Paperback, 512 pages
Spanish language
Published Jan. 29, 2018 by Insólita Editorial.
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is the 2014 debut science fiction novel by Becky Chambers, set in her fictional universe the Galactic Commons. Chambers originally self-published it via a Kickstarter campaign; it was subsequently re-published by Hodder & Stoughton.
A lovely read with strong characters, excellent development over time, a nifty world build, and just plain fun reading.
I had started to read this once before but never got beyond the first chaper or so. I am so glad I chose to listen to the audiobook. I am definitely hooked, book 2 is already waiting for me. Such an awesome constellation of characters.
Such an uplifting read! It managed to scratch my space opera itch.
We're in space. Lots of aliens in a galactic alliance. Everyone breathes the same atmosphere and is roughly the same size. Artificial gravity, faster-than-light travel. Your normal "let's not get creative here" setting.
Where the creative part comes in is the cast and the plot. We're on the Wayfarer, a spaceship for digging "sublayer" tunnels, through which FTL traffic can flow from one star system to another. The crew of nine includes five humans, three aliens and an AI.
With a few exceptions everyone is super nice. The captain is a pacifist. They carry no weapons. They story is mainly a road trip to a "small, angry planet". They run into conflicts at times, but these are never settled with force. They don't outwit or otherwise defeat the enemy either. They just come to an agreement or find …
Such an uplifting read! It managed to scratch my space opera itch.
We're in space. Lots of aliens in a galactic alliance. Everyone breathes the same atmosphere and is roughly the same size. Artificial gravity, faster-than-light travel. Your normal "let's not get creative here" setting.
Where the creative part comes in is the cast and the plot. We're on the Wayfarer, a spaceship for digging "sublayer" tunnels, through which FTL traffic can flow from one star system to another. The crew of nine includes five humans, three aliens and an AI.
With a few exceptions everyone is super nice. The captain is a pacifist. They carry no weapons. They story is mainly a road trip to a "small, angry planet". They run into conflicts at times, but these are never settled with force. They don't outwit or otherwise defeat the enemy either. They just come to an agreement or find a legal solution.
I love this book for this. I mean how many times in your life have you been in a conflict? How often was it resolved by force or cunning? Way less often than in novels or films. So this is a nice change of pace.
The story is a bit like a collection of short stories about these characters. You could probably swap around some chapters without anyone noticing. It's not a bad thing. There is not a strong overarching plot or big twists. But still it was a satisfying read. The stories are interesting enough.
This was a lovely read. Although it's set in a rich fictional future which Chambers has clearly written a lot of history and sociology for, I enjoyed how that was background, not the point of the story. It's not a story about empires rising and falling, or historic heroes, just of a group of people getting through a series of challenges together. And while those people start out feeling like caricatures, they get progressively more believable as the book goes on, to the point that by the end I was very invested in their fates - not because The Fate Of The Galaxy Depends On Them, but just because they were interesting personalities I'd developed some affection for.
This was a lovely read. Although it's set in a rich fictional future which Chambers has clearly written a lot of history and sociology for, I enjoyed how that was background, not the point of the story. It's not a story about empires rising and falling, or historic heroes, just of a group of people getting through a series of challenges together. And while those people start out feeling like caricatures, they get progressively more believable as the book goes on, to the point that by the end I was very invested in their fates - not because The Fate Of The Galaxy Depends On Them, but just because they were interesting personalities I'd developed some affection for.
A fresh voice in the space adventure sub-genre! I love the optimism, the joy, and the adventure. This isn't to say that there aren't sad bits and anxiety-driven scenes. Nobody wants a pollyanna, and Chambers' first novel certainly has ups and downs driving the plot forward. She also has some very science-fictiony looks at identity and sapience. The aliens are sometimes very alien, and that's a very good thing. I'm looking forward to starting the next entry already.
DNF at 51%. Not a bad book, but I couldn't connect with any of the characters, and the plot, such as it was, didn't hold my attention.
This is a good and enjoyable book. It's not high art, and the mechanics of the story telling and character development are too visible for my taste, but I read it to prepare for her next book, Hugo-nominated "A Closed and Common Orbit."
World-building in this book is good -- I feel like pieces of it could come alive and live in my brain all by themselves, with a little more work. It feels like a series of short stories. They're not perfectly strung together, but the lack of total continuity isn't used to imply progress or convey mystery. In this universe, everything can be known.
It felt like Chambers was working down a checklist as she wrote:
- describe the technology they use day-to-day in detail
- resolve all conflicts by the end of the book, and preferably by the end of the working day
- make sure to …
This is a good and enjoyable book. It's not high art, and the mechanics of the story telling and character development are too visible for my taste, but I read it to prepare for her next book, Hugo-nominated "A Closed and Common Orbit."
