The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

National Bestseller! Return to the sprawling, Hugo Award-winning universe of the Galactic Commons to explore another corner of the cosmos—one often mentioned, but not yet explored—in this absorbing entry in the Wayfarers series, which blends heart-warming characters and imaginative adventure. 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.

#0.5

A Good Heretic

#0.5

A Good Heretic

Surprisingly difficult to connect with.

This is still a well written, interesting, continues the Wayfarer universe and prompts some challenging thoughts.

Where I did struggle was connection with the characters. Because they're exclusively alien, and entirely so: 4 arms and a shell, tiny sloth like swinging creatures, laru furball bendy things (though I imagined the creature from Ice Age oddly enough), because they're hard to visualise in my head I found it harder to connect to the characters.

I do also suspect this is a way of putting the reader in a position of a minority, to be unable to recognise oneself amongst the peers, which is what kept flipping back and forth in my head whilst continuing with the tale.

As with other Becky Chambers' books, the story isn't some fantastical explosion of events, but a soft observation of life and interaction of species and races living together - and that's something I'll continue to love about their books.

My favourite is still the first book, I'm not sure anything is going to top that for many years, but this is still a solid entry into the Wayfarer world.

Maybe my favorite of the four in the series.

This is such a lovely book ❤️

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