My only gripe is that since all the animals are long extinct, cannibalism is seen as the only way of surviving, adding fuel to the misconception that a plant-based diet is not sufficient for us to be healthy, happy, and strong. Dec 24, Steven rated it it was amazing. An incredibly dark and twisted view of the future. Something very different about this one. I can't quite say what it was, but I can say that I loved it. This is one of my all time favorite science fiction novels. The sequel is not as good as the original piece.
It's also very under appreciated. I highly recommend it. Apr 22, Katharine Harding rated it liked it. This book could only have been written by a doctor.
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However, even I thought it was pretty niche. Apr 08, Gary Sutherland rated it really liked it. Another of my favourite reads. Welcome to the future - you might not like it very much. May 04, Ange rated it it was amazing Shelves: Hands down, my all-time favourite book. Every time I read it I discover something new. I began reading this and quickly gave it up; so fair warning, anything I say below may be unfair, as it's based on odd pages at the beginning and end of the book. This book is written as a protest against the hyper-organization and hyper-regulation of "civilization"; at the end, one character says fervently that even if it was necessary for survival, civilization would be too high a price to pay.
The entire Earth has been turned into an underground Hive-society, run by "the Big ES", which keep I began reading this and quickly gave it up; so fair warning, anything I say below may be unfair, as it's based on odd pages at the beginning and end of the book. The entire Earth has been turned into an underground Hive-society, run by "the Big ES", which keeps its three-toed citizens' soft, sun-sensitive bodies sheltered, in return dictating their activities, thoughts, and reproduction; the surface is all gardens, inhabited by robots and by five-toed "evolutionary throwbacks" plenty of misunderstood genetics in this story who live a "neolithic" life and are bloodily hunted.
The one possible originality of this story, which has otherwise been done over and over by science fiction writers of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, is firstly the prominence given to pregnancy and birth though not well-written , and secondly the fact that it is stated that one way the Big ES keeps Hive people tame is for them to be neuter, and they are not really aware of their surroundings until they are made reproductively active by being "polarized" with hormones, which makes them more enterprising at least the males.
The book is written in short sentences, with few embellishments except for throwing in 2-dollar words the author doesn't always use correctly. It cuts quickly from scene to scene, switching between characters; but actually there aren't characters so much as what I might call "Representative Social Components" which sounds like Hive-speak. This goes double for any females, who are little more than sexual attractants and wombs. All in all, the concept is so-so, the plot is passable, and the writing is pretty ham-handed.
Half Past Human is a future dystopia, and I picked it up after reading Walter Tevis' excellent novel, Mockingbird , because I was still in the mood for that kind of future dystopian vibe. This book certainly delivers on that front, though it couldn't be more different from Mockingbird. Where Mockingbird is fast-paced, elegantly written, and tightly focused on a few characters you grow to care about, Half Past Human is convoluted, difficult to parse in places, and contains many characters that are Half Past Human is a future dystopia, and I picked it up after reading Walter Tevis' excellent novel, Mockingbird , because I was still in the mood for that kind of future dystopian vibe.
Where Mockingbird is fast-paced, elegantly written, and tightly focused on a few characters you grow to care about, Half Past Human is convoluted, difficult to parse in places, and contains many characters that are fairly flat. A few characters stand out like Tinker, Val, Walter, and Toothpick but none really get as much attention as they deserve.
And yet, Half Past Human really manages to shine in spite of these flaws, thanks to really evocative world-building. The novel is set in the far future and the earth is populated by trillions of people, now evolved into the four-toed Nebish, who have tissue for skin and rosewater blood. The entire surface of the planet has been given over to a massive and largely automated agricultural system. Living on the surface of the world are feral and renegade five-toed humans, eking out an existence under the cultivated canopy, hiding from hunters, riding agromecks, swimming in biosludge-filled canals, and avoiding pesticidal agrofoam.
The two societies live in tenuous balance until a mysterious cyber-spear from a bygone age named Toothpick starts to manipulate things. There's no easing into this setting - you're thrown in head-first and it takes some time to acclimatize, but once you do you may well find yourself mesmerized by what you find, both inside and outside of the hive. Here are a few examples: Flexing the craft's surface charge, he shook off the sticky trail of yeasts and mycelia. He maneuvered close to a yellow translucent mass about ten times the size of his sub and extended his sampler tube.
Aspirating a fragment of the gelatinous material, he moved on. So far it looked like a routine inspection" "Bitter stuck her head in the door. Her body glowed from her long hot soak in the refresher. Even her finger nails had softened. Her vented robe hung in loose folds without its belt. Umbillicus and areola peeked out. Val started to shake is head - no. Bitter hooked her hand under his arm and pressed him with a bony knee.
You brought the pressed rat. We'll sauce up the wafers and pour a little liqueur - might even pass around a little Molecular Reward. It will be a real warm meld. Neutral Arthur, nude sans genitals, was busy setting up ornate platters and tall goblets. The soft meld pad was unrolled on the floor beside the eating utensils. Jo Jo, young, thin and preoccupied, studied a small amount of sweet aromatic liquid in his glass. Busch, a slightly older, more roughly mannered male, stood against a wall. Val hadn't noticed Arthur's neutral body, but when old fat Walter began to struggle out of his muddy tunic his redundant folds of flesh were impossible to ignore.
Although Walter was a polarized male, it was impossible to tell; for a fatty apron of meat hung from his belly to his knees - the panniculus. He looked more like an unfinished clay statue than a human.
