Wayfarers Series 4 Books Collection Set by Becky Chambers (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, A Closed and Common Orbit, Record of a Spaceborn Few & To Be Taught, If Fortunate)

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It begins with a Laru hostess, Ouloo, and her child, at an intergalactic way station. I picture them something like llamas, although Tupo is finally an adolescent. I suppose the easy thing to say is that this book is about a crew, traveling through space on the Wayfarer, exploring the galaxy and taking on new adventures. And a new crewmember has just arrived, not knowing what to expect. Most of the scenes included in the narrative seemed to try hard to be cute or sweet or heartwarming but I found them unbearably cheesy. And on the topic of cheese, that whole discussion about how weird cheese is was so necessary, the same goes for that discussion on shoes (they are like clothes for feet, ahah, so funny). Given that they have all interacted with or have knowledge of other species it seemed weird that they would go on about cheese and shoes as if these are flabbergasting concepts. I also liked the setting in which the topics where explored. I mean, what do you do if you can’t just walk away? If you can’t just call emergency services in case of an actual emergency? When you’re stranded and shut in? I have been tended. I have been taken care of. I have been loved. I have been nourished. I have been nurtured. I have been cocooned. I have been blessed.

a b "Announcing the 2022 Hugo Award Winners". Tor.com. 4 September 2022. Archived from the original on 5 September 2022 . Retrieved 9 September 2022. The truth is, Rosemary, that you are capable of anything. Good or bad. You always have been, and you always will be. Given the right push, you, too, could do horrible things. That darkness exists within all of us.” a b "2022 Locus Awards Winners". Locus. 25 June 2022. Archived from the original on 17 July 2022 . Retrieved 11 August 2022. There's some cool, if familiar stuff here - The Long Way... is set in a Mass Effect-like society of aliens where humanity is very much a bit player. The Bioware similarities also extend to a human-AI relationship, where the human suffers from a physical condition (Dwarfism), much like Joker and EDI in the Mass Effect games. The worldbuilding is good, and Chamber’s characters are very diverse, if not very interesting. It is also about rising above all that, and doing the right thing. It is about exploring what it means to live and feel and coexist. Things are frightening but ‘ scared means we want to live,’ as Kizzy says, and pushing on despite fear and struggles is key to being alive. What really drives the point home in a cool way is how two of the moments that most humanize the characters involves characters not considered “people” in the galaxy (like a clone, orThis book also emphasizes the importance of respect; respecting peoples’ pronouns, peoples’ bodies, and peoples’ feelings. And the representation in this book is honestly unparalleled. From different species, to different races, to different genders, to different sexualities, to different mental health issues, to different bodies types, to different upbringings, to different cultures, to different traditions, to different religions, to different social settings, to so much more. Otherwise Award". Otherwise Award. Archived from the original on 18 June 2022 . Retrieved 29 June 2022. The story follows Pei, an Aeluon, Speaker, an Akarak, and Roveg, a Quelin. They all end up grounded at the Five-Hop One-Stop which is run by Ouloo, a Laru. They have all lead distinctive lives and they also necessitate differentiating things given that they belong to a different species. Oxygen, for example, would be lethal to Speaker. At first, they view the others as mere aliens but the more time they spend together—picnics and get-togethers—the more they begin to see the others as individuals in their own right. There is some conflict due to Akarak not being considered a sapient species and therefore they are not part of the GC. They were colonized by another species and are now regarded with distrust. Pei is fighting for the Aeluons against the Rosk (whom, if I record correctly, they had previously colonized).

I think just deleting the hard science parts in future editions would massively improve the book. It is okay if the author can't write them - she can, on the other hand, write emotional depth that clearly and beautifully, in a way a lot of male authors could not write. (Looking at you, Alastair Reynolds). I value these equally. Either can stand on their own, I think. Friends, I have never fallen in love with fictional character the way that I fell in love with all the members on the Wayfarer.I understand the desire to move SF from plot-driven narratives to character-driven narratives but you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater if your character-driven narrative doesn't actually contain any characters worth reading about. The wafer thin plot could be summarised as a bunch of super best friends have a whizzo time pootling about the galaxy eating food and learning trite lessons on the importance of diversity with zero tension or conflict. Awards". The Kitschies. 29 June 2022. Archived from the original on 3 April 2022 . Retrieved 29 June 2022.

