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novabird's review against another edition
3.0
When I first began reading, "Halfway Human," I wondered at the high rating because it was done in a narrative style that told rather than showed at first and used far too many clichés. I kept with it and found the writing improving as I continued. However I reacted with horror at the rightness of the analogy of the 'bland' victims as victims of pedophilia and the realization of it made my stomach turn. The other hesitancy I had with the book was the sympathetic slant given to the character Magistrate Galele and this lowered my rating from a 4 to a 3.5
Gillman presents heavy material with realism. I also admired her for her courage in presenting the concept that we are patterned by social constructs. I also liked that she equated gendered world blands as those who are disenfranchised. This book pushed my boundaries and made me think. I recommend this for anyone interested in or curious about gender studies. My curiousity was sated.
Spoiler
as a recidivist pedophileGillman presents heavy material with realism. I also admired her for her courage in presenting the concept that we are patterned by social constructs. I also liked that she equated gendered world blands as those who are disenfranchised. This book pushed my boundaries and made me think. I recommend this for anyone interested in or curious about gender studies. My curiousity was sated.
mrswythe89's review against another edition
4.0
Absorbing and fascinating, but hm, I dunno. It's as much about marginalisation and oppression as it is about gender -- well, more about that than gender, really. But I was surprised by the bit where Tedla says that there are blands in Val's world and it's all the people who don't have interests and do menial work and don't aspire to anything better. This was unexpected. I would've thought it'd've said that blands in Val's world are the perfectly ordinary, bright people who are crushed by poverty and oppression and treated like nothing by people who have marked themselves as superior. But maybe that's meant to be a sign of how Tedla's been kind of brainwashed itself by its society?
Ultimately I felt wary of what the book was saying, because e.g. there's the part where the Gammadis people admit to deliberately choosing people to be neuters. Which implies that they are right, to a certain extent, when they say most neuters are mentally deficient or whatever. When you read that as a metaphor for our world, what does that say? Seems kinda hinky.
Ultimately I felt wary of what the book was saying, because e.g. there's the part where the Gammadis people admit to deliberately choosing people to be neuters. Which implies that they are right, to a certain extent, when they say most neuters are mentally deficient or whatever. When you read that as a metaphor for our world, what does that say? Seems kinda hinky.
foggy_rosamund's review against another edition
5.0
A good sci-fi book usually has two of the following three things: good ideas, good plot, or good characters. Rarely does any SF book have all three, but Halfway Human is an exception. It is full of compelling ideas, and is tightly written and believable.
Tedla is from an isolated alien world, and no one can understand how it has turned up in an alley on a populous human world. Tedla is suicidal and desperately frightened, but forms a connection with Val, an anthropologist, and her young daughter. Tedla's story is deeply traumatic, but as its connection with Val grows, it tells its story. This leads to an evocation of Tedla's home-planet, a world with three genders, male, female and bland. Tedla is a bland, and subject to terrible abuse at the hands of the other two genders. Though this is a book about gender, it's also about inequality, subjugation, and the meaning of freedom. Gilman's prose is considered and spare, and the plot is tightly controlled and full of tension. Tedla in particular is a well-evoked character, but the other characters make an impression too. Gilman is subtle in her exploration of ideas, such as eugenics, and she gives the reader space to draw conclusions. It's a moving and surprising work, and one I highly recommend.
Warning for graphic but not gratuitous scenes of rape.
Tedla is from an isolated alien world, and no one can understand how it has turned up in an alley on a populous human world. Tedla is suicidal and desperately frightened, but forms a connection with Val, an anthropologist, and her young daughter. Tedla's story is deeply traumatic, but as its connection with Val grows, it tells its story. This leads to an evocation of Tedla's home-planet, a world with three genders, male, female and bland. Tedla is a bland, and subject to terrible abuse at the hands of the other two genders. Though this is a book about gender, it's also about inequality, subjugation, and the meaning of freedom. Gilman's prose is considered and spare, and the plot is tightly controlled and full of tension. Tedla in particular is a well-evoked character, but the other characters make an impression too. Gilman is subtle in her exploration of ideas, such as eugenics, and she gives the reader space to draw conclusions. It's a moving and surprising work, and one I highly recommend.
Warning for graphic but not gratuitous scenes of rape.
morebedsidebooks's review against another edition
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Torture, Suicidal thoughts, Slavery, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Suicide, Pedophilia, and Adult/minor relationship
Minor: Xenophobia
Major themes are bigotry and discrimination along with instances of misgendering.jacalata's review against another edition
3.0
I enjoyed it and it had a bunch of interesting ideas (in a fairly well fleshed out universe) but it doesn't feel like something I need to read again. I would be interested in reading more of the same universe.
valsira's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
danprisk's review against another edition
5.0
A really fantastic book, with so much going on. I recommended this to an English teacher friend of mine right away as it's layered with so many different potential readings.
The primary reading is likely to always be a gender one, as one of the main characters in the book is asexual and comes from a planet where this is a normal third gender. This allows Gilman to talk about a lot of gender inequality issues in an indirect manner, and makes for some thoughtful points reading where I found I'd accidentally assigned genders to the asexual characters in my head without meaning to.
There's also race, slavery, caste, capitalism, ecology, etc all going on here. For instance, there's an interesting dichotomy setup between an info-capitalist culture living on a barren moon with relatively equal gender relations, and the ecologically founded culture living on a lush planet with a 3rd gender who are treated as a slave caste.
In terms of the actual story, it starts off feeling a lot like a classic science fiction - the manners of description and context of the story seem more like something from the 70s than the 90s. This is definitely present throughout the book, but get's pushed to the background by the fantastic themes that start coming to the fore. That said, some of the characters are a little wooden, and if you're really sensitive to this you might find it frustrating - for me, it was something I just noted in passing, but it didn't impinge upon my reading experience at all (and could be read as a homage to classic sci-fi in itself).
The primary reading is likely to always be a gender one, as one of the main characters in the book is asexual and comes from a planet where this is a normal third gender. This allows Gilman to talk about a lot of gender inequality issues in an indirect manner, and makes for some thoughtful points reading where I found I'd accidentally assigned genders to the asexual characters in my head without meaning to.
There's also race, slavery, caste, capitalism, ecology, etc all going on here. For instance, there's an interesting dichotomy setup between an info-capitalist culture living on a barren moon with relatively equal gender relations, and the ecologically founded culture living on a lush planet with a 3rd gender who are treated as a slave caste.
In terms of the actual story, it starts off feeling a lot like a classic science fiction - the manners of description and context of the story seem more like something from the 70s than the 90s. This is definitely present throughout the book, but get's pushed to the background by the fantastic themes that start coming to the fore. That said, some of the characters are a little wooden, and if you're really sensitive to this you might find it frustrating - for me, it was something I just noted in passing, but it didn't impinge upon my reading experience at all (and could be read as a homage to classic sci-fi in itself).
vasha's review against another edition
4.0
When I rate science fiction novels, I rate them relative to others in the genre, and this is definitely well up there. The basic situation, as it's revealed over the course of the book, doesn't have much subtlety, but the importance is in the details, and that is where the nuances come in that are worth thinking over. Gammadis is one of the more intriguing science-fictional cultures because Gilman's construction of it is so detailed. Capella isn't quite as vivid, but she spent some time developing it too. Plus, Tedla is such a well-drawn character.