Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Harper Voyager (2019), 176 pages
Pages
176
Description
Fiction. Science Fiction. LGBTQIA+ (Fiction.) HTML: "Extraordinary . . . A future sci-fi masterwork in a new and welcome tradition." �?? Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat A stand-alone science fiction novella from the award-winning, bestselling, critically-acclaimed author of the Wayfarer series. At the turn of the twenty-second century, scientists make a breakthrough in human spaceflight. Through a revolutionary method known as somaforming, astronauts can survive in hostile environments off Earth using synthetic biological supplementations. They can produce antifreeze in subzero temperatures, absorb radiation and convert it for food, and conveniently adjust to the pull of different gravitational forces. With the fragility of the body no longer a limiting factor, human beings are at last able to journey to neighboring exoplanets long known to harbor life. A team of these explorers, Ariadne O'Neill and her three crewmates, are hard at work in a planetary system fifteen light-years from Sol, on a mission to ecologically survey four habitable worlds. But as Ariadne shifts through both form and time, the culture back on Earth has also been transformed. Faced with the possibility of returning to a planet that has forgotten those who have left, Ariadne begins to chronicle the story of the wonders and dangers of her mission, in the hope that someone back home might still be listening.… (more)
Media reviews
There’s a quiet beauty to Chambers’ writing that envelops you in her story and holds you tight until the very end. Proof that a novel doesn’t have to have hundreds of pages to be impressive.
With technical prowess and outstanding visceral imagery, Chambers (the Wayfarer Series) packs an immense amount of story into a novella worthy of full-length praise.
Awards
Hugo Award (Nominee — Novella — 2020)
Locus Award (Finalist — Novella — 2020)
RUSA CODES Reading List (Shortlist — Science Fiction — 2020)
British Science Fiction Association Award (Shortlist — Short Fiction — 2019)
Los Angeles Public Library Best of the Year (Fiction — 2019)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2019-09-03
Physical description
176 p.
ISBN
0062936018 / 9780062936011
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User reviews
LibraryThing member elenaj
This is a hard book, less hopeful and less settled than any of the books in Chambers' Wayfarer series. Its ending is unsettled - and unsettling. In a sense, it feels less like a story than like a philosophical explanation, a single question - should we, or should we not?
I don't have an answer any
This book has many of the lovely characteristics of Chambers' other books - it is well-written, evocative and empathetic. The characters are richly drawn and believable.I was gutted with them at the end of the Mirabilis section, perhaps the best part of the book, and the hardest to read. I love the dynamic between the crew, the comfortable acceptance of difference and the lack of interpersonal pettiness. The way their closeness and support falls away on Opera highlights the pain of that claustrophobic period.
I don't know what to do with the ending. I can't decide if I love it, or if it's frustratingly open. It invites transformative works in response - the story of each of the three choices.
I do recommend this book, but with more reservations than I would recommend the Wayfarers series. It doesn't offer balm for the wounds it opens, in the way those books do.
I don't have an answer any
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more than the characters do, and that is also unsettling. This book has many of the lovely characteristics of Chambers' other books - it is well-written, evocative and empathetic. The characters are richly drawn and believable.
I don't know what to do with the ending. I can't decide if I love it, or if it's frustratingly open. It invites transformative works in response - the story of each of the three choices.
I do recommend this book, but with more reservations than I would recommend the Wayfarers series. It doesn't offer balm for the wounds it opens, in the way those books do.
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LibraryThing member dukedom_enough
I had been meaning to read something by Chambers, who won the Hugo Award for best series in 2019, and this novella, about the exploration of another stellar system, was a good choice. The four members of an interstellar expedition come out of hibernation and visit the new star's planets. Earth is
The story is eventful, but skips over the sorts of conflict and peril common in exploration stories. There are no villains. Rather, the story's turning points, told through the point of view of ship's engineer Ariadne, are the many discoveries that the diverse crew makes on four very different exoplanets. Obstacles arise, but the spacefarers always find some more or less satisfactory way around them.
