Becky Chambers (1) (1985–)

This is a tough one to review, but I'm ultimately calling it a three-star, middle-of-the-road read for me.

First of all, the characters, writing, and world-building are fantastic. There's so much to love here, and Chambers did a stellar job of bringing a whole uniquely strange and various cast of characters to life, along with their world. Her writing is also fantastic.

So, what's the problem? Well, let me say that it took me about five months to finish this book. I binge-read the last half over a week, but up until the halfway point, I found picking up the book to be a struggle. Simply put, there's just not much plot; the larger plot is super-simple, and while that's fine, part of the problem is that we get a lot of scenes that don't seem to relate to that plot in any fashion, and are just about character/world-building (lots and lots of world/species-building). The story moves forward based on characterization and the day-to-day lives of the characters, and in some cases I wouldn't complain about that, but here there were so many points of view, and so many scenes that felt more like digressions than anything, that I felt like the book was simply wandering along. I kept reading partly because I was curious and partly because a number of folks I respected had recommended the book to me, but getting through the first half was a slow and not necessarily enjoyable process.

Looking back from a point of having finished, I can understand why Chambers wanted to include all of the points of view she did. I can even understand, to some extent, why some of the less-related scenes are felt to be so necessary. But while I can find justification for every scene if I look, the problem comes back to the fact that Chambers treated every character like a main character with an important POV...and that made for a long book with not a lot happening in the first half.

So, would I read more Chambers? Maybe probably? I don't see myself continuing with this series, but I know for sure that if she at some point writes some single-POV works I'll read them. I do plan, at the very least, on trying her A Psalm for the Wild-Built, but I admit that would be a harder decision if it were a longer book.

All told, I guess I'm not sure how I feel about this one. I enjoyed the last half quite a bit, but considering how often I thought about not finishing, I'm just not sure where that lands me.… (lisätietoja)

This is my second favorite book in the Wayfarers series, but like the rest of books in the series it is super low-key and spends too little time on the parts of the universe that actually interest me. But, hey, at least this one has a plot, even if it is just a mash-up of Breakfast Club and Come From Away.

Pleasant aliens share a mostly pleasant time stranded at a space truck stop, experiencing one brief brush with danger but mostly growing as individuals through communication, interaction and empathy.

It's all just so . . . nice.

(Side note: Thank you to my wife for reading this to me over the last month while I cooked and drove.)… (lisätietoja)

The writing was impeccable. The creatures, scenery and the overall atmosphere of the world was quite bland though. It felt like a second hand abridged version of Farscape. Everything felt rushed and and at times sterile. I wanted to care about the Galactic Commons, the political landscape of the various planets and everything in between,but I couldn't. The pacing was ridiculously fast. So fast in fact that I could not keep up with the constant dumps of information/exposition and the ever-changing viewpoints for each chapter. It was hard establishing any sort of connection with any of the characters because everyone had a story to tell and not enough time to fully flesh them out into something meaningful. The entire story felt like a collection of false starts that were haphazardly glued together to explain why this crew existed. Unfortunately I did not care that much for the crew in the end after all.… (lisätietoja)