Howey’s WOOL series. I am reading the last book in the series with a friend at the time of this review. We are so excited to see where he takes things, yet at the same time it is bittersweet because it is just that good. It was like coming home as soon as I opened the cover.

This book did not have the same connection with me. You might say I was halfway home (I couldn’t help myself). The pre Review is up on Sci Fi and Scary now. Here it is.

I want to preface this by saying that I absolutely adore Howey’s WOOL series. I am reading the last book in the series with a friend at the time of this review. We are so excited to see where he takes things, yet at the same time it is bittersweet because it is just that good. It was like coming home as soon as I opened the cover.

This book did not have the same connection with me. You might say I was halfway home (I couldn’t help myself). The premise is absolutely fascinating and while science fiction can often be a hit or miss with me, I banked on my love of Howey’s other books to make it work. And it did somewhat.

The writing style is very similar – the original publication of this book pre-dates the first WOOL book – I can definitely see how the author’s writing has evolved. Perhaps some changes have been made in this newest re-release, but I’m not sure. It reads like an earlier piece.

There were also times I found myself lost in certain scenes. A good lost. A “I need to turn these pages faster and oops I burned my dinner while reading” kind of lost. No exaggeration on that last point; I have been known for ruining food because I’m sucked into the world on the page. It just happened last week with another book.

But I digress. As for what didn’t work for me – it’s hard to say exactly. The plot moved along but I wasn’t particularly engaged with any of the characters. There is a diverse cast of characters, but so many felt two dimensional, and so I wasn’t really invested in what happened to them. There are some creepy creatures and weird landscapes which were cool but again they just weren’t lush; it fell a bit flat.

Can Hugh Howey write? Oh yeah. But not every book is going to work for every reader. There will be readers who will definitely enjoy this book. Me? I already have his novels Sand and iZombie to read at some point. I will open them with relish and with every expectation that I will enjoy my time in those pages. ...more

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Mar 30, 2019 Renee Babcock rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2019, science-fiction, space-opera

I started reading Howey's 600 page book Wool around 6pm on a Sunday evening. Around 3am, I realized I needed to put the book down because I had to go to work in a few hours and should get a little sleep. I was immediately drawn into that book, its premise, the execution was so good, the intensity kept me turning the pages and I needed to know what was going to happen next. It's not often I find a book that holds me like that.

This is not that book. I liked the premise of it and I thought it had s ...more

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Sep 05, 2012 Dan rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-hate

Meh......

So, they can't all be winners, right? This Hugh Howey book does not earn my recommendation.

I still enjoyed the story--mostly from the point of view that I'm impressed with the author's ability to tell a tale so unique. I've never heard of another story like this one, not even the premise or ideas.

Unique story or not, this one didn't for for me for two reasons:

1) The language was foul. Total foul. I stuck with it because I had hoped it would get better and I had such a good experience wi ...more

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Apr 09, 2017 Tim rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Wool was an entertaining if slightly unsatisfying read, but it had enough to convince me that Howey had the potential to be a great writer and produce a great novel. I hope his other work is better than Half Way Home, because it feels like a big step backwards.

The premise is excellent, and the novel gets off to an explosive start. But after this it loses its momentum and never recovers. The whole book feels rushed - the plot reads like a teenage summer diary where things just happen and there's ...more

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Sep 07, 2015 Brian rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Self published and obviously so. An editor, even a mediocre editor might have improved this throw away, best by recommending it be shelved and revisited from a learned perspective of years and maturity whereupon the author may have decided not to dilute his excellent works such as The Dust Omnibus or Sand with this derivative mess. Not all walks in the woods result in a worthwhile story and if this one was by any stretch worthwhile it deserved more than a one month writing. It is insultingly a s ...more

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Dec 27, 2012 Kit rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015, scifi, apocalypse, on-kindle

I think the most striking thing about this novel is how honestly different the narrative sounds from his other books. I read The Shell Collector earlier this year and it's really refreshing to pick this book up and be truly charmed by Howey's voice again. There are a lot of rough edges in this book that probably could have been refined a little better/more but there are some real shining moments in this book. I love his aliens and the world building and hope we see more of it in the future. I do ...more

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Dec 28, 2011 Noneya rated it really liked it · review of another edition

So I read this whilst waiting or Wool 5 to come out, lol. It took me about two chapters to really become invested, but once that happened I could not put this down. I seriously found myself reading this on a family dinner date^^ I fell in love with Porter and I honestly didn't want Half Way Home to ever come to an end.

My only hold up: I wish we could have been exposed to more of this alien planet; with it's giant trees and Dune-like creatures I couldn't wait to get a glimpse of what was lurking ...more

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Dec 01, 2015 Michael rated it it was ok · review of another edition

The novel introduces a method of space-colonization that actually seems feasible, but then proceeds to tear it apart with an unsubtle pro-life diatribe that carries less nuance than a grade school ethics class.