The pleasure presented here is to share in the crew's experience; consumed by their work, ever renewing their joy in scientific discovery. A typical encounter, on an ice-covered moon with water beneath the ice cover:
She grabbed my arm. "Oh, my god."
Adrenaline shot through me. "What?"
"Turn off your lights." I did. She did. "Look," she said, pointing.
(...)
Red. A small patch of soft, fluorescent red, shining quietly up through a hazy pane of ice.
It moved.
(...)
But the ice muted the light, blurring its edges, scattering it in hazy auras that shimmered well beyond the source. New colors joined the party - orange, pink - and new shapes as well. There were snake-like things, full bodied things, worms and flowers and combs. Some shoaled by the dozens. Some travelled alone. Some bobbed. Some chased. The ice sheet below us became a luminescent symphony (...) Imagine a summer carnival behind a wintered windowpane. Imagine the most fabulous aurora you've ever seen, shining below your feet.
The book feels like a modern echo of the sense-of-wonder stories of the 1930s.
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fourteen light years away, the speed of light is an absolute limit, and all news from home is old.The story is eventful, but skips over the sorts of conflict and peril common in exploration stories. There are no villains. Rather, the story's turning points, told through the point of view of ship's engineer Ariadne, are the many discoveries that the diverse crew makes on four very different exoplanets. Obstacles arise, but the spacefarers always find some more or less satisfactory way around them.
The pleasure presented here is to share in the crew's experience; consumed by their work, ever renewing their joy in scientific discovery. A typical encounter, on an ice-covered moon with water beneath the ice cover:
She grabbed my arm. "Oh, my god."
Adrenaline shot through me. "What?"
"Turn off your lights." I did. She did. "Look," she said, pointing.
(...)
Red. A small patch of soft, fluorescent red, shining quietly up through a hazy pane of ice.
It moved.
(...)
But the ice muted the light, blurring its edges, scattering it in hazy auras that shimmered well beyond the source. New colors joined the party - orange, pink - and new shapes as well. There were snake-like things, full bodied things, worms and flowers and combs. Some shoaled by the dozens. Some travelled alone. Some bobbed. Some chased. The ice sheet below us became a luminescent symphony (...) Imagine a summer carnival behind a wintered windowpane. Imagine the most fabulous aurora you've ever seen, shining below your feet.
The book feels like a modern echo of the sense-of-wonder stories of the 1930s.
Show Less
LibraryThing member antao
Don't listen to the people telling you that you have to read more contemporary SF. Why? Because you cannot judge contemporary SF with any authority without having read a reasonable amount of old stuff. SF is an evolutionary genre, so it needs to evolve to stay relevant: you'll actually find that
For example, I find Weir very traditional and he's done nothing to move SF forward - 'A Fall of Moondust' is fairly routine even for Clarke - Charles Logan's 'Shipwreck' and Joanna Russ' 'We Who Are About To...' tackled Weir's first novel concept and put it to bed in the 70s. Chambers is pretty much a soap opera writer who seems unable to handle conceptual breakthrough - for example, 'To Be Taught If Fortunate' really fails to take Blish's concept of Pantropy from the 1950s any further. Her character-focus approach is a lighter version of what Maureen F. McHugh did in the early 90s with far more facility and maturity - not that I'm averse to characterisation, anything but, but Chambers isn't that great at it. I agree that turning a mirror toward society is important, but SF does this metaphorically, through a glass darkly rather than directly like mimetic fiction - SF reflects in a distorting mirror rather than just holding it up to nature such a representational view of Art is pre-modern and a bit simplistic for the fractured realities of the contemporary world, I feel. The vast majority of contemporary SF writers don't really signal paradigm shift very well and are pretty unsurprising in their lack of innovation - they're comfort reads only in my opinion. Look at the work of Dave Hutchinson, Nina Allan, Adam Roberts, Chris Beckett, Tom Toner and old master Gibson, Priest and M. John Harrison. These are the people pushing the envelope. Emma Newman is fine too and Tchaikovsky has his moments (and lots of crap too). I'm not saying don't read contemporary SF at all, I'm saying it really isn't that vibrant currently - especially when compared to (for example) the 1980s. I respect the opposing points of view, as it does mirror that of a large number of readers I see on Goodreads saying this is a masterpiece, but most contemporary SF is inherently explored by conservative writers with seemingly low literary ambitions. There are not truly evolutionary writers right now in contemporary SF (maybe Ada Palmer, and K. J. Parker could fit the bill but what do I know…), though admittedly this is a very tough call for all SF writers now, to innovate after a century or more of mass media - after all, we've all seen everything now...or have we? Have a good day.
