New Horizons Part 2: Midway
“Remember that I am thy creature;
I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.
Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded.
I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend.
Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.”
– Frankenstein's Monster
More than two centuries into the future, the New Horizon generational starship is halfway through its long journey towards the planet Haven. It is the last great project of humanity, but after eighty long years the journey is still only half over. The last person to have known Earth has died, and new ship borne generations are having to suffer the existential nightmare of a complete and total absence of choice in their lives. A horrific event starts unravelling their small and seemingly harmonious society, threatening the mission and their lives…
Midway flips the situation and focuses on individuals halfway through the journey, the crew who grew up on the small ship, and who will inevitably die on the same small ship, and suffer this existence for the sake of other people's dreams, with no possibility of pursuing their own. From maximum privilige, they have none at all.
Despite careful social engineering, humanity bleeds through, and the gruesome first ever murder on the ship launches an investigation which unravels a plot by an original crewmember to undermine the core mission and find some way, any way, to construct a shred of authentic personally driven meaning in their lives, whatever the costs.
While Midway is complete and in a polished state, it has become somewhat dated. It does not require a full page one rewrite like Launch, but it definitely needs some updates, some darlings which need killing, and an edit with more experienced eyes. The bones are really good though, I love this story too. It's so dark, so tragic, so lonely... It was my first book that I had a clear vision of the plot and what I wanted to accomplish with it ahead of time, and just skimming it as I'm putting it on this site, I still think there's something special here. I hope you do too.