This book is a standalone sequel to Becky Chambers’ Wayfarer trilogy. Where strangers find themselves stranded in the same spot for days and start sharing and relativising their differences. If on a useless rock in the middle of the Universe rather than in a snowed-in Yorkshire pub! But the science-fiction aspects become quickly irrelevant, except for enlarging the initial specific (as in species) differences between the five (non-human) antagonists. On the one hand, this book is a rather conventional, caricaturesque, care-bear, feel-good, rosy, cocoonesque story… On the other, it is a more profound and humanist fable on the fact that we are more alike than we are unalike. Actually, the book reads better as a fable than as a novel as the story is almost inexistent and the characters too perfect to be anything but shells (and literally so for some of them) for their awakening to the others. Perfect mind-candy for a bleak day!
Archive for Becky Chambers
the Galaxy and the ground within [book review]
Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Travel with tags Becky Chambers, humanism, pub, science fiction, space opera, universalism, Wayfarer trilogy, Yorkshire on February 5, 2022 by xi'anrecord of a spaceborn few [book review]
Posted in Books, Kids, pictures with tags Becky Chambers, Hugo Awards, record of a spaceborn few, space opera, The Hainish novels and stories, Ursula Le Guin, Wayfarer trilogy on July 26, 2019 by xi'an
As in the previous two volumes, the cover of this Becky Chambers’ book is quite alluring. As is the title. The story is a medley of intermingled individual stories revolving (!) around the Exodus Fleet, the massive spaceship that humans boarded to escape a dying Earth. The universe of this third volume in the Wayfarer trilogy is both the same and not the same as in the earlier books, as it almost uniquely takes place on that ship and plays on the “us versus ’em” theme, unlike the other books, which were both tales of travel and of reaching a destination. Here the only (!) destination is finding one’s place in this finite and claustrophobic environment, with utopian dreams of a truly communist or anarchist society, although there are, as always, cracks in the system. The story is not “going anywhere”, in the sense that the natural order of things has not changed by the end of the book, which some readers may find disappointing, but the individuals therein have definitely moved to other planes of consciousness. In that sense, it is a more profound book than the previous two as the focus gets more and more psychological [and less space-operatic!]. Rereading my earlier book reviews, I was already noticing the first book as being homey (in that most of the long way to a small angry planet takes place in a confined tunneler ship) and the second being more homey. Already revolving on a closed and common orbit indeed. I also find it quite significant that record of a spaceborn few stands as a finalist for the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novel. As it indeed carries a deeper message than an action packed novel or a book overfilling with boundless evil. If there was such a thing as an Ursula Le Guin prize, it would definitely deserve it. There was something of an Hainish feeling to record of a spaceborn few…
A Closed and Common Orbit
Posted in Statistics with tags A Closed and Common Orbit, A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, AI, Arthur C. Clarke, Becky Chambers, book review, Hugo Awards, science fiction on February 27, 2018 by xi'an
This book by Becky Chambers comes as a sequel of sorts to her first [science-fiction] book, A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. Book that I liked a lot for its construction of relationships between the highly different team members of a spaceship. In this new book, the author pursues a similar elaboration of unlikely friendships between human and alien species, and AIs. If the first book felt homey, this one is even more so, with essentially two principal characters followed alternatively throughout the book, until the stories predictably cross. It is fairly well-written, with again a beautiful cover, but I cannot say it is as magisterial as the first book. The book-long considerations on the nature of AI and of cloned humans are certainly interesting and deep enough, but the story tension ebbs at time, especially for the story in the past since we know from the beginning that the main character will reappear in the current time. Not reaching the superlatives of a Hugo or Clarke Award in my opinion (albeit nominated for these prizes). Still a most enjoyable read!