SF = Speculative Fiction.
Book Review SF = Speculative Fiction
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much contemporary SF is not that much more advanced in a literary or thematic sense than what was produced in the late 1980s - as that decade ended, progress in SF's evolution slowed enormously and a lot - not all of it, but a lot of it - is simply riffing on themes that were covered extensively between 1950 and 1990. I find that almost everyone who sticks to what is new has no contextual or historical overview of the genre, which you need to make informed judgements. For example, I find Weir very traditional and he's done nothing to move SF forward - 'A Fall of Moondust' is fairly routine even for Clarke - Charles Logan's 'Shipwreck' and Joanna Russ' 'We Who Are About To...' tackled Weir's first novel concept and put it to bed in the 70s. Chambers is pretty much a soap opera writer who seems unable to handle conceptual breakthrough - for example, 'To Be Taught If Fortunate' really fails to take Blish's concept of Pantropy from the 1950s any further. Her character-focus approach is a lighter version of what Maureen F. McHugh did in the early 90s with far more facility and maturity - not that I'm averse to characterisation, anything but, but Chambers isn't that great at it. I agree that turning a mirror toward society is important, but SF does this metaphorically, through a glass darkly rather than directly like mimetic fiction - SF reflects in a distorting mirror rather than just holding it up to nature such a representational view of Art is pre-modern and a bit simplistic for the fractured realities of the contemporary world, I feel. The vast majority of contemporary SF writers don't really signal paradigm shift very well and are pretty unsurprising in their lack of innovation - they're comfort reads only in my opinion. Look at the work of Dave Hutchinson, Nina Allan, Adam Roberts, Chris Beckett, Tom Toner and old master Gibson, Priest and M. John Harrison. These are the people pushing the envelope. Emma Newman is fine too and Tchaikovsky has his moments (and lots of crap too). I'm not saying don't read contemporary SF at all, I'm saying it really isn't that vibrant currently - especially when compared to (for example) the 1980s. I respect the opposing points of view, as it does mirror that of a large number of readers I see on Goodreads saying this is a masterpiece, but most contemporary SF is inherently explored by conservative writers with seemingly low literary ambitions. There are not truly evolutionary writers right now in contemporary SF (maybe Ada Palmer, and K. J. Parker could fit the bill but what do I know…), though admittedly this is a very tough call for all SF writers now, to innovate after a century or more of mass media - after all, we've all seen everything now...or have we? Have a good day.
SF = Speculative Fiction.
Book Review SF = Speculative Fiction
Show Less
LibraryThing member quondame
A message in a "bottle" narrative which describes the voyage of one of a number a publicly funded space explorations. Using a modest palette of notions the encounters on the planetary bodies of a system are wondrous and baleful or both.
