The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1) in Goodjer Recommends

Oct 01, 2018 Christopher Mclean rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2018-laser-challenge

This felt more like a season of old school Star Trek, than a traditional novel, with a series of loosly connected stories focusing on specific characters or conflicts, rather than an overarching plot. Personally this worked for me, but I can see why others might bounce off it.

Style aside, I adored this book, in classic TV style each mini-story has a fairly clear moral, but I felt rather than comming across as preachy Chambers framed some common tropes in very unique ways.

While the overall plot i ...more

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Dec 17, 2016 Taylor rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

A good-hearted, if a little on the light side, romp through a galaxy filled with interesting races. the book takes a micro-level view, spending a lot of time with the characters on a spaceship making a long journey to do a job. No military stuff, no huge decisions impacting planets and billions of sentients, it is a small and personal story. I got a sense as I was reading that I was playing through the "loyalty" missions in an alternate Mass Effect game, not that this is a bad thing, it works we A good-hearted, if a little on the light side, romp through a galaxy filled with interesting races. the book takes a micro-level view, spending a lot of time with the characters on a spaceship making a long journey to do a job. No military stuff, no huge decisions impacting planets and billions of sentients, it is a small and personal story. I got a sense as I was reading that I was playing through the "loyalty" missions in an alternate Mass Effect game, not that this is a bad thing, it works well. Each section of the book picks a character and zooms in on them. The other characters on the ship will be on the periphery, for the most part, with one or two making an appearance in the section's character's story.

I enjoyed this book for the most part. I have a few niggles though. One, there is no evil in this universe. The most evil thing is one of the character's father and he is offscreen and mentioned in passing - it is a big deal for that character but does not really impact the story all that much beyond her. So, it feels like bad things don't really happen in the future, even though some bad things have happened in the past. Just a minor thing, but the book goes out of its way to justify/explain away anything bad. The pirates aren't bad, they just need some stuff to survive, for example. It makes the book sweet but sometimes cloyingly so.

My second niggle is, I admit, very minor. However, the galactic backdrop feels one-dimensional. Now, our characters' interaction is very minor and personal: as I mentioned before, there is little political going on in the book. However the galactic backdrop to the story feels like it exists merely to throw these disparate races together into an interesting situation. For a story that does such a good job of evoking species' differences and how, while they have a lot in common with one another, they really do have a number of meaningful differences, the lack of background depth stand out in relief. However, like I said, this is a minor thing: this story is not about politics but people and their relationships to one another.

And, in that regard, it succeeds wonderfully. So many little touches that give the characters depth, so many little moments where the relationships shine. This book is about people, and it is a sweet, wondrous tale. ...more

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Aug 19, 2019 Michael rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, fiction, hugo-nominees, 2019-challenge

I came across this book when reading a list of recent Hugo and Nebula award nominees, and I'm glad I read it! Becky Chambers has a fascinating take on the space opera novel with a crew of misfits: the book is about a "tunnelling ship" which essentially builds hyperspace jump points. But that's just the meta-narrative. Like a good, serial TV show, the book is really about the crew, and the stops along the way.

Though this was Chambers' first novel, I can see why it was nominated! Each of the char I came across this book when reading a list of recent Hugo and Nebula award nominees, and I'm glad I read it! Becky Chambers has a fascinating take on the space opera novel with a crew of misfits: the book is about a "tunnelling ship" which essentially builds hyperspace jump points. But that's just the meta-narrative. Like a good, serial TV show, the book is really about the crew, and the stops along the way.

Though this was Chambers' first novel, I can see why it was nominated! Each of the characters has a distinctive voice and feels like a real person (even when some feel a little trope-y). Her non-human races are creative and thoughtfully drawn, and she really explores what makes them tick as a character and as something other than human (especially Sissix and Dr. Chef -- probably my favorite character). There's a genuine warmth to the characters, who (mostly) enjoy each other's company, and the book does a great job of probing the theme of how we interact with, and try to understand, people different from us.

When I picked up the book, I saw a lot of interesting feedback on Amazon. I was surprised that, for a book with a good rating (mostly 4- and 5-stars) and critical acclaim, the "most helpful" feedback was negative -- and with snide comments about "SJWs" and "LGBT tolerance, racism, and other post-millenial tolerance BS." I always appreciate a review that lets me know if the reviewer's point of view will be helpful to me, and with this prejudice right out in the open, I could immediately discount it. That aside, I saw other feedback about how there isn't enough action, or hardship; I didn't find that to detract from the story for me, but I could see that it would for other people. I definitely noticed this theme in reviews of Chambers' other books, which I looked at after I finishing this one. It seems that, throughout her work, the protagonists and most of the side characters like each other, make explicit efforts at tolerance, and succeed through teamwork without a whole lot to overcome. People might go through some tough stuff, but it's tough psychologically, like "I fell in love with an AI,"or "I'm trying to make sense of my race's history of violence," or "I got mugged, which was a traumatic experience." There's much less conflict in this book, and possibly in all of Chambers' other books, than others; and certainly, there's a LOT less violence-as-conflict or threat-of-death-as-conflict. I say all this by way of explanation: I found it a lot of fun to spend time with these characters, but for some people, this book (and maybe her others) will move too slowly, without enough that "happens." ...more

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