The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

This is the first book, that I can remember, that has made me laugh (multiple times) out loud(!) and cry. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet has firmly earned itself a place in my top favourite books of all time.

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Having finished the book only a couple of days ago, I find myself missing the characters dearly. There's so much that this story had that I hold dearly to my heart and the story is woven with kindness, love and acceptance of others.

I also loved the writing style that Becky Chambers has. I was quickly introduced not only to the characters, but to their character and it was clear what was important to them and how the characters cared about each other.

Another detail in their writing that I noticed and appreciated, was that the mundane aspects of the story, which could easily pad out a book or potentially offer a few interesting scenes - they were entirely omitted. The crew have a successful “punch” (creating a wormhole), and so they decided to head plant-side for some drinks and celebration - it's not in the book. We pick up the next morning. Back with our characters and much more interesting exchanges happen. This happened a number of times and I personally found it refreshing that the story kept me connected to the characters.

The story is set in some distant future where space is explored, species have connected and human kind have spread themselves across the galaxies. But really it's about people (I think), our connections, what makes family, what matters.

I also really enjoyed that the bulk of the crew's journey was their story and that Chambers didn't throw in unnecessary suspense or tension. For me it make the characters and the world all that more real and believable.

It was hard not to fall in love with the crew too, especially the “core crew”, comprising of Kizzy and Jenks - the techheads, Sissex the super cool reptilian pilot, Dr Chef - a chef...and a doctor, and Ashby, the kind of captain and person that stands up for their crew and conducts and behaves in a way I wish I could all the time.

Then there was the fact that Chamber's characters don't adhere to (I hate to say) “normal”. The alien species approach family and sex differently. They approach gender and identity differently. They approach food and social situations differently. They read as believable and lovable because they're not just another carbon copy of the human archetype white male hero character.

This book is full of hope and love and it was exactly what I needed in my life in 2020. I cannot wait to read the next books set in this world.

I want these characters in my life and I miss them already.

This was such a lovely little book (it's actually quite thick – but it reads fast.) Chambers writes a lovely interstellar setting, with seemingly endless diversity of alien cultures, anatomy and biology. I really felt that the world building was stellar and that I could delve into each of the alien races. I also really liked that humans were kind of a lesser-race in the galaxy – nice twist.

As billed, the best part of the book is the chosen-family relationship that develops among the crew of the Wayfarers, despite interpersonal tension, major cultural differences and occasional fights. Their care for each other and the way that they all learned to understand each other was really evident. There's something really satisfying about reading about characters who are deeply-developed and obviously well-loved by their author, and I'm constantly complaining about the dearth of literature on platonic non-familial relationships.

And while I'm annoyed that most of the races in the galaxy were bipedal and used DNA (why DNA? Fine, if it's going to be nucleic acids, RNA, novel sugars, novel bases? There have got to be more self-replicating molecules in the galaxy. Geneticists of the future, I'm jealous.) but at least Chambers lamp-shaded how unlikely this is, and I felt like it was genre-aware.

Don't be swayed into thinking that this book is perfect: it read pretty disjointed. Each chapter seemed more like a TV episode in a semi-serial show than a book chapter – often characters or plots were limited to a single chapter to be explored, concluded and discarded. The character and setting development definitely outshone the plot.

Overall, a really nice debut novel – perfect warm & fuzzy reading, especially for Firefly fans.

Diversity, accessibility, inclusivity—giggity! I can't squee enough about this book. It's been a while since a story grabbed me like this, holding on and pulling my focus from other things; all I wanted to do was get back to it and keep reading. And this is the author's first novel? Wow.

The crew of the Wayfarer reminded me a bit of the crew in Farscape: kind of a ragtag bunch who end up as family; it's fun getting to know them individually and as a group. The storytelling is straightforward and compelling. The writing is descriptive enough that I felt like I was reading a film; in fact, I began early on casting actors in the various roles, which isn't something I often do. But I never got mired in the prose.

It was beautiful to read about different species of beings, different cultures, physical attributes, gender identities. I've never seen an author use “xe” and “xyr” before, so that was pretty great. The whole thing just oozes personality and charm and—most of all—love. I would love to see this world and especially these characters come to life on the big screen, and I can't wait to read the next book in the series.