Wayfarers Series 4 Books Collection Set by Becky Chambers (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, A Closed and Common Orbit, Record of a Spaceborn Few & To Be Taught, If Fortunate)

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Kizzy - A technician on the Wayfarer. Never, have I ever, read a character that I felt I was personally more like than Kizzy Shao. From her being so talkative, to always trying to be cheerful and positive, to her playing dating sims and loving all food, especially all things spicy, to her loving so unconditionally. I will never answer another bookish question of “what character are you most like” with bits and pieces from other books, because I truly see all of myself in Kizzy. Oh, and her being Asian warms my damn heart, too. Three other guests have arrived at her inn and gardens when they are forced to stay a bit longer than intended. Ouloo finds herself reminding her child that some of their guests' looks and habits may be a bit unusual.

Seriously though, while the central ship in The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is actually named The Wayfarer almost everyone in the book is so cloyingly sweet that the name of the Simpsons' archetypal nice guy seems like a better fit. There's friendly Captain Flanders, chirpy lady engineer Flanders, friendly dwarf Flanders... you get the idea. Even the ship AI is a little Flandersesque. And then, there are other books, like Ancestral night, also a female SciFi author, that have the character driven emotionally insightful story that Chambers so excels at, but that also put serious research into getting the hard science right, in a way that is a delight to read, from emerging ships out of superluminal travel being particle cannons, to how confused researchers are still about gravity, to sensible spaceship design, to time lag when communicating with large minds. PALMARÈS OFFICIEL DE LA 18E ÉDITION DES UTOPIALES" (PDF). Les Utopiales. Archived (PDF) from the original on 22 October 2021 . Retrieved 17 September 2022.

I'm sure that Chamers aficionados will be able to love this in a way that I wasn't but if I had to be completely honest with myself, reading it felt like a waste of my time.

The author seems to be trying to emulate the Joss Whedon and associates style of breezy television writing (Firefly, Buffy, Shield etc) which also depicts groups of friends having adventures but what imitators forget is that Whedon created conflict between his characters, he threw massive obstacles in their path, he made them hate each other sometimes, he *scarred* them, he often killed them and so the lessons that they learnt about acceptance and loyalty and diversity and courage etc genuinely resonated with the viewer because they were hard won. This by contrast is tepid, innocuous, and faintly patronising, perfect for a 21st century audience that wants to feel cozy and be spoon fed all the answers.

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Alexander, Niall (27 April 2016). "Announcing the 2016 Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlist". Tor.com. Archived from the original on 3 February 2022 . Retrieved 12 July 2022. My favourite character in the book is the charming and tragic Dr Chef (yes, he is the ship’s doctor and chef), one of the last of an alien species called Grum, which resemble a kind of six-limbed otter and gradually change biological sex over their lifetime. In epic space films we often see entire ships or planets destroyed and just move along, death on such a large scale it becomes that Stalin quote about one death a tragedy, a million a statistic. Long Way to a Small Angry Planet zooms in to the individual level and shows how for the regular person caught up in these cosmic struggles just a single death could be a universe of grief. It brings us to the level of what goes on with the Red Shirts in Star Trek, the transport crews in Star Wars, the regular staff in Dune, a crew full of non-combatants just trying to live their life in the universe. I love this crew. I can’t help it after feeling their kinship, engaging with their struggles, and watching them learn and love with each other. We are brought aboard the Wayfarer along with Rosemary, a young woman with a new identity fleeing a mysterious past and welcomed in to their crew. I’d tell you about them all, but I’d rather you get to meet them for yourselves. It’s been a few days since I finished the book and I rather miss them, so say hello for me. It wasn’t perfect, but it would make most people happy. Roveg had the feeling that was the underlying aim with everything in this place.”

But I would really prefer if she accordingly either skipped the science bits, or consulted a scientist on them.Instead, Chambers fleshes out her characters as people first, species second. We learn about the denizens of any number of planets or systems. The humans of Chambers’ sci-fi world ground us in the new while the narratives teach us about ourselves and others by offering glimpses of life outside of human experience.