LibraryThing member Stevil2001
I found this novella very slow going at first. It's about an exploratory mission to exoplanets, following the crew of a spaceship as they move from one to one in the 22nd century. Chambers, I think, overloads us on procedural and scientific detail, and underloads us on reasons to care: I never
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found that any of the characters who weren't the narrator really popped. It did pick up as it went, though, and the central hook/conceit of the whole thing because clear. There's a couple great sequences near the end, especially when they're on the storm planet. But I feel like a lot of the early material could be trimmed down to get you to the meat of the book faster without losing any of the effect. On the other hand, there's a key moment at the end that would have benefited from more set-up: a scientific question is only introduced when it's resolved, instead of being seeded earlier on. Show Less
LibraryThing member Charon07
This is not so much a novel (or, more accurately, a novella), as a philosophical and ethical examination of space travel within a fictional context. Becky Chambers’ work tends to be short on plot but long on characters that touch your heart. And while the relationships of the tiny cast of
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characters will strike a chord, it really is more a novel of ideas and ethics. While I didn’t need as many kleenex as for other Chambers novels, I did need a couple, and I appreciate the food for thought. Show Less
LibraryThing member reading_fox
Really rather clever. I hadn't appreciated the title until the afterword from the author - it's taken from the speech made at the launch of the Voyager carrying humanities plea to the universe. It's very apt given this is sort of a novella of first contact. It seems to be a modern trend (reverting
In the not too distant future, the citizens of earth have crowd-funded (really it's a useful concept at the moment, but not one I think likely to endure) a series of missions to the nearer likely life habitable worlds. The crew are in suspended animation until arrival, and have slight non-permanent gene-mods to cope with the expected conditions. This sin't really about the worlds' they discover - and Becky takes through a few of the more common permutations of ice, water, stone and fire, but about the crew how they cope, and finally elapsed time and conditions on Earth that launched them.
Becky's writing is always sympathetic, the characters are fun, rounded healthy normal people. They live and love in strange circumstances and have been especially selected to cope, but they're not without ties back home, and do they're best to concentrate on the the Why of being sent so far away. Although the story is only told from the engineer's view, to avoid having too much science focus, you as a reader, love all four of them. (I'm not sure a crew size of four is practical, but then the whole premise is a little flimsy anyway. It's not a details story, it's part philosophy and part ethics and as always what it means to be human when you're so far from home.
I think the fourth world (well probably the 2nd is the one I'd cut) is unnecessary, as we've gathered the gist - worlds are very variable and technically life could be almost anywhere. A novella isn't the place to try and mix two themes, and vivid although Becky's imagination is, diversity of alien lifeforms possibilities is best explored in a longer treatise, leaving the focus on this one to be the journey rather than the destination.
Very much worth reading though
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to the past) for SF to be written as shorter length pieces. I'm not a fan, and although this works well, it would probably work better in a longer format, or alternatively as it's a very simple concept, it could also be much shorter.In the not too distant future, the citizens of earth have crowd-funded (really it's a useful concept at the moment, but not one I think likely to endure) a series of missions to the nearer likely life habitable worlds. The crew are in suspended animation until arrival, and have slight non-permanent gene-mods to cope with the expected conditions. This sin't really about the worlds' they discover - and Becky takes through a few of the more common permutations of ice, water, stone and fire, but about the crew how they cope, and finally elapsed time and conditions on Earth that launched them.
Becky's writing is always sympathetic, the characters are fun, rounded healthy normal people. They live and love in strange circumstances and have been especially selected to cope, but they're not without ties back home, and do they're best to concentrate on the the Why of being sent so far away. Although the story is only told from the engineer's view, to avoid having too much science focus, you as a reader, love all four of them. (I'm not sure a crew size of four is practical, but then the whole premise is a little flimsy anyway. It's not a details story, it's part philosophy and part ethics and as always what it means to be human when you're so far from home.
I think the fourth world (well probably the 2nd is the one I'd cut) is unnecessary, as we've gathered the gist - worlds are very variable and technically life could be almost anywhere. A novella isn't the place to try and mix two themes, and vivid although Becky's imagination is, diversity of alien lifeforms possibilities is best explored in a longer treatise, leaving the focus on this one to be the journey rather than the destination.
Very much worth reading though
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LibraryThing member wyvernfriend
This was a gentle interesting read with characters I really came to care for. Nothing major happens in this story but theres a lot about exploring space and the reasons to do so. When I was at Worldcon in 2019 I heard Becky Chambers read from this and I was interested in it.
