Audiobook, 336 pages
Published April 19, 2021 by HarperCollins B and Blackstone Publishing.
With no water, no air, and no native life, the planet Gora is unremarkable. The only thing it has going for it is a chance proximity to more popular worlds, making it a decent stopover for ships traveling between the wormholes that keep the Galactic Commons connected. If deep space is a highway, Gora is just your average truck stop.
At the Five-Hop One-Stop, long-haul spacers can stretch their legs (if they have legs, that is), and get fuel, transit permits, and assorted supplies. The Five-Hop is run by an enterprising alien and her sometimes helpful child, who work hard to provide a little piece of home to everyone passing through.
When a freak technological failure halts all traffic to and from Gora, three strangers—all different species with different aims—are thrown together at the Five-Hop. Grounded, with nothing to do but wait, the trio—an exiled artist with an appointment to …
With no water, no air, and no native life, the planet Gora is unremarkable. The only thing it has going for it is a chance proximity to more popular worlds, making it a decent stopover for ships traveling between the wormholes that keep the Galactic Commons connected. If deep space is a highway, Gora is just your average truck stop.
At the Five-Hop One-Stop, long-haul spacers can stretch their legs (if they have legs, that is), and get fuel, transit permits, and assorted supplies. The Five-Hop is run by an enterprising alien and her sometimes helpful child, who work hard to provide a little piece of home to everyone passing through.
When a freak technological failure halts all traffic to and from Gora, three strangers—all different species with different aims—are thrown together at the Five-Hop. Grounded, with nothing to do but wait, the trio—an exiled artist with an appointment to keep, a cargo runner at a personal crossroads, and a mysterious individual doing her best to help those on the fringes—are compelled to confront where they’ve been, where they might go, and what they are, or could be, to each other.
This book is like an Agatha Christie novel where an ensemble cast of characters gather together, but instead of someone getting murdered they just form bonds and make each other happy.
OK, I need to be honest: this isn't really five stars, more like three point nine, but it is five stars right now, in this shitty post-Roe moment. This was exactly what I needed to read: a handful of characters, each broken in their own way but each also compassionate, kind, thoughtful, Present, aware of and listening to every other character, doing their absolute best together under tough scary conditions.
Chambers is just so fucking wonderful. Yeah, treacly at times, but I need that right now and so, probably, do you. She packs so much in this obviously-post-pandemic book: good communication, emotional intelligence, gender identity, body autonomy, bioparents vs nurture parents, cooperation in the face of uncertainty; she slams “differing opinions” when it comes to killing sentient beings, magat cultures, and closeting.
Warning: a bit tough to get into: the characters are all alien (to us) races, and it …
OK, I need to be honest: this isn't really five stars, more like three point nine, but it is five stars right now, in this shitty post-Roe moment. This was exactly what I needed to read: a handful of characters, each broken in their own way but each also compassionate, kind, thoughtful, Present, aware of and listening to every other character, doing their absolute best together under tough scary conditions.
Chambers is just so fucking wonderful. Yeah, treacly at times, but I need that right now and so, probably, do you. She packs so much in this obviously-post-pandemic book: good communication, emotional intelligence, gender identity, body autonomy, bioparents vs nurture parents, cooperation in the face of uncertainty; she slams “differing opinions” when it comes to killing sentient beings, magat cultures, and closeting.
Warning: a bit tough to get into: the characters are all alien (to us) races, and it takes some time (maybe 50 pages) to get them mentally sorted out. It’s totally worth it. And: you do not need to read any of the prior books. Same universe, one shared character. Readers familiar with that character’s backstory will nod in recognition, but the backstory is not necessary to understand this book.
This was fantastic. Just the barest minimum of compelling plot though, so if that's what you usually read for, you might want to skip this one, but for my money, it didn't need more than what was here.
Becky Chambers does for alien civilizations and species what the very best authors do for their characters. Each species is so well thought out and lovingly described that you can't help but imagine things from their point of view. And there are first-person characters from each of the species as well, and you empathize with what they experience in ways that feels simultaneously totally alien, and also so very, very human.
In a way, I feel like this series is a bit of a spiritual successor to the Culture novels, by Ian M. Banks, or anyway, I felt like that a bit with this one. No sentient space ships tho. But it's …
This was fantastic. Just the barest minimum of compelling plot though, so if that's what you usually read for, you might want to skip this one, but for my money, it didn't need more than what was here.
Becky Chambers does for alien civilizations and species what the very best authors do for their characters. Each species is so well thought out and lovingly described that you can't help but imagine things from their point of view. And there are first-person characters from each of the species as well, and you empathize with what they experience in ways that feels simultaneously totally alien, and also so very, very human.
In a way, I feel like this series is a bit of a spiritual successor to the Culture novels, by Ian M. Banks, or anyway, I felt like that a bit with this one. No sentient space ships tho. But it's slice of life in that sort of a post-scarcity multi-civilization galactic culture.