Perhaps the lack of nuance is due to the target audience, this book presumably being high-school YA, but leaving the topic so undeveloped is doing readers a disservice. When he's at his best, Howey can write some gripping stuff-- this isn't it.

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Jul 06, 2016 John Lowe rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Quick read, enjoyable and relatively straightforward. A neat concept, explores ideas about will, nature vs. nurture, sexuality, and survival of the fittest. Stayed pretty consistent throughout, in terms of not falling apart or drifting at the end.

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Aug 01, 2019 Justin Brendel rated it liked it

I love Howey's other works, so I wanted to like this as well. It was too much Lord of the Flies for me. Also, the giant vinnie's as they call them, all I could think I about was the giant worms with hats from Mario Wii.

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Jun 27, 2012 Grace rated it liked it · review of another edition

Didn't like this as much as "Wool". The quality of prose is great, but I'm just not convinced about Porter's central conflict - it has a few elements that made me look askance.

The template for a Colony program is a ship with 500 embryos, which waits until it reaches a predetermined location, assesses the planet, and then either chooses to start colonizing or basically nuke itself. If the planet's good to go, the ship starts preparing a settlement while kicking off the gestation of those 500 emb Didn't like this as much as "Wool". The quality of prose is great, but I'm just not convinced about Porter's central conflict - it has a few elements that made me look askance.

The template for a Colony program is a ship with 500 embryos, which waits until it reaches a predetermined location, assesses the planet, and then either chooses to start colonizing or basically nuke itself. If the planet's good to go, the ship starts preparing a settlement while kicking off the gestation of those 500 embryos, planning to decant 500 fully trained adult colonists in 30 years. But on Porter's ship, something goes horribly wrong, and instead 50 teenagers end up in a half-constructed landing site. Shenanigans ensue.

Hard to totally pin down what made me twitchy here, because it's elusive and often can be shrugged off. But the two main hurdles I encountered were the stereoptyped gender roles and then a possibly unintentionally fraught use of the word "aborted". The first one's easier to name: Porter quickly realizes that he's gay, and feels ashamed of it so bottles himself up. All well and good, except then there's a weird trend of him doing "girl stuff". He identifies certain actions as being "manly" or "guy things", and often ends up on the girl side of any argument. There's a fair amount of this gendered treatment going through the other characters as well, and it just struck me as off. Sure, there are girls who flinch away from manual labor and align with guys they consider protectors, but there are tons of girls who are first over the fence and quickest to solve a mechanical problem. This felt extremely odd, given that it's meant to be a futuristic setting, and knowing that each of these kids were raised via Artificial Intelligence. We never really get anything about the AI subtly conditioning colonists to adapt gender roles that aren't even modern today, so this was not a comfortable theme to pick up on for me.

The use of the word "abortion" or "abort" refers to aborting the colony mission, but also refers to ending gestation for all of the colonists - who are "gestating" for a good 30 years. The book specifically notes the irony that abort applies in both contexts, but then there are places where I actually wondered if the author was trying to push an anti-abortion political angle, specifically in a final screed that kind of blurs that line entirely. He may not have intended for that to happen, but it's worth noting that it took me out of the book and made me wonder about the author's politics.

Lastly, the final sections of the book felt rushed to me. Too many realizations in too little time, and I'm still not convinced about how it all resolved. Bit magical-thinking.

And now, a bit more about homosexuality, which makes a late rally as a major theme. Spoilery stuff follows, I guess...

To go along with the conceit of this book, you have to believe that there's a gay gene that can be identified in an embryo. You also have to believe that there is a stigma to homosexuality that endures into an era of colonization. Porter clearly has feelings of shame attached to his realization that he's attracted to other men, but why would that be? Did the AI program deliberately condition Porter to feel shame? And when some of the other colonists let loose with "har-har, men touching men is icky" jokes, it made me wonder why the AI would be raising them to have that attitude. The implication is that Porter is the only homosexual in the entire embryo load (1/500 embryos), and that the AI isolated him by instilling shame in him and bias in his fellow colonists, and I guess I can kind of see the logic in that, but I have to tilt my head pretty far to the side to do so. If you're aiming for long-term colonization, I'm not sure that deliberately laying the groundworks for homophobia is a great choice, especially since that 1/500 ratio is going to recalibrate to 1/10 in the next generation.

So there you go. On one hand, nice to see a gay character in the center of a story like this. I just wasn't really a fan of some of the attending plot points. ...more

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Dec 10, 2012 Grammar*Kitten rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Half Way Home is my first foray into the writings of the highly acclaimed Hugh Howey.
Before I review it, I have three basic points to make:
1. Howey’s writing really is something special.
2. Point one said, I still found some very disappointing errors in this book; from all I have heard, I wasn’t expecting that. I’d assumed with all his success, Howey would have been using a decent editor.
3. I think maybe I should have read Wool first.