It's the first of the
It's the first of the
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Novellas from the Hugo Short list It will take a bit to beat it. Show Less
LibraryThing member villemezbrown
I like small casts in tight spaces so this really grew on me as it progressed. A particularly claustrophobic sequence leads to the book's emotional climax, but then it meandered on afterward to an intellectual ending I found dull, confusing, and ultimately stupid and frustrating. The interviews
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between the author and her mother in the end matter did nothing for me, but I'm a bit intrigued by the preview for The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and may give that a try sometime. Show Less
LibraryThing member SChant
This is an absolutely sublime novella - a love-letter to the big ideas of human space exploration, how humans can be chosen and adapted for the rigours and hazards, the scrupulous technical requirements of examining the flora and fauna on a new planet, and the sheer joy of discovery. I love this to
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pieces! Show Less
LibraryThing member BoundTogetherForGood
Superb! Fourth win for Becky Chambers, and for her readers.
LibraryThing member Herenya
This novella is about a team from the 22nd century exploring four habitable worlds in orbit around a red dwarf star. It’s a fascinating glimpse into what the future might be like -- what space travel and other worlds might be like.
When it comes to the characters and their relationships, there’s
So this left me feeling unsatisfied, but I think that’s because there are particular things I’m looking for as a reader and this book quite intentionally -- and effectively -- chose to focus on something else.
Again, I’m as biased as can be, but I believe somaforming is the most ethical option when it comes to setting foot off Earth. I’m an observer, not a conqueror. I have no interest in changing other worlds to suit me. I choose the lighter touch: changing myself to suit them.
When it comes to the characters and their relationships, there’s
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something quite elliptical about this story -- which is fitting, given that Ariadne is writing this account for a specific purpose. This is a thought-provoking meditation about space, science and life, and Ariadne wants her audience to respond because they value the potential of space exploration rather than because they’re personally invested in Ariadne and her colleagues. (Perhaps she also wants to protect her colleagues’ privacy.)So this left me feeling unsatisfied, but I think that’s because there are particular things I’m looking for as a reader and this book quite intentionally -- and effectively -- chose to focus on something else.
Again, I’m as biased as can be, but I believe somaforming is the most ethical option when it comes to setting foot off Earth. I’m an observer, not a conqueror. I have no interest in changing other worlds to suit me. I choose the lighter touch: changing myself to suit them.
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LibraryThing member being_b
A love letter to science, scientists, and delight in discovery. Knocked off a star because I didn't think the ending was consistent with the characters.
LibraryThing member John_Warner
Science fiction portrays interplanetary exploration and development two ways. One, like Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars involves terraforming, whch involves creating a climate on a planet more hospitable to humanity. This novella, like Frederik Pohl's Man Plus, involves altering human's anatomy and
Set at the turn of the 22nd century, Ariadine O'Neill and three other scientists are exploring a planetary system 15 light years from Earth. The novella is divided in four parts as the scientists travel to each of four planets of differing climes and ecologies. Each scientist aboard realize that Earth history is moving faster than from their perspective in space; therefore, Earth would be radically different when, and if, they return.
Besides one event on a water world, this novella lacked any tense or suspenseful moments. Although it was interested to read of the author's description of these four planet's environment, there wasn't enough to hold my attention. Thank goodness this work of fiction was short. At times, I felt as if I was reading a National Geographic article.
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physiology to enable him or her to survive on another planet. In this novella, this process is known as somaforming. Modifications include increased muscular enhancements to cope with planetary bodies with greater gravitational pull or a form of antifreeze in the circulatory system to improve survival in subzero temperatures.Set at the turn of the 22nd century, Ariadine O'Neill and three other scientists are exploring a planetary system 15 light years from Earth. The novella is divided in four parts as the scientists travel to each of four planets of differing climes and ecologies. Each scientist aboard realize that Earth history is moving faster than from their perspective in space; therefore, Earth would be radically different when, and if, they return.
Besides one event on a water world, this novella lacked any tense or suspenseful moments. Although it was interested to read of the author's description of these four planet's environment, there wasn't enough to hold my attention. Thank goodness this work of fiction was short. At times, I felt as if I was reading a National Geographic article.
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LibraryThing member livingtech
I liked this well enough, but it felt a bit like I was waiting for a shoe to drop the entire time. And it did eventually drop. I don’t know if this was skillful foreshadowing, or if it was just too obvious a plot. Maybe I should mark this review as containing spoilers, even though I’m not
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getting into specifics. Show Less
LibraryThing member bragan
This is a novella-length story about four astronauts exploring four alien planets while decades pass on Earth and things change significantly there.
