Half Way Home

By Hugh Howey

Young Adult

Language: English Restricted (R)

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A thumb is cocked, our lives resting in its cuticle. With a calculated flick, we are sent tumbling through space, our colony glimmering like a coin amongst the stars. One side of that coin reads “viable,” which means the planet we land on will lead to a burgeoning settlement, a planet of healthy and hopeful generations to come.
The other side of the coin, however, reads “abort.” It entails a shorter, more gruesome prospect as all five hundred of us are killed before we are officially born. It means being liquified and set aflame.
So that’s us, flipping through space, one of thousands of such coins. But fate has something more sinister in mind for us than a game of even chance. What awaits our colony is an outcome never foreseen. One never planned for, or even dreamed possible.
Our coin has landed on its edge and it remains there, balanced and teetering. It found a planet stuck halfway between viable and abort. A planet not suitable for living but too good to pass up.
And so we were born, a mere fraction of us, amidst the rains and fire. We were born fifteen years too early and with half our training complete. We have no idea what you had in mind for us when you sent us out among the stars.
But this is what happened . . .

The Story Behind This Book

My wife and I were taking a long hike through the woods when I began telling her about this idea for a novel. As we walked and talked, the characters came alive, strolling along with us. The plot grew, the twists and turns snaking along with the mountain trail. By the time we were done, I had the entire story mapped out, told in detail as if it were something that had already happened. That night, in our small camping tent, I began writing the first pages. That "Note to the Reader" and introduction are almost exactly what you read in this sample. Of the four novels I've written thus far, Half Way Home may just be my favorite.