Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers

A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

A Closed and Common Orbit

I have greatly enjoyed the Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers.  Chambers writes about big issues, but you always leave the book feeling like you got a satisfying happy ending I can't think of any other sci-fi author who is doing this type of work.  It's remarkable to have an author with such a unique voice in a genre that is well and truly explored.  I feel lucky to have stumbled upon Chambers so early in her career and I can't wait to see what she has in store for us.

But this was definitely my least favorite of the three novels. Humans left Earth generations ago on a fleet of spacecraft and have lived on those ships ever since.  They have used technology from other species to improve their lives, but the humans who remain in the Fleet live by carefully recycling and conserving what little goods they have.  They rely heavily on family and friendships to live their lives.

This book follows a lot of those humans from the Fleet as they confront the question that everyone must face at one time or another: where is home?  

I honestly found the constant shifting of POVs to be quite confusing. There characters weren't well developed enough for me to immediately know whose perspective I was reading. Isabal/Eyas and Kip/Sawyer were particularly challenging.

But I love Chambers' writing. I love how she makes looking around a room a grand adventure. I love how I can read a page and start pondering about death rites in a way I haven't pondered since I took a philosophy class on death and dying as an undergraduate.  I love that Chambers doesn't moralize - she presents characters deciding two very different things and you know that neither decision was right or wrong, but just is. I just love what Chambers is doing.

So, even though I didn't LOVE this novel, I would still recommend this series as a whole. Each book is tangentially related to the characters from the first novel (one of the characters is this book, Tessa, is sister to the captain of the ship in the first book), but they can be read as standalones.  And if you can get a copy for yourself, do yourself a favor and read them.