Reviews for Halfway Human

The average rating for Halfway Human based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-06-02 00:00:00 Sebastian yael Orozco nava Halfway Human is pretty darn good. It's set in a rather well worked out variation of a common idea: sometime long in the past (story past, our future), Earth humans have colonized and terraformed many alien planets. After a period in which the planets fell out of contact, a subset of them have rediscovered each other, and have apparently formed a very loose confederation, including Capella Two, the planet (or actually a moon) on which the nominal viewpoint character, Valerie Endrada, lives. Travel is by matter transmitters, and is (logically) light speed. (The fairly rigorous insistence on light speed travel and the corresponding simultaneity problems is a good decision, and is used well in the story.) The tech behind all this is very much backgrounded (quite appropriately). At the time of the action, none of the unmanned probes which are trying to rediscover the colony planets have reported back in some time, except for the one at Gammadis (Gamma Disciplins), which is 51 ly away from Capella Two, and which harbors an odd variety of humans. The original mission to Gammadis ended 63 years previously in disgrace, with the ambassadors thrown off the planet (and arriving back on Cappella 12 years prior to the main action). That's the setup, but what about the good part, the reason to read this novel? Well, the strange thing about Gammadis humans is that they are born neuter. At puberty, about 1/3 (very roughly, and the ambiguity about the actual numbers is a point of the novel) stay neuter, and the others turn half into males and half into females. There is no way to tell whether a given child will be male, female, or neuter. The kicker is that the neuters, also called blands, are condemned to life in "grayspace", literally underneath and "behind" the "human" world, and they live lives of slavery, performing the menial tasks of their society, leaving the "humans" free for the more intellectual and artistic pursuits. This is regarded on Gammadis as natural: neuters are supposed to be stupider, and less energetic, and literally to have no souls. The whole setup is monstrous, and at the same time quite clearly analogous in many ways to slavery in the US, and in many other cultures. In fact, though the novel seems to be promoted as a novel about gender roles, it really isn't. Certainly Gilman makes some such points, and it's not without value for its exploration of gender, but the central issue is definitely slavery and not gender. And it seems to me that many opportunities for a more probing (no pun intended, God help me) exploration of gender issues are missed: but I should emphasize that that's not a weakness, just a different focus than one might have expected. The book works because of the believable but horrifying society revealed on Gammadis, with its uncomfortable parallels with our history and even to an extent our present. There are many disturbing scenes, and many moving scenes. The portrayal of the bland society, and the secret behind the Gammadian characteristics, is very well done, and at times has a "Ones who Walk Away From Omelas" sort of message to it: they have created a near-Utopia, at one level, and they try so hard to ignore the "screaming child in the back room": except it's not one child but 1/3 of their population. Much of the characteristics of the Gammadian society are very nicely shown, instead of told, and some important details are very subtly planted in the background. Details which seem trivial take on powerful new meaning later in the novel, after we understand the society better. I had a few reservations with this book plotwise, but all in all it's a first-rate read, and very provocative. In many ways, this is a pure SF novel, in that its value derives mostly from the ideas it explores, rather than a particularly exciting plot (though the story moves nicely), or any outstanding "literary" values (though it's certainly well-written, and decently characterized.)

Review # 2 was written on 2014-03-01 00:00:00 William Albert Intended Audience: Adult Sexual content: Explicit Ace/Genderqueer characters: yes Rating: R for heavy sexual violence, suicidal characters and disturbing imagery Writing style: 5/5 Likable characters: 4/5 Plot/Concepts: 4/5 Valerie has never met a Gammadian bland before, but when Tedla is found half-dead in an alley, Val is called in to make sense of this sexless being. Tedla's life has not been easy, not least of all because blands are treated as a nonhuman slave class by the males and females of Gammadis. I had misgivings about this book when I first heard the synopsis. Would this be another story in which a sexless asexual "non-human" would become human through discovering sexuality and gender? Given that so many becoming-human stories have such a discovery or relationship as an important milestone, I was worried this would be the same, and thus invalidate Tedla's identity. I also balked at the name "bland", since this seemed like just another instance of thinking that nonsexual means boring. And yes, this is another story in which the sexless characters are referred to as "it". This serves the double purpose of not sexing the blands but also illustrating their nonhuman status in the eyes of the other Gammadians. But this book is not just about sexuality or gender. There are so many social themes, from exploring information-based economies to eugenics to suicide and environmental responsibility. The Gammadian culture seems in some ways very backward, living as they are in a post-environmental-collapse sort of state, trying to balance their population carefully, deeply ingrained with the fear of waste. There is a lot of fear in this society, invisible at first as it often is in societies which depend on the support of a huge slave class. Despite the complexity of all these themes, I never felt wholly lost, and everything fit together so nicely and made so much sense. In fact, sometimes it fit together almost too nicely so that events became a sort of conspiracy in the end. That's my only complaint with the plot structure of this book. That, and I often have difficulty swallowing the extremity of violence which is culturally accepted in these dystopian worlds as a reinforcement of