The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers
There's a lot to be said for the notion that science fiction, though of course forward-looking, is inherently reflective of the society in which it was written. This book is a great example. We're some several hundred (if not thousand) years in humanity's future, and humans are just one of many species that comprise the Galactic Commons. Humankind had to leave Earth, as it teetered into environmental collapse, and split: Exodans, descendants of the fleet that carried most humans away from their home planet; elites who settled on Mars; colonists who found habitable worlds and moons and are doing the best they can to survive; and a very small cohort who remained or returned to encircle Earth in perpetual orbit, working to get the planet in shape for sustaining settlement again. Humans, even in the distant future, are a fractious bunch.
In space, there are no "people," only "sapients." And part of living in the GC means basically getting along with all of them. Even the ones whose bodies disgust you, or whose customs make you uncomfortable. It's the sci fi version of a big ol' kumbaya campfire: can't we all just get along? And for the most part, Chambers' optimistically predicts, we do. The Wayfarer is home to 8 sapients, who represent 4 different species, and one cheerful AI. It's a tunneling ship, meaning it punches into the sublayer of space in order to create artificial wormholes that connect distant places to each other in an instant. It's important work, but not exactly glamorous. Rosemary is the newest addition to the crew, and she's keeping her true identity a secret, though we don't at first know why. When the captain lands them a very lucrative, albeit potentially dangerous, job, the journey affords us a chance to get to know Chambers' universe a little better.
I have only two complaints about this fun, smart novel. The first is grammatical, and whoever did the copy editing on this should be given a stern talking to and a refresher course in English: the word "sometime" does not mean the same thing as the phrase "some time." The former signifies a future occurrence, e.g. "let's go to the beach sometime." The latter means an action that takes a while, e.g. "it'll take us some time to get there." They are absolutely not interchangeable, yet this happens no less than three times throughout the book. I know, I know, it's a tiny, insignificant mistake, but having it happen more than once means someone genuinely doesn't know the difference, and that's just a little bit painful for a reader; grammatical and spelling errors take you out of the immersive experience of reading.
My second complaint is more broad, and has to do with the pacing of the book. As the title indicates, pretty much the whole plot takes place during that "long way" to reach the ship's destination. No problem there, we get to learn about the GC and some of its fascinating members (major props to Chambers for the fully-realized, highly original species she's thought up). But once we get to their punch point, a huge amount of action happens in less than fifty pages. It's jarring, to be moseying along for 300 pages then to suddenly have everything happen at once and get wrapped up in about twenty minutes of reading. Either the journey should have gone quicker, or the action should have unfolded more slowly, because it very much seems as if Chambers suddenly realized she didn't want to write a 500 page book and had to wrap it up all nice and neatly to avoid doing so. Despite this, I really enjoyed the book, and very much liked her characters, and so I look forward to reading the rest of the series.
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In space, there are no "people," only "sapients." And part of living in the GC means basically getting along with all of them. Even the ones whose bodies disgust you, or whose customs make you uncomfortable. It's the sci fi version of a big ol' kumbaya campfire: can't we all just get along? And for the most part, Chambers' optimistically predicts, we do. The Wayfarer is home to 8 sapients, who represent 4 different species, and one cheerful AI. It's a tunneling ship, meaning it punches into the sublayer of space in order to create artificial wormholes that connect distant places to each other in an instant. It's important work, but not exactly glamorous. Rosemary is the newest addition to the crew, and she's keeping her true identity a secret, though we don't at first know why. When the captain lands them a very lucrative, albeit potentially dangerous, job, the journey affords us a chance to get to know Chambers' universe a little better.
I have only two complaints about this fun, smart novel. The first is grammatical, and whoever did the copy editing on this should be given a stern talking to and a refresher course in English: the word "sometime" does not mean the same thing as the phrase "some time." The former signifies a future occurrence, e.g. "let's go to the beach sometime." The latter means an action that takes a while, e.g. "it'll take us some time to get there." They are absolutely not interchangeable, yet this happens no less than three times throughout the book. I know, I know, it's a tiny, insignificant mistake, but having it happen more than once means someone genuinely doesn't know the difference, and that's just a little bit painful for a reader; grammatical and spelling errors take you out of the immersive experience of reading.
My second complaint is more broad, and has to do with the pacing of the book. As the title indicates, pretty much the whole plot takes place during that "long way" to reach the ship's destination. No problem there, we get to learn about the GC and some of its fascinating members (major props to Chambers for the fully-realized, highly original species she's thought up). But once we get to their punch point, a huge amount of action happens in less than fifty pages. It's jarring, to be moseying along for 300 pages then to suddenly have everything happen at once and get wrapped up in about twenty minutes of reading. Either the journey should have gone quicker, or the action should have unfolded more slowly, because it very much seems as if Chambers suddenly realized she didn't want to write a 500 page book and had to wrap it up all nice and neatly to avoid doing so. Despite this, I really enjoyed the book, and very much liked her characters, and so I look forward to reading the rest of the series.
Shop local!
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