I've really loved some of Chambers' other books, but I found this one kind of a disappointment by contrast. It seems like the sort of thing that should
Not that it's a bad book. The writing is fine. The alien planets are at least mildly interesting. The characters, while lightly sketched, do feel like people. And I really do appreciate the themes and questions it raises, especially at the end. But I do wish it had been a little bit more... something.
I've really loved some of Chambers' other books, but I found this one kind of a disappointment by contrast. It seems like the sort of thing that should
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appeal to me, space enthusiast and giant science nerd that I am. It's all about the satisfaction of scientific discovery and the choices we make about whether exploration is something we value or not. But the truth is, I found it absurdly slow-reading for something this short. The science stuff wasn't nearly in-depth enough or the the thrill of discovery thrilling enough to satisfy the science-nerd part of my brain, and the rest of me kept wishing for a little more plot. The mystery of exactly what's happened back on Earth while our heroes were out exploring elsewhere provides a tiny bit of tension, but less than you'd think, and the answer, when it came, did not remotely land for me with the kind of emotional impact you'd expect.Not that it's a bad book. The writing is fine. The alien planets are at least mildly interesting. The characters, while lightly sketched, do feel like people. And I really do appreciate the themes and questions it raises, especially at the end. But I do wish it had been a little bit more... something.
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LibraryThing member dreamweaversunited
So frustrating to read that I quit less than halfway through. This book makes an attempt at "hard science fiction" but completely fails at it. If you're going to include lots of biological details, get them RIGHT. Otherwise, just handwave it like Star Trek.
LibraryThing member ladycato
I'm a huge fan of Becky Chambers's work. She has a way of capturing emotions, humanity itself, with profoundness beyond authors of any genre. That said, this novella was slow to grab me. It's not in the setting of her other books. It's a stand-alone novella that starts in near-contemporary Earth.
There is a gentleness to Chambers's prose, a gradual escalation of tension like a slow inhalation. At the end, at the culmination, I gasped. I should never have doubted this author's power.
To be Taught, If Fortunate is devastating and beautiful, the kind of book that leaves a scar in your memory. So well worth reading, but dang.
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Ariadne is part of a small crew of space explorers. Like other missions before them, the goal is science and knowledge: go into stasis for the journey, awaken and examine a new world for some five years while leaving as little a footprint as possible, then go to the next in the set sequence. Those missions done, the crew returns to Earth.There is a gentleness to Chambers's prose, a gradual escalation of tension like a slow inhalation. At the end, at the culmination, I gasped. I should never have doubted this author's power.
To be Taught, If Fortunate is devastating and beautiful, the kind of book that leaves a scar in your memory. So well worth reading, but dang.
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LibraryThing member renbedell
SF novella about astronauts visiting other planets to explore the possibility of life. This is an amazingly written story. There isn't much of a plot, but it shines with the characters and the ideas brought up. It is very much a science SF with exploring different planet structures and how life can
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arise and adapt. The characters are well written and there is plenty of interaction to give it a sense of realism. I really enjoyed this book. Show Less
LibraryThing member forsanolim
I'd wanted to read a book by Becky Chambers for a while, and this seemed like a gentle introduction to her work. I really, really enjoyed it, and I will definitely pick up other things she's written when I get a chance.
The four characters in this book form a crew sent from Earth to explore four
I deeply enjoyed this book. The descriptions were lovely, and the whole atmosphere felt slightly dream-like to me, in a really lovely way. I'm not giving it five stars because I do wish it had been a bit longer--in some places in this book, subtlety and brief mentions went a long way for me, but I do with that there had been a bit more elaboration at the ending.