I shed more than one tear in the reading of this book, and yet, none of them were in sadness! This was so, so good, and if I hadn't already read every other book published by Becky Chambers, I'd be off to buy the next one right away.
Content warning minor ref to stuff that happens near end
This was my favorite of the series! Its between this one and the first one, they both do close up interpersonal relationships so well. I wanna hang out with them all!! I kinda wish the conflict between speaker and pei was explored a bit more, it felt like it was just left to simmer on the side due to emergency, but that gives it a bit of messy realness. Excited to see what comes next!
When it came to the Wayfarers series, I used to believe A Closed and Common Orbit would never be topped for me. I'm happy to report I was very wrong. The Galaxy, and the Ground Within is an absolute triumph, the ultimate torchbearer for the particular brand of optimistic, heartwarming, humanist sci-fi that Chambers has championed throughout the whole series, and a new personal favorite, without a doubt. I got more than teary eyed at multiple times throughout this book, as it weaves a tale of personal drama, all-too relatable themes of normalized oppression, cultural identity, found family... it's a doozy. It's outstanding science fiction, it's everything I could've wanted from its premise and more. I couldn't have clicked that 5 star rating any faster.
Explores belonging and friendship. A little sad that this is the last book in the Wayfarers series, but glad that, as books, I can reread them and experience them again.
I'm looking forward to what else Chambers releases. What other worlds or topics will we explore?
This is a very 2020 book -- about what happens when an external temporary disaster stops your daily routine, sets back your to-do list and forces you to reflect about your priorities. This is also a very Becky Chambers book -- each main character belongs to a separate alien species and one that was not well-fleshed out in the previous books -- each species is intricately developed in physiology, cultural norms around gender, living style, values, etc. And each character is carefully developed within that species.
Like Chambers' other works there isn't much plot there. Instead, the book really focuses on character development. Most of the book is spent on each character's own reflective practice and their pairwise relationship developments. Beyond that, the book is largely an exploration about family and parenting - why and how each character does or doesn't engage in different types of family relationships. Chambers wrote …
This is a very 2020 book -- about what happens when an external temporary disaster stops your daily routine, sets back your to-do list and forces you to reflect about your priorities. This is also a very Becky Chambers book -- each main character belongs to a separate alien species and one that was not well-fleshed out in the previous books -- each species is intricately developed in physiology, cultural norms around gender, living style, values, etc. And each character is carefully developed within that species.
Like Chambers' other works there isn't much plot there. Instead, the book really focuses on character development. Most of the book is spent on each character's own reflective practice and their pairwise relationship developments. Beyond that, the book is largely an exploration about family and parenting - why and how each character does or doesn't engage in different types of family relationships. Chambers wrote in interviews that she was strongly influenced by Le Guin and it shows here -- very strong world building and a lot of contemplation about how speculative fiction to open a window into the choices we make in the real world without considering them.
Also, basically Come From Away, but with aliens and no music.
A few adorable snippets: a child's rock collection is all dressed up as a natural history museum; an entire conversation about how dumb humans are for eating cheese (there are no humans in this book, which I found a great choice that really allowed for larger cultural exploration), zillions of baked goods and a bath house so epic it needed foreshadowing
A beautiful ending to a series I've loved
Alysa Winans’s Instagram post of her endpaper design
This is a beautiful ending to a series I’ve loved, being the 4th and final book in her Wayfarers series‚ which won Chambers the Best Series Hugo in 2019.
A handful of sapients, from a handful of species, are forced together for longer than expected. And, as a result, Becky Chambers has made me weep again with joy, several times.
This one only just fits into my self-imposed category of queer lit — while Chambers is herself queer, the characters of this novella aren’t really, beyond an adolescent of a species who don’t decide on their gender until adulthood. That said, there is discussion of gender, including non-binary and trans identities — and with a beautifully dismissive line where 2 characters (neither of which is human) are discussing the post-adolescent gender-reveal customs of a …
A beautiful ending to a series I've loved
Alysa Winans’s Instagram post of her endpaper design
This is a beautiful ending to a series I’ve loved, being the 4th and final book in her Wayfarers series‚ which won Chambers the Best Series Hugo in 2019.
A handful of sapients, from a handful of species, are forced together for longer than expected. And, as a result, Becky Chambers has made me weep again with joy, several times.
This one only just fits into my self-imposed category of queer lit — while Chambers is herself queer, the characters of this novella aren’t really, beyond an adolescent of a species who don’t decide on their gender until adulthood. That said, there is discussion of gender, including non-binary and trans identities — and with a beautifully dismissive line where 2 characters (neither of which is human) are discussing the post-adolescent gender-reveal customs of a 3rd (non-human) culture:
And I have always thought the party sounds like a lovely custom.
Quelin don’t have anything similar, right?
No, not at all. If your parents got it wrong, you let them know, you update your records, and everybody gets on with their lives. It’s a casual matter. Nobody hires a band. Which is our loss, really.
