The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

Douglasfur reviewed The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet

4 stars

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LouInABook reviewed The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

a story that thrives on its characters

5 stars

The basic storyline of this book is nothing entirely out of the ordinary: Space crew gets dangerous but lucrative job offer, travels to their destinations, stuff happens there and along the way. You can take the title literally: it's a long way but only a small planet (episode).

I liked the world building, but especially the way the protagonists interact with each other. It's a story that is, for once, not driven by toxic behavior and the inability to communicate, but instead based on empathy and mutual support. The characters belong to different alien and human races, they do sometimes face conflicts over their specific needs, but frequently try to find solutions that work for everyone. In some ways, it seemed like an enhanced and more diverse version of the "Firefly" crew to me (which I loved).

This is a read leaves you with more positive than negative emotions, while …

The basic storyline of this book is nothing entirely out of the ordinary: Space crew gets dangerous but lucrative job offer, travels to their destinations, stuff happens there and along the way. You can take the title literally: it's a long way but only a small planet (episode).

I liked the world building, but especially the way the protagonists interact with each other. It's a story that is, for once, not driven by toxic behavior and the inability to communicate, but instead based on empathy and mutual support. The characters belong to different alien and human races, they do sometimes face conflicts over their specific needs, but frequently try to find solutions that work for everyone. In some ways, it seemed like an enhanced and more diverse version of the "Firefly" crew to me (which I loved).

This is a read leaves you with more positive than negative emotions, while being interesting enough to always keep you engaged.

LouInABook reviewed The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

a story that thrives on its characters

5 stars

The basic storyline of this book is nothing entirely out of the ordinary: Space crew gets dangerous but lucrative job offer, travels to their destinations, stuff happens there and along the way. You can take the title literally: it's a long way but only a small planet (episode).

I liked the world building, but especially the way the protagonists interact with each other. It's a story that is, for once, not driven by toxic behavior and the inability to communicate, but instead based on empathy and mutual support. The characters belong to different alien and human races, they do sometimes face conflicts over their specific needs, but frequently try to find solutions that work for everyone. In some ways, it seemed like an enhanced and more diverse version of the "Firefly" crew to me (which I loved).

This is a read leaves you with more positive than negative emotions, while …

The basic storyline of this book is nothing entirely out of the ordinary: Space crew gets dangerous but lucrative job offer, travels to their destinations, stuff happens there and along the way. You can take the title literally: it's a long way but only a small planet (episode).

I liked the world building, but especially the way the protagonists interact with each other. It's a story that is, for once, not driven by toxic behavior and the inability to communicate, but instead based on empathy and mutual support. The characters belong to different alien and human races, they do sometimes face conflicts over their specific needs, but frequently try to find solutions that work for everyone. In some ways, it seemed like an enhanced and more diverse version of the "Firefly" crew to me (which I loved).

This is a read leaves you with more positive than negative emotions, while being interesting enough to always keep you engaged.

meeg reviewed The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Review of 'The long way to a small, angry planet' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Really heartwarming, feels like a warm hug (which says a lot for a book about space travel).

sarah reviewed The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

actual non-human aliens!!

5 stars

Someone recommended this to me when I was looking for good rich sff reading and it hit the spot. It's an episodic plot, which I don't always love, but it worked for me here, given the complexity of the world-building and the assortment of characters. I was not expecting so much depth to the characters nor the deep emotions. In any case, I looked forward to returning to it every night I was reading it and now I miss that world! on to the next, of course

Wetdryvac reviewed The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Review of 'The long way to a small, angry planet' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

A lovely read with strong characters, excellent development over time, a nifty world build, and just plain fun reading.

el dang reviewed The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Review of 'The long way to a small, angry planet' on 'LibraryThing'

5 stars

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.

el dang reviewed The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Review of 'The long way to a small, angry planet' on 'LibraryThing'

5 stars

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.

windchime reviewed The long way to a small, angry planet by Becky Chambers

Review of 'The long way to a small, angry planet' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

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.

Matthew Royal reviewed The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Review of 'The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

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

loppear reviewed The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Review of 'The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet' on Goodreads

4 stars

A low-key campy space crew (obvious parallels in tv) have some fun and danger and ask kinda big questions.

Sir Diesalot reviewed The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Review of 'The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I re-read this book in preparation for the new one coming out later this year. Still good.

Octo reviewed The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Review of 'The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I can only recommend this to people who enjoy solid sci-fi paired with interesting, believable characters. The first book for ages that engulfed me so thoroughly and made me care so much about a fictional group of people. I also like that Chambers' aliens are not just humans with scales or antennaes and her take on artificial intelligence. After listening to the audiobook I immediately started with the sequel and hope there will be more to come.

Noisy Deadlines reviewed The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Review of 'The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet' on 'Storygraph'

3 stars

This book really didn't work for me. I've read many good reviews and praises due to its fresh take on sci-fi showing the day-to-day lives of a mixed raced crew in a spaceship. It is a character driven story so there's no big epic plot going on. But that's not the problem. I enjoy character driven stories. The problem I had was that the personal stories were mostly uninteresting to me. I thought the character's backgrounds were loosely written and although there's a lot of world building, something was missing to make the story elements stand together cohesively.
And maybe it had too much "feel-good" vibes for my taste. The world has its conflicts, there are some mean people, but overall everything had a good ending.
And the pace, well, it's definitely not action-packed. I felt I was going through a sitcom with lots of mundane tasks going on.

There …

This book really didn't work for me. I've read many good reviews and praises due to its fresh take on sci-fi showing the day-to-day lives of a mixed raced crew in a spaceship. It is a character driven story so there's no big epic plot going on. But that's not the problem. I enjoy character driven stories. The problem I had was that the personal stories were mostly uninteresting to me. I thought the character's backgrounds were loosely written and although there's a lot of world building, something was missing to make the story elements stand together cohesively.
And maybe it had too much "feel-good" vibes for my taste. The world has its conflicts, there are some mean people, but overall everything had a good ending.
And the pace, well, it's definitely not action-packed. I felt I was going through a sitcom with lots of mundane tasks going on.

There were some positive points:
- Diversity: the depiction of different sentient races living together, with cultural and biological differences.
- The discussion of what is a relationship, what is love, what is family? Can humans love other races? Can humans and AIs be lovers?
- The non-biased view of gender and sex: some people change sex during their lifetime, some are neither a "she" ou a "he", some are not a single person but are addressed as "they".
- The discussion if AI's have rights or if they can live independently.
- My favorite characters were Jenks and Lovey (who was the AI of the ship) and their relationship. Although it was not a profound discussion, I was happy to see this kind of issue being addressed in such a cozy sci-fi.

It's full of great ideas, the author took the time to imagine a huge world with lots of races (Mass Effect feelings, anyone?) but it was loosely woven for me. The way to the Angry Planet was too long, indeed.

Antonis reads reviewed The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Review of 'The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet' on Goodreads

4 stars

Soooo many metaphors :-) Beginning from the title itself, to the story's titular planet and its inhabitants, to all the species mentioned throughout the journey and their lovingly crafted relationships. It's the Long Way that counts, both in the book's story and the enjoyment I got from it.