The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

I have seen this book accused of being a story in which nothing really happens, but that is decidedly missing the point on this book. This story is about the ensemble, the misfit crew and the journey rather than the destination. It explores some interesting ideas of prejudice and humans place in the universe. Most sci-fi starts with the assumption that humans would be the dominant species in the galaxy. Wayfarers takes an interesting view where humans have petitioned to join a pre-existing galactic council and are very much a minority interest. In this story we have caused environmental collapse on Earth and divided into a rich faction able to live on a terraformed mars and the rest who escaped in colony ships and fled into the galaxy before petitioning the galactic council for aid. Whilst our main protagonist is human, and the majority of the crew of the ship are human, the galaxy decidedly isn't. And whilst the majority of the crew is human, key members are not - namely the dr/chef, the pilot and the navigator. The relationship between the crew forms the beating heart of this book. There is some prejudice, some interesting questions on the morality of various potential scientific advances, interspecies love and a general exploration of different cultures. The world building that gives these distinct cultures is phenomenal - each species feels different, and feels non-human.

Superficially the plot is about the journey to the Galactic center to build a new wormhole for future travel with a new and very alien race. The actual plot of the book is more about the crew interactions and the people and place the crew meet on the way