Tupo was still so soft, so babylike in temperament, but had finally crossed the threshold from small and cute to big and dumb." Pei, who’s an Aeluon, a race that can’t hear and communicates in colors. is teaching the Lawn Party group to dance:

New in Series

This series has a depth of emotional and social intelligence and empathy that is inspiring, moving, genuinely brilliant, that really transformed SciFi. Little plot, but really excellent character development and relations. World building is a strong gift for Chambers and, like many Le Guin novels, this reads like a sociological exploration of a galaxy via a cozy narrative. It is incredibly well constructed and while she throws a multitude of in-world terms at you, she excels at putting them in contexts for you to learn them without having to explain them. By the end of the book what sounds like gibberish to an outsider is perfectly understandable to the reader. It is accomplished without much exposition either, having passages that are “historical texts” or essays that provide context and much of the explaining is done via conversations between regular people in the ways regular people would talk about events. It allows you to experience and learn on the ground level instead of being lectured, and it really works. You feel like you exist in their world, its quite impressive.

BSFA Winners". Locus. 17 April 2017. Archived from the original on 13 February 2022 . Retrieved 12 July 2022. This is the kind of book that makes you remember why you fell in love with reading. This is the kind of book that feels so powerful you can’t believe it exists. This is the kind of book that sets your very soul on fire and makes you want to do better. This is the kind of book that instills a hope so great that you feel like you could make a difference. This is the kind of book that you won’t be the same after finishing. We join the crew for meals, for wormhole tunneling jobs, shopping trips and sundry other generally low stakes activities that are all chances for long, life-affirming we’re-all-buddies chats leavened with great clumps of exposition. No one is ever really mean, or greedy, or even selfish and I kept imagining the crew as an ongoing group-hug in physical form. I found myself craving some real conflict- an argument, a lost temper, hell even a few harsh words. Even Rosemary's past is disappointingly tame and when it's revealed the consequences are resolved in a matter of paragraphs. Don’t go into this expecting a twisted past anywhere near the level of Reynold's Chasm City or Banks' Use of Weapons. When Lovelace wakes up, she has no memory of what came before. That isn’t surprising because Lovelace now has a completely new body. Before a total system reboot changed everything, Lovelace was just an artificial intelligence running a ship.Her way of depicting emotions and her ability in creating such calm, endearing, empowered and caring characters are truly something that needs to be celebrated and properly highlighted. While I did like volumes 2 and 3 of the series a lot, volume 1 will always be the best - but this 4th volume is a very close second! A good book, but not a gripping one. At the moment, I'm giving it a 3.5 star rating, and wobbling between rounding up or down. Not her best work, and I wouldn't start here -- though it is a standalone. Another of her trademark "found family" stories, this one recycles old stories of travelers stranded in a temporary refuge, while a natural disaster is sorted out. As you will see, there is a large range of reactions to the book. But the average rating for all readers is a solid, near-masterpiece 4.5 stars. I'm definitely not going that high! While Chambers can be creative when it comes to language (they all happen to mention untranslatable words that are emblematic of their species' culture) the gender angle is a bit more tired. In fact, it does not hold a candle to some species from our animal kingdom. It was a bit weird that so many alien species had a gender and I found myself wishing for some genderless aliens. Ouloo's child uses xyr/xe pronouns but after puberty, xe will be either female or male....which, why not have a species that is exclusively not gendered (as opposed to having species where you can be female, male, and or agender)? Embrace the xenology in this chamberplay, because the plot or setting is nearly not existent. It could be played against a grey curtain without loosing too much. The novel has all the charming, positive, and sometimes funny atmosphere as all the previous novels and dives deep into the characterizations and the relationships between the five protagonists. There are a couple of social conflicts, some of them caused by misinterpretation, others by contrary attitudes. None of them are heavy-weight or lead to fights.