World-building in this book is good -- I feel like pieces of it could come alive and live in my brain all by themselves, with a little more work. It feels like a series of short stories. They're not perfectly strung together, but the lack of total continuity isn't used to imply progress or convey mystery. In this universe, everything can be known.
It felt like Chambers was working down a checklist as she wrote:
- describe the technology they use day-to-day in detail
- resolve all conflicts by the end of the book, and preferably by the end of the working day
- make sure to cover the inner life of each character -- there's always a reasonable explanation for why so-and-so is a jerk, and once we empathize with them -- FRIENDS!
This book's conflicts are struggles between the Lawful Good and Chaotic Good alignments.
This book's Netflix category would be: Empathy-Porn Buddy-Show in Space
Fun sci-fi read.
Only the book never gets really exciting.
It feels like the characters are just going to the motions and never make any real choices.
What I did like where topics like:
- Sentient AI / Humanoid relations
- Interactions of humanoids from different alien cultures
I loved this book.
Not very much happens - it’s really almost like a series of individual episodes with one overreaching arc. Every character felt realized in their own and alien ways. Wonderful science fiction/space fantasy.
This was such a lovely little book (it's actually quite thick -- but it reads fast.) Chambers writes a lovely interstellar setting, with seemingly endless diversity of alien cultures, anatomy and biology. I really felt that the world building was stellar and that I could delve into each of the alien races. I also really liked that humans were kind of a lesser-race in the galaxy -- nice twist.
As billed, the best part of the book is the chosen-family relationship that develops among the crew of the Wayfarers, despite interpersonal tension, major cultural differences and occasional fights. Their care for each other and the way that they all learned to understand each other was really evident. There's something really satisfying about reading about characters who are deeply-developed and obviously well-loved by their author, and I'm constantly complaining about the dearth of literature on platonic non-familial relationships.
And while I'm …
This was such a lovely little book (it's actually quite thick -- but it reads fast.) Chambers writes a lovely interstellar setting, with seemingly endless diversity of alien cultures, anatomy and biology. I really felt that the world building was stellar and that I could delve into each of the alien races. I also really liked that humans were kind of a lesser-race in the galaxy -- nice twist.
As billed, the best part of the book is the chosen-family relationship that develops among the crew of the Wayfarers, despite interpersonal tension, major cultural differences and occasional fights. Their care for each other and the way that they all learned to understand each other was really evident. There's something really satisfying about reading about characters who are deeply-developed and obviously well-loved by their author, and I'm constantly complaining about the dearth of literature on platonic non-familial relationships.
And while I'm annoyed that most of the races in the galaxy were bipedal and used DNA (why DNA? Fine, if it's going to be nucleic acids, RNA, novel sugars, novel bases? There have got to be more self-replicating molecules in the galaxy. Geneticists of the future, I'm jealous.) but at least Chambers lamp-shaded how unlikely this is, and I felt like it was genre-aware.
Don't be swayed into thinking that this book is perfect: it read pretty disjointed. Each chapter seemed more like a TV episode in a semi-serial show than a book chapter -- often characters or plots were limited to a single chapter to be explored, concluded and discarded. The character and setting development definitely outshone the plot.
Overall, a really nice debut novel -- perfect warm & fuzzy reading, especially for Firefly fans.
A low-key campy space crew (obvious parallels in tv) have some fun and danger and ask kinda big questions.
This was the finest, happiest, best space opera I've read in a long, long time—maybe ever.
I re-read this book in preparation for the new one coming out later this year. Still good.
I tend to read & rate books but not review them. For 2018, I decided to try fixing that and [b:The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet|22733729|The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1)|Becky Chambers|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1405532474s/22733729.jpg|42270825] is the first book benefit from this decision.
In any case, [b:The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet|22733729|The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1)|Becky Chambers|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1405532474s/22733729.jpg|42270825] is a little bit silly, a little bit light, and totally kicked me in the feels. The plot is on the thin side but this isn't a book you read for the plot; it's all about the family the crew of the Wayfarer have made of each other.
Sure, there's dangerous stuff that happens to them but it's less about laser battles then it is about how the crew pulls together to help one another. All in all, it was a fun read …
I tend to read & rate books but not review them. For 2018, I decided to try fixing that and [b:The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet|22733729|The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1)|Becky Chambers|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1405532474s/22733729.jpg|42270825] is the first book benefit from this decision.
In any case, [b:The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet|22733729|The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1)|Becky Chambers|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1405532474s/22733729.jpg|42270825] is a little bit silly, a little bit light, and totally kicked me in the feels. The plot is on the thin side but this isn't a book you read for the plot; it's all about the family the crew of the Wayfarer have made of each other.
Sure, there's dangerous stuff that happens to them but it's less about laser battles then it is about how the crew pulls together to help one another. All in all, it was a fun read and I'm definitely interested in reading the rest of the series.
