Customer Reviews

Half Life

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The hardest of hard sci-fi, Half-Life is one of the best books in the genre I've read. A gripping story line, with plot- and characterizations- that are in line with the described world.

If you're looking for a challenging, intellectually rigorous read, this is the book for you.

This is definitely an idea book; what else would you expect from Hal Clement? In that it is hard science fiction, the writing is a little dry, but certainly does not read like a term paper.

In critique of Mr. Clement's writing, I would only say that he tells us more about what is going on rather than showing us. Also the obstacles his intrepid band of scientists must overcome are quite standard fair for science fiction. And his General Order 6 device gives the dialogue the feel of Star Trek: The Next Conversation; I would have preferred more action. But the way he sets up this story really leaves him no alternatives. These are the reasons that I give this book only a four.

It is certainly worth both your investment of time and money if you truly like hard (and I mean tungsten hard) science fiction.

This is a book rather heavy on conversation. There is always something going on, but it is through the discussions of the protagonists that the story develops.

There is also a lot of science. Real science. Clement has obviously thought this part of the book out well, and although the plot line is fairly simple, and the character development minimal, if you like hard sci-fi, you will like this book.

The flight sequences tend to get a bit repetitive, and in such a short book, they shouldn't have taken up such a large portion of it. Also, I have trouble accepting the premise of all of these terminally ill people being sent of a space mission. Since two of them are healthy, surely a full complement of healthy people could have been assembled. We are not given any reason why this particular group was chosen for the mission. Besides these two faults, the book is great reading.

This book is not for everyone. Dealing with a future where countless plagues have ravaged humanity, it details an expedition to Titan. By medical necessity, the crew rarely physically interacts with each other and, in that sense, the relationships are somewhat stilted, somewhat like "Caves of Steel".

This novel harkens back to the days when science fiction was about ideas and the characterization was of secondary import. And boy, do the ideas fly in "Half-Life"! It's a bit of an intellectual tussle, but then, that's why you're reading science fiction, isn't it?

Get this book and read it. Then read everything else by Clement. You owe it to yourself.

Clement delivers another fascinating study of an odd environment, explored by some of the most two-dimensional people in science fiction. Titan comes to life in vivid descriptions of how it would *feel* to walk on such a world. The dim light, tremendous cold, dense air, and wierd chemistry are evocative.

From an aerospace engineer's point of view, though, his hardware concepts suck rocks. Poor use of designs and resources, insanely dangerous manned excursions to the surface, and all around bizarre mission planning irks me... an undergrad workshop could come up with far better machines and plans for exploration.

Clement could also take lessons in character development from Robert Forward and gain from it, but then, the characters in all his books have been bloodlessly rational. His novels are actually scenarios with some meat added, enjoyable on their own merits.

I wonder if the title might be Clement's own self-mocking comment...

The writing is dry, the characters are uninteresting and indistinguisable, and the dialogue is flat and lifeless. Unless you are a hard sci-fi addict with nothing else to read, there isn't much to recommend this book.

I've enjoyed Hal Clement's works ever since I read a chapter of "Mission of Gravity" in an old Analog when I was about 8. The characters he developed on Mesklin, and his other novels, were folks you could care about. Even his latest bit on Mesklin in a recent issue of Analog grabbed the imagination and ran with it.

But this... I feel I was somewhat cheated.

The characters - I just couldn't warm up to them, to stir myself enough to really care if they lived or died. I almost didn't finish the book, only a slow day at work with nothing else to read, spurred me to complete it.

The ending was unsatisfying - with hints of a solution for their problems but no actual resolution. I realize that life is like that, our problems don't always have clear solutions and no firm ending - but that's not what I read SF for. The character developement... well, there wasn't much of that. All in all, pretty unsatisfying. If I'd known the paperback version was coming out, I'd never have gotten the hardback - and if I'd had a chance to read a couple of chapters of the hardback, I likely wouldn't have bought it - much as I like Hal Clement's other works.

Your mileage may vary - this might be just what you're looking for. However, it wasn't what I wanted to find from Hal Clement...

This book really shows why Hal Clement is A SFWA Grand Master. The edgy investigation into Titan's chemistry and composition is deftly handled, as are the characterizations and speculations put forth. It really puts the 'science' back in science fiction. Highly Recommended.

This book took me almost a month to read and I really don't know why. It's not long and it's not terribly complex but at the same time . . . I don't know. Hard SF is always a tough sell because a lot of writers of that kind of story get all involved in the science part of it and get so wrapped up in their ideas that they forget to write any kind of story to go with the neat ideas (Stephen Baxter is good for this, as well as Larry Niven on occassion, although Gregory Benford never seems to suffer from this problem but maybe I just haven't read enough of his work) and thus for those of us without advanced degrees in physics (or pick the scientific realm of your choice) the story becomes a bit of a slog. Now, Hal Clement is a name that anyone who knows their SF history should recognize instantly, the man has been writing longer than most of us have been alive and his name is on several classics of the genre (Mission of Gravity being the most famous probably) and so when this came out we figured it would probably be at the very least interesting. And it is interesting but it doesn't go much beyond that. The basic premise is that in the future a good portion of the population is afflicted with cripping diseases, our story concerns a handful of them who go off to Saturn to study the place. Because of their diseases they're all kept isolated from each other and thus most of the story is told through dialogue. Actually, most of the time you wouldn't even know they weren't in the same room, thanks to the magic of telecommunications. When I first heard of this book I thought it would be more like a SF version of William Gaddis' JR, where all you get is layer upon layer of dialogue from people who will never meet and thus all you have are their words, which would have been different at least. Alas this isn't the case and most of the time it's hard to tell that the people are far apart. This is coupled with the fact that beyond their illnesses, none of them are real fascinating people and so you have this flat dialogue interspersed with planetary descriptions and the like . . . the threat or something that they have to face isn't real well defined and by the end of the book I still wasn't sure what the great discovery was, if there was any at all. I just knew that people lived and people died and yet nothing seemed that different at the end of the book as compared to the beginning of it. There are some great ideas in here, the premise alone someone could have a field day with, but the execution is . . . eh. In the end there's nothing to really catch you, the action never grabs you, the danger never seems real or imminent and the character don't latch onto you the way they should. It's all very readable but at the same time it left me a bit cold. Fortunately it's not too long and does read quickly (my slow reading was due more to my bizarre work schedule than anything else) but it's hard to recommend to anyone that isn't a scientist or a Hal Clement completist. Everyone else may want to seek out his better known works, although I do hope the man keeps writing into very old age.

I consider myself fairly scientifically educated for a layman, and I've read hard sci-fi (including other Clement stories) with no problem. But while I understand the basic premise (epedemic diseases) and the reason for the mission, and why they were interested in some of the things on Titan I still have no idea what they found and what, if anything, it meant. This may just be an ignorance of biochemistry on my part, though.