The four characters in this book form a crew sent from Earth to explore four
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alien worlds, studying the environment and lifeforms on each. Between worlds, the astronauts are put into states of torpor--essentially in suspended animation, they reemerge upon arriving on a new world. With these dramatic gaps in consciousness due to their travel, they also have to try to make sense of the fragmentary and belated news that they receive from Earth as time there progresses much more quickly (due to relativity) than it does to the astronauts.I deeply enjoyed this book. The descriptions were lovely, and the whole atmosphere felt slightly dream-like to me, in a really lovely way. I'm not giving it five stars because I do wish it had been a bit longer--in some places in this book, subtlety and brief mentions went a long way for me, but I do with that there had been a bit more elaboration at the ending.
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LibraryThing member lavaturtle
I loved this book. It's got astronauts and space problems and science ideas and optimism about humanity. There are multiple queer characters! And an asexual character, and a trans character! There's delight and despair and some of the best depictions I've seen of people dealing with mental illness.
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The protagonists are all very different people, but at the end of the day they all love science and they all love each other, and that gets them through. I wish there was more of this story! But, without going into spoilery detail, it's actually perfect for the format. Show Less
LibraryThing member barlow304
Highly recommended.
Becky Chambers has always been a character-driven writer and that tendency pays off in spades in this latest work. An account of a long-term exploration of exoplanets, the book is amazingly detailed and imaginative in conjuring not only each planet but how the planets affect the
Although the focus is on the astronauts from earth, the true strength of this novella is the extremely imaginative creation of not one, but three different planets in the same distant solar system. Each planet is markedly different from the others, calling forth different reactions from each member of the crew. As the explorers continue their surveys, Chambers shows how they evolve, how their interactions change, and how their thoughts about Earth as home change over time.
This is a lovely book, well written and carefully imagined. For those readers who would like a break from our reality, I cannot recommend this book more highly.
Becky Chambers has always been a character-driven writer and that tendency pays off in spades in this latest work. An account of a long-term exploration of exoplanets, the book is amazingly detailed and imaginative in conjuring not only each planet but how the planets affect the
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explorers. Although the focus is on the astronauts from earth, the true strength of this novella is the extremely imaginative creation of not one, but three different planets in the same distant solar system. Each planet is markedly different from the others, calling forth different reactions from each member of the crew. As the explorers continue their surveys, Chambers shows how they evolve, how their interactions change, and how their thoughts about Earth as home change over time.
This is a lovely book, well written and carefully imagined. For those readers who would like a break from our reality, I cannot recommend this book more highly.
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LibraryThing member fred_mouse
This is one of the best actual SF stories I've read in a long time - the descriptions of the science, the explanations, the justification for the level of detail - done so amazingly well. The writing is sublime, the world building is fascinating -- each of the planets visited so different, so
All this, and there were so many other details I loved. The casual mentions of sexuality, with one bisexual and one asexual character, and neither of these things are dramatic or important to the plot. The accurate and conflicting representations as slow, careful, repetitive, and yet exhilarating when something is found. The delightful naming schemes of the discovered organisms, in keeping with earth taxonomy. Chikondi's pleasure in growing plants, Jack's obsession with rocks, Elena's focus on weather and routine. The way that even at the start of the story, the political landscape of Earth isn't one I recognise.
Highly recommended.
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detailed, so real--, and the pacing is exquisite. The characterisation is wonderful - at no point did I dislike any of them, for anything. It shows that a story with dramatic tension and colour needs no extravagant discord between characters (there are disagreements, but they are presented at some remove). All this, and there were so many other details I loved. The casual mentions of sexuality, with one bisexual and one asexual character, and neither of these things are dramatic or important to the plot. The accurate and conflicting representations as slow, careful, repetitive, and yet exhilarating when something is found. The delightful naming schemes of the discovered organisms, in keeping with earth taxonomy. Chikondi's pleasure in growing plants, Jack's obsession with rocks, Elena's focus on weather and routine. The way that even at the start of the story, the political landscape of Earth isn't one I recognise.
Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member JudithProctor
Well written, but almost totally lacking in plot, and hence does not engage the reader. Disappointed, as I've loved some of her other books.
LibraryThing member 2wonderY
Not nearly as good as her other books. The physical and psychological challenges of a planetary survey team were interesting, but not especially so. Chambers does excel in her community building. That part was lovely.