Ninety percent of all problems are caused by people being assholes.
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet
by Becky Chambers
Genre: Sci-Fi
About: Rosemary Harper leaves Mars and her old identity behind and starts a new life on board the Wayfarer. The crew are an eclectic group, about half of them human and all of them with their oddities. When they take on a long haul job to a war torn planet, cracks begin to appear and the crew, the ship and political alliances are in danger of breaking before the job is complete.
The Good
Becky Chambers is a master at world-building. The cultures, how space works and big and little details of the world are so well thought out. A lot of it was fascinating and does make you think, which is what you want from sci-fi. I also thought the crew had some good Firefly touches and the humour was on point. The characters are mostly very likable and every one gets good development.
The Bad
It was a bit of a chore to read. I would say I only really got into it at around the 250-300 page mark (out of a 400 page novel, that's not great). The main problem I had was that although the writing was good, it didn't feel like anything was happening. The scenes read fine, but they had a filler like quality to them. There was no tension or conflict laced into the narrative, even when the characters were in danger, I wasn't worried and no real consequences came from it. The plot just wasn't there and everything felt too safe. I wanted to care more about these characters as it is a heavily character driven novel, but without high stakes, I found myself trudging along rather than being invested in the outcome.
The Somewhat Iffy
Chambers puts a lot of emphasis on the importance of consent in any decision, which is nice and I appreciate the sentiment but it also made me roll my eyes at times. Like Ashby waiting in a hotel room for his lover to arrive, worrying about whether she still wants him and how he'll take her lead as he shouldn't expect she'll want to fuck... I mean they're lovers, meeting in a hotel room. Or Sissix realising Rosemary is into her and going through a contract like interrogation of expectations before they even touch really robs the scene of passion. This is an adult novel, and while it's good to check before you touch someone if that's what they want, it felt a bit excessive the way it was done.
I also didn't like the lack of consequences to some things. Ohan becoming Solitary should have had some negative consequence. The virus gave them special abilities but curing the virus doesn't take away those abilities? Rosemary had the same problem. Her mysterious past is emphasised at the beginning and there's intrigue as to why she needed a new identity but the reveal that she did nothing wrong and it was all her father was disappointing to say the least. I didn't need her to be a villain looking for redemption but she was way too passive, even her past was someone else's actions and not her own that caused her life to change.
Overall
This is a well-crafted world with some fun characters but it lacks, very badly, a plot. I can see why someone would love this story, and I can also see why someone would give up reading it. For myself, I much preferred Becky Chambers in novella form.
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