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A bulky robot straddled the canal silently - an Irrigator. Moses pointed to the robot's optic pickups. Goes around checking soil moisture and spraying water. No circuits for Buckeye detection. Anything that can run around without a track usually has enough brains to detect us. Harvesters, Tillers, Metal Gatherers, things like that. The white flesh of the shellfish had a definite crunchy consistency.
It gave him a rich, full sensation - lots of good amino acids. The water in front of him rippled noisily. He watched the spot. A large, ugly, humanoid head broke the surface, stared straight at him and ducked under again. Then he saw it again - a human child riding on the back of a non-human dugong. Before he could comment on the genetic arithmetic, the mother - a human female, puberty plus four - left the water and approached. Her wet hair clung in dripping tangles.
Streaks of mint-green scum rimmed her neck and chin. Sullen, dark eyes glared. She carried a wooden blade low in her right hand. His future society exists in a biological extreme, where the food chain has been completely condensed to only a few species, and where good work is rewarded by having flavours added to your calories.
Reproduction is regulated, and bad genes are to be avoided. Val works for Hunter Control and hunts feral five-toed humans. Tinker and Mu Ren flee the hive after they have an unauthorized baby and can't get their classification changed. Moses is a piper pipe inspector who goes renegade and is later tried for it.
Moon and his dog, Dan, are ferals who live on the surface, and Toothpick, a cyber-spear, helps them out. This book takes some work to read, but I loved the wild imagination and, once I got used to the terminology, I rather enjoyed the feel of the whole thing. At times it reminded M. It doesn't have the trappings of Sword and Sorcery fiction, but it does have that feel. Recommended if you want to go places you've never even conceived of, even if it takes a bit of work to get there. Even in those moments when it isn't misogynist or generally disgusting, Half Past Human is extremely uncomfortable and I think more than a little fascist.
Although similar to the superior Stand on Zanzibar in its concerns about overpopulation and in following the I think wrong ideas of The Territorial Imperative: A lot of science fiction has genetic engi Even in those moments when it isn't misogynist or generally disgusting, Half Past Human is extremely uncomfortable and I think more than a little fascist.
A lot of science fiction has genetic engineering or cyborgs or whatever that give humans super powers or at least what most readers could call "improvements. I also really liked the spiraling hallways of the Hive, where crowds of spaced out, neutered workers casually trample and crush the bodies of suicides and the starving. In my mind it began to look like a cross between soul-less corporate hallways and H. I knew it was going to be great just for the rampant and unapologetic misogyny women here were treated like little more than walking uteruses- thanks !
It wasn't until the end that I realized what was really going on, and I'm sure I'll read this one again in the future. Very bizarre future underground society written by a pathologist that obviously found it amusing to slip medical terminology into ever Very strange book. Very bizarre future underground society written by a pathologist that obviously found it amusing to slip medical terminology into every sentence.
Half Past Human
I would probably rank this a 3. I liked the premise and some of the execution, however the author was a doctor and it showed. He would lapse into medical jargon at the drop of a hat. As for the story, it is sometime in the far future, man has evolved due to overpopulation into underground dwellers and they've used the surface as gardens in order to feed everyone.
In order to manage underground, man has also evolved smaller and four toed.
For some reason five toed humans are banished outside an I would probably rank this a 3. For some reason five toed humans are banished outside and hunted. By this time apparently mankind had hunted all animal life to extinction, and these four toed humans live on "patties" some kind of extract of plant, though it is basically tasteless, those that can afford it can get "flavored" protein, which it turns out is basically the hunted five toes and any four toed that have died.
This is the story of a revolution when the five toed, fight back. There is a recessive gene among the four toed, that occasionally results in a five toed baby. One of the recessive gene carriers, Tinker, has an unauthorized baby, with five toes. Instead of dumping it down the chutes, like a good citizen, he runs away and goes outside. There he meets a band of five toed people and the story is underway. There is some humorous scenes, which I liked, but the over use of medical terms and the kind of far fetched outcome knocked it down a bit.
Feb 23, Rachel Adiyah rated it did not like it Recommends it for: I gave up halfway through. It is not about Tinker and Mu Ren. It is about the Hive, and Lan is the primary character.
The Nebishes are the most disgusting human species ever created in science-fiction; without conscience, curiosity, or initiative, they allowed their transportation system to collapse, are hunting homo sapiens to extinction and eating them, and will permit dead bodies to putrify as they are eaten by maggots in their overcrowded tubeways if not young enough to be recycled as meat. And I didn't even give away any spoilers. After the baby rats were captured and turned into crusty cakes the color of nutmeg, I kept wishing that the Nebishes' water supply was poisoned and killed them all.
I realized at this point that it was time to flash the book the one finger salute and put it in a dark corner. Apr 24, Rebecca rated it really liked it. This was a great sci fi novel. The biology had some flaws of course, but the idea was interesting. Near the end the plot got a little convoluted and it wasn't totally clear why loads of the 5-toeds died.
But the language they used to create a future culture was interesting, as was the well-written world of algae farms and destroyed ecosystems. I liked the poetry as well. Feb 27, Rowan Hamilton rated it really liked it. A sort of prequel to the Godwhale. Again, a light read, but fun. Apr 23, Vajnis rated it it was amazing. Another piece of dire science fiction. Home Contact Us Help Free delivery worldwide. But when he was allowed sexual activation he found Mu Ren who, like him, harboured forbidden genes. And so began the cataclysm.
But in a world where half-wild humans are hunted for sport - and food - can anyone overthrow the Hive?
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