The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
Just finished Becky Chambers' The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and it was fun.
Everything that everyone says about how the book is short on plot is absolutely true. I think she threw in the excitement at the end as a way to start wrapping the book up. But that's fine.
This book is exhibit number one for the idea that a story doesn't have to be good at everything so long as it's really good at one or two things. In Chambers' case, she's really good at two things: world building and characterization. And the really cool thing is how her world-building and characterization support each other.
Her cast of characters centers on the multi-species ensemble that crews the space ship Wayfarer. Because the crew members come from different planets and species, you need the world-building in order to really understand the characters and lots of things that you learn about the characters, in turn, supports the world-building. So these two aspects of the story work as s…
Everything that everyone says about how the book is short on plot is absolutely true. I think she threw in the excitement at the end as a way to start wrapping the book up. But that's fine.
This book is exhibit number one for the idea that a story doesn't have to be good at everything so long as it's really good at one or two things. In Chambers' case, she's really good at two things: world building and characterization. And the really cool thing is how her world-building and characterization support each other.
Her cast of characters centers on the multi-species ensemble that crews the space ship Wayfarer. Because the crew members come from different planets and species, you need the world-building in order to really understand the characters and lots of things that you learn about the characters, in turn, supports the world-building. So these two aspects of the story work as s…