The premise of Half Way Home is excellent; quite simply I mar Half Way Home is my first foray into the writings of the highly acclaimed Hugh Howey.
Before I review it, I have three basic points to make:
1. Howey’s writing really is something special.
2. Point one said, I still found some very disappointing errors in this book; from all I have heard, I wasn’t expecting that. I’d assumed with all his success, Howey would have been using a decent editor.
3. I think maybe I should have read Wool first.

The premise of Half Way Home is excellent; quite simply I marvel at the fact that Howey’s mind came up with it. I’m not usually one for the sci-fi sort of genre, but this blew my mind and quite possibly changed my preconceptions of the genre. Round of applause number one to you, sir.
This premise, coupled with the literary delight of Howey’s writing style, makes it a brilliant read. The narrative is well formulated, the dialogue realistic and naturally flowing, the descriptions and use of language quite simply are above and beyond what most authors could hope to achieve.
The characters were well conceived. I particularly liked the inclusion of the protagonist’s homosexual urges, and the way that they were presented as a natural thing and his normal teenage worries about them (view spoiler). Also, Porter’s qualms about exploiting the creatures they find are very human; his reluctance to ride on the back of a vinnie for transport and his inability to eat the vinnie meat after hearing it slaughtered were very realistic, as most would find the second of these issues quite unpalatable. His later relenting because the vinnie was already dead when he saw it, slaughtered out of sight in a way that he could feign ignorance of how it became that way, is also very human, and very true of a lot of meat-eaters everywhere.
In a lot of ways, Half Way Home can be heralded a coming of age tale; the protagonists are all teens, fighting against a higher authority to take control of their own destiny. They are told what they are supposed to do, but break away from the fold to forge themselves into who they want to be rather than who they are told to be. (view spoiler) Overall, it’s not like any other coming of age nor sci-fi story I’ve ever read, but I would certainly be recommending it, even to those like me who don’t usually enjoy this genre.
...more

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Apr 09, 2012 heidi rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ebook

I'm not sure if this is a long short story, or a novelette, but it is an interesting story about what happens to a stranded group of teenagers on an alien world. They have the AI of the colony that raised them and then killed most of them. As you can imagine, a group of traumatized 15 year olds has different group dynamics than the full colony would have.

I was actually confused when the narrator, Porter, introduced himself as male. I had interpreted the cover as female, and nothing in the intro I'm not sure if this is a long short story, or a novelette, but it is an interesting story about what happens to a stranded group of teenagers on an alien world. They have the AI of the colony that raised them and then killed most of them. As you can imagine, a group of traumatized 15 year olds has different group dynamics than the full colony would have.

I was actually confused when the narrator, Porter, introduced himself as male. I had interpreted the cover as female, and nothing in the intro is gendered. That was pretty cool.

The writing is really happy-making. Take this analogy "Wrapped up in a scrap of tarp, he looked like a piece of insulated wire." This is totally perfect.

The worldbuilding is also excellent, with the world narrator's experience of it widens. At first, the world is a birth vat. By the end, it is a planet with trees the size of villages, mountains and mines, skies and fields.

One quibble I had was the raging gender essentialism. Really? Really?
Tarsi turned to Mindy. “It must be biological,” she said. “The difference in us, I mean. The boys want to go up it and the girls want to circle around and set up camp.”
I didn’t say anything, wondering what it meant that I agreed with the girls on that score.

Also, there are a ton of gendered and sexualized insults, like "sissy". It seems to me that even now, if we were going to build an AI to educate a embryo to 30, we would avoid putting in divisive things. We wouldn't have it teach racism in a mixed-race colony, for instance. So why would it teach sexism? It is actually very interesting that all the colonists have the same exact cultural imprint.

But it wraps up with this really hopeful thought:
I could love— that was something I knew perfectly well. Tarsi, Kelvin, Stevens . . . even Myra in some ways. I had loved them all and would continue to do so. That was my gift. If anyone was cursed, it was those limited by their programming. Those with hate in their hearts, unwilling to love anyone not like themselves.
Hm. When I first grabbed that quote, I thought it was about Porter pitying those who had not been forced to think about their default heterosexual pairbonding. But maybe instead it is about universal acceptance.
...more

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Mar 20, 2017 Sarah rated it it was ok · review of another edition

2.5 stars. Parts of it were a bit simplistic, and characters undeveloped. I particularly was nonplussed by the self-loathing and/or shame of the gay narrator - the story tries to explain it, sortakinda, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Also the barely disguised moralizing against abortion. I really have no interest in a dude's thoughts on that topic.

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About Hugh Howey

Hugh Howey

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I'm the author of WOOL, a top 5 science fiction book on Amazon. I also wrote the Molly Fyde saga, a tale of a teenager from the 25th century who is repeatedly told that girls can't do certain things -- and then does them anyway.

A theme in my books is the celebration of overcoming odds and of not allowing the cruelty of the universe to change who you are in the process. Most of them are classified ...more