Half Way Home - BookWyrm

Max Pearl reviewed Half Way Home by Hugh Howey

Review of 'Half Way Home' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Hugh Howey's greatest gift, in my humble opinion, is telling stories of human beings set in extreme circumstances. What do we do when we are stretched to the limit?

The premise of this story, which is that interstellar colonization is done not by generation ships, or people in stasis, but done with frozen embryos. If a planet is viable, the embryos are grown in vats and then raised by machines. If not, they are destroyed. A very interesting premise, and his story is one where the decision about viability is set on edge.

The main character is believable and intriguing, and the story is engaging - its a fast read - I didn't want to put it down once I'd started.

jond reviewed Half Way Home by Hugh Howey

Review of 'Half Way Home' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

First non-Wool Hugh Howey book I've read. An interesting premise, a number of interwoven themes and a few altered-reality curve balls all make for an unusual read. That said, I found the characters a little two-dimensional, a little stilted and the interplay between them flagged a little on occasion. For all that, another decent read from HH.

SpiderKitten reviewed Half Way Home by Hugh Howey

Review of 'Half Way Home' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I actually kind of enjoyed this, but found several plot points problematic.

One such problem was at one point just after the escape when the main character observed that there might be satellites in orbit and that the colonists could probably be "seen" by The Colony though the holes in the canopy. A fair point, but then it was completely ignored when the colonists broke through the canopy and were walking out in the open above it where anyone with satellite technology could see them!

Another was that the main character was supposed to be training as a psychologist and we saw that mentioned a lot, and he did reflect inwardly about these things, but there seemed to be a general lack of him helping anyone else. I suppose we could credit that to his training not being finished, but even so...

Then at the end when they decided to launch the rocket with the story, and they were all being mysterious about their location etc. I kept wondering why, because surely The Colony knew where they were? And why would they need to hide from anyone else? Why would it matter?

All told I think Half Way Home had great potential. I loved the writing, and there were elements of the story I thought were really good. But parts of it felt rushed or glossed over, and I feel like it lacked the depth that other Hugh Howey novels have.