My Review of The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers

 

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was longing for a good space opera scifi, and this story didn't let me down in that regard. The greatest strength of this book is the immersive way the reader is pulled into the characters and their interactions. This is, more than any other book I've recent in recent years, a fully character-driven novel. Chambers does an amazing job of describing the many different alien species, the interactions between crew members, and the differing ways they see the world through their respective lenses. She does so without being heavy-handed or info-dumping. It is done naturally, and you get to know the crewmembers in a very personal way despite them being very different alien species.

Do not expect a book full of action. In fact, there's almost no competition of any sort between characters, civilizations, or species. It's sort of nice, frankly. There are three or four points in story where there is tension, but it is over quickly. No one is shooting anyone else. No blaster fights or punching or anything. It's just a NICE read, which is refreshing. This is not a book for hard scifi or military scifi enthusiasts.

What the book lacks is a cohesive plot. It's basically a long series of character vignettes, with the loose thread of making a journey to a distant planet to "tunnel" a wormhole for the rest of space to travel there. [Slight spoiler] When they finally reach their destination, though, the end comes quickly and you are left realizing that the destination and the trip there were really just a macguffin. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I wasn't set up for that by anything in the description of the book or the initial "hook" (which had suggested the story was primarily around Rosemary faking her background and going on a long and dangerous journey, which turns out was only a small part of the book).

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