A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

[ghoti]

I've been asked a few times for a review of this so i thought I'd better read it :)

On the whole I like it. It's a family of choice space fiction with a cast of believable characters. It did seem a bit tick boxy at the start, there's a manic pixie dream girl mechanic (I wonder why fivemack was reminded of Firefly), a nurturer, a wild eyed newbie, an

Comments

[simont]

A well timed review - I just this morning had email saying my preordered ebook of the sequel is available for download :-)

[ghoti]

:) are you going to? I think I'll wait for the library to get a copy and then decide.

[simont]

Oh, definitely - this wasn't an email saying 'this book you expressed vague interest in is now available to buy if you still want to', it was one saying 'this book you pre-ordered has now been charged to your credit card per your prior authorisation'.

I had a much less mixed reaction to the first book than you did; I found it almost entirely lovely. Perhaps just a little light on plot because it devoted so much space to heartwarming found-family-forming and character-development, but the latter worked really well for me and I'm keen to read the sequel.

[ghoti]

Ah cool.

[khalinche]

^^ this was also my reaction to this book. The friend who gave it to me described it as "Firefly as re-written by someone who's never actually watched actual Firefly but has read a lot of Firefly fanfic on Social Justice Tumblr" which I think is about right.

[ghoti]

I got 'if you like Firefly you'll like this'. I think I would have been less annoyed about the pronoun thing if she hasn't deliberately used it when she's already been told the correct pronoun. And it would be really nice to see some non-binary gendered characters, but then it always is.

[khalinche]

Ooh! *goes to look for places where sequel might be found*

[sphyg]

Ooh, sequel! I liked it, even though I felt the plot didn't hang together.