Tag: Becky Chambers

Book Review: A CLOSED AND COMMON ORBIT lands as cozy sci-fi with intimately personal stakes

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On Storytelling, ReviewsLeave a comment

After gulping down the audiobook form of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Becky Chambers’s first in the Wayfarer series, I did not hesitate to pick up book 2: A Closed and Common Orbit.

I had thoroughly enjoyed the first series entrant as a galaxy-crossing sci-fi adventure, so I was a caught a bit off guard to discover that I would spend all of book 2 with characters who were only a footnote in book 1.

Part of this is my fault, because I neglected to read the blurb before purchasing and beginning A Closed and Common Orbit. So I was a bit surprised, a little confused, and then curious.

This book follows Pepper, a tech whom the crew of The Wayfarer encounter in book 1, and Sidra, a conscious AI placed into a human-like body. Pepper’s and Sidra’s stories meshed well and approached themes of identity, predestination, and humanity with thoughtfulness. The two spend much of the book trying to navigate their own senses of self, while also figuring out how to integrate Sidra into Personhood and the local society of pepper’s home city.

Pepper’s story also looks backward, beginning with her life a child to explore how she got where she is. I was intrigued by Pepper’s hardships as a teenager, and I felt that her transition from that life into the one she built for herself was glossed over. However, her backstory clearly focused on and succeeded with explaining why she has such an affinity for advanced AI’s and their personhood.

Both character arcs are effective in demonstrating and resolving their respective emotional journeys.

Surrounding these very intimate themes of identity, the story barely touched on how Pepper’s and Sidra’s society did not accept AI’s as People, and what that might mean for Sidra. I would have liked to understand more about how technology and sapient AI was viewed and treated in the Galactic Commons at large.

Rich world-building surrounds this story, but it’s a little too focused on the characters’ internal struggles. I kept looking for a broader view to balance the intense personal stakes of the story. Similar to its predecessor, A Closed and Common Orbit excels in displaying what life is like for people on this planet, a sort of cozy sci-fi setting for these poignant themes.

Still, this was very much worth the read, and I’m interested in continuing this series in the near future.

For the audiobook, I found the narration stilted with unnatural inflection in many places, especially with dialogue. I think this may have been intentional by the narrator to reflect Sidra’s voice as an AI, but it honestly became more and more grating as the story proceeded.

Steve D

Book Review: THE LONG WAY TO A SMALL, ANGRY PLANET

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On Storytelling, ReviewsLeave a comment

I recently listened to the audiobook version of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, a story I found delightful in its character-building, and intriguing in its world-building.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet presents a vivid galaxy of unique species governed by the Galactic Commons. Humans in this story are among the least powerful species, their Exodans having survived the destruction of Earth (at human hands) and only recently invited as a GC member species. The Galactic Commons includes a diverse array of non-human species, each with their own cultures, histories, and perceptions about their galaxy and the other peoples within it.

Chambers is very deliberate the language she uses to describe each species and individual. While their physical traits and cultural norms may differ, all GC member species are People, and all are referred to as Sapient. Specific individuals are also male, female, or non-binary, with standard pronouns that appear to be widely accepted across the story for such designations. This helps acclimate the reader to each character’s voice and perspective, while making it seem plausible that they speak a common language (called Clip) and have relatable mannerisms and colloquial speech patterns.

Within this setting, Chambers explores a rich tapestry of relationships, inter-species politics, and grounded character struggles aboard a long-haul ship. Rosemary Harper, a human from the Mars settlement, is the lead protagonist, but she does not necessarily drive the narrative.

As the newest member of the Wayfarer crew, a long-haul tunneling ship which bores holes through the fabric of spacetime to create tunnels through which ships can jump light-years across the galaxy, Rosemary is an observer who becomes a more and more prominent member of the crew. She develops her own relationships with her crewmates and shows how her clerical and research skills can help their ship.

But Rosemary’s outsider status as a spacer means that her perspective is a suitable entry point for the reader into this world.

Chambers’s writing is funny and poignant, with realistic dialogue and good escalation amid more tense moments and scenes. Her character development would work in any setting, but the fact that she couples this with believable sci-fi world-building elevates the story into a compelling narrative.

This was a book I couldn’t put down, and would gladly read again.

I would likely purchase and read a hard copy, because the audiobook’s narrator made some interesting inflection and pronunciation choices that took me out of the story for scattered moments.

Steve D

Saturday of Book Reviewing – Chamber’s The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

On By Jessie GutierrezIn Reviews, Writers - Jessie1 Comment

Written far more recently than my usual science fiction fare, Becky Chamber’s first entry in this ongoing series, Wayfarers, is a delight and an abrupt departure from the hard sci-fi of the past. Continue reading “Saturday of Book Reviewing – Chamber’s The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet” →