power. Not to say that I don't believe such atrocities have happened in our own world (I know they have, and that they've been hushed up), but to have them openly displayed is another matter entirely; I can't wrap my head around such universal brutality. Tedla is a wonderful character. It (and I say "it" because that is what Tedla prefers to be called, and what all blands are called) has a complexity of emotion and motivation that borders on the contradictory, but is still consistent within itself. I loved how when we meet it and ever after, its emotional state greatly informs its thoughts and decisions, and we see mirrored in Tedla our own state of constant change contrasted with the deep internal truth of who we are. The other characters the book actually spends time on are also well drawn and believable, each locked in their own cultural sphere, so that conversations actually contain a great deal of subtle and not-so-subtle conflict as each speaks from their own culture and tries to make sense of the other. There were even many instances of unspoken dialogue shouting from the page in the little pauses between each character's words! We get to know each character so well that we can tell what they are not saying even without the author explaining this to us. Tedla in particular stands up for Gammadian and bland culture at several points, calling Val out on her assumptions or biases, and this gives Tedla a strength that I appreciated. This especially soothed my worries that Tedla would be required to abandon its asexual and agender identity in order to achieve humanity. One of my favorite moments comes when Val's husband, Max, is baffled at Tedla's lack of anger at its misfortune. "Unable to contain himself, Max burst out, 'Don't you have any anger, Tedla? Any indignation at what was done to you?' Tedla gave him a sharp look. "What do you mean done to me? Nothing was done to me. I'm perfectly natural the way I am. Why can't you humans ever understand that I might not want to be afflicted with gender?'" I'm sure I'm not the only nonbinary person who often feels "afflicted with gender," so this bit of dialogue really spoke to me, and it also illustrates an important aspect of Tedla's journey in separating what parts of its identity as a bland are natural and healthy for it (asexuality and nonbinary identity) and which are socially imposed and unhealthy (such as feelings of inferiority or worthlessness, or a stagnant unquestioning mind). Gammadians are all more or less neutral in body before puberty, and are only considered "born" after their body develops sexual characteristics. Thus, Tedla looked forward to becoming human while simultaneously dreading the process of becoming male or female, even having a dysphoric nightmare the night before the ceremony. It also protests against being put in what it sees as male clothing, uncomfortable with being seen as a man. It is baffled and slightly annoyed by the fact that many well-meaning people recommend surgery to "correct" its "problem" of not having genitalia or an obvious sex. Tedla also has some deep-seated disdain for how sexualized society is, although it has had to learn to deal with that in the worst possible ways. This is where things get truly difficult to read. Blands being childlike in their lack of sexual characteristics does not, unfortunately, prevent them from becoming objects of sexual desire quite frequently. The problem of consent is quite complex here, since from the Gammadian perspective blands don't have the ability to really make decisions on their own. In that case, having sex with a bland can be considered a form of pedophilia or child molestation. And indeed Tedla is repeatedly raped, sometimes in gruesome fashion'it is a part of Gammadian culture which is simultaneously widespread and taboo. And yet at one point Tedla decides to willingly grant sexual favors to its guardian because it feels great affection for him and a debt of gratitude for his protection. Tedla even goes so far as to say that it is in love with its guardian, although it still never feels sexual attraction, just a desire to please. Knowing that Tedla is much more mentally and emotionally sophisticated than most Gammadians would admit, does this mean that its consent in this case is valid, or is it still trapped and merely choosing the lesser of many evils, using sex to please its master and keep itself safe from abandonment to some worse fate? I believe that by the end of the book, Tedla is at least beginning to learn how to separate the injustice it has suffered from the truth of its identity. It has come to understand what parts of its life were due to class difference and oppression rather than its gender and sexual identity. It is learning not to see itself wholly through others eyes, nor throw out the good with the bad, the true with the false. I do have some concern that readers who are less familiar with the issues surrounding asexuality or nonbinary identities will not really "get" a lot of the messages here and instead fall prey to some of the stereotypes both Gammadians and humans have about gender and sexual development being an intrinsic part of human development. I think Gilman does a good enough job of portraying Tedla's character that no one should walk away from this book believing that Tedla's humanity rested on its ability to be not-a-bland. It was different from other blands in the sense that it was able to question whether it was inferior for being different from other humans. And I'm pretty sure it decided that being asexual and agender did not justify its being treated as less than human, even if it does struggle with irrational residual guilt. That's realistic. I'd say Halfway Human is a must-read for any ace or trans* person who can stomach the sexual violence that it covers. I mean, Tedla relates what has happened to it bluntly, not skirting around it nor wallowing in gory detail. Still, it might be a bit much for some readers. I found the story ultimately empowering because of how much I could relate to Tedla's process of coming to own its own life, and how difficult that can be when you've relied on others to shape you and think for you for years. I feel like this novel needs to be read and discussed, and I'm sure that, given the multitude of themes it covers, there is something that will interest anyone who picks it up.