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294 reviews for:
The Vela: The Complete Season 1
Becky Chambers, Rivers Solomon, Yoon Ha Lee, S.L. Huang
3.83 AVERAGE
294 reviews for:
The Vela: The Complete Season 1
Becky Chambers, Rivers Solomon, Yoon Ha Lee, S.L. Huang
3.83 AVERAGE
I'll come back to this someday probably I just wasn't feeling it right now
adventurous
reflective
tense
Absolutely amazing, crazy world building, such cool prose!!!!!! Science fiction meets activism meets politics, amazing characters!!!
As I pointed out in a Goodreads review of Elizabeth Bear’s new space opera, Ancestral Night, space opera is back, and at least in the hands of some female writers, it is not even remotely retrogressive in the ways that were standard some thirty years ago.
Four authors banded together to create the new Serial Box Serial The Vela
For me to get hooked, space opera has to hit at least some of the following elements:
Larger than life characters with interesting explorations of gender and identity
The Vela scores pretty high here.
There has clearly been a conscious effort to offer a diverse cast of characters. Most of the speaking parts, protagonists, antagonists, and very complex characters who don’t plump squarely in either camp, the narrative voice identifies as female. A few don’t have gender sepecified (which is signified by “they/them” which unfortunately I have trouble reading as not-plural, but that seems to be the trend rather than various non-standard pronouns that have been floated, such as zir, etc)
What I liked is that the characters’ gender is not made an Issue, and thus doesn’t get in the way of a cracking good story that starts with a bang and keeps running. It just is a part of a world that feels lived-in, with its cultural islands and outlooks, that is doomed.
Asala, who is one of our main pair, is a tough fighter as well as a campaigner: the story opens with her lying on a rooftop with her sniper rifle, having turned off her hearing aid as she functions better as a sniper in silence.
Niko, our secondary character, is a young hacker, offspring of President Ekrem, a career politician with all that implies. Niko is sometimes like a pup, and sometimes seems to want you to believe that puppy-like, adorable fumbling brightness. Niko gets the “they/them” that sometimes distracted old me into rereading sentences to realize it was one person, not a mob doing the action.
Asala and Niko leave to find a refugee ship that has somehow disappeared. . . bringing me to:
Interesting space ships that go beyond sprockets and rockets
The space ships are well thought out, but the focus is on a star system whose sun is dying after being basically used up by the rich inner planets. Everyone is trying to flee to the warmer inner planets before the cold kills them.
And we all know how well desperate immigrants are treated by the richer denizens. The Vela vanished, and both Asala and Niko care what happened to those refugees. President Ekrem, who secretly sent them, also cares, but not for the same reasons.
Emotional complexity
This is where my admiration really set in: four writers working together blended their styles and storytelling well enough to furnish complex characters as the story keeps widening out in . . .
Layered or polysemous surprises
Oh yeah. Right around the time we start catching up with The Vela the story takes yet another turn, into the seriously cool.
Serial Box’s 2019 is off to a terrific start with this serial.
Review copy provided by Serial Box.
adventurous
Man, listening to anything any more these days is hard. I get interrupted every 30 seconds and even tried this in the gym but couldn't focus, so I'll come back to it someday when I can really devote my ears to listening and figuring out the cadence of this. Top thing I want to listen to, but audiobooks aren't working for me at this stage in life.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The chapters are written by different writers. Once again I appreciate the work of Becky Chambers so so much!
I like the concept of being able to get to know new writers in the same genre, but you give some consistency up for it.
The story itself. I loved the not forced inclusivity of the main characters. One having a hearing implant, the other using they/them pronounce.
It starts with getting to know them and getting to know the universe in a fluid way. And you get sucked into the story, a story of dying worlds, refugees, war and the endless mining of materials even if it kills the planets.
I like the concept of being able to get to know new writers in the same genre, but you give some consistency up for it.
The story itself. I loved the not forced inclusivity of the main characters. One having a hearing implant, the other using they/them pronounce.
It starts with getting to know them and getting to know the universe in a fluid way. And you get sucked into the story, a story of dying worlds, refugees, war and the endless mining of materials even if it kills the planets.
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is the last full-length novel I had left to read by Becky Chambers (co-written, but still), and I'm sad I have nothing else left by her to read (except a few short stories I need to get to) but I'm glad this was so good. It definitely feels very influenced by her style while still being a good combination between these authors. Personally I didn't feel much of a difference between the writing styles of the different authors between chapters, but that might have been influenced by me listening to the audiobook instead of reading with my eyes.
I really loved both Asala and Niko, and their journeys both separately and together. Asala's family history was so heartbreaking and it was sad but understandable to see her try to distance herself from her past while still hoping she'd reunite with her sister, and then also feel the isolation that decision caused her. Niko's compulsion to both impress their father and do what they feel is the right thing was also very real and relatable. I was especially impressed with how their storyline intertwined with Asala's, and how both characters represented very different ways of looking at the world and trying to solve its problems -- Niko the idealistic young kid not personally affected who wants to save everyone even if it means screwing over their home, and Asala personally affected but wanting to stay alive so that the sacrifice of her family actually means something, even if her choices hurt others. It was a good reflection on how her profession in trying to protect people showed her how little she can actually do for the greater good. But then she went on and tried anyway!!
That was a bit of a ramble but I also really enjoyed the world building. This world felt pretty real and eeriely similar to our current world while still having a lot of different traditions between the planets and societies. The authors definitely thought through all the facets of society and how the environment of each planet really affected people. Of course, the parallel to climate change was spot-on, but seeing it from the opposite angle of the worlds getting extremely cold was really interesting. And the fact that all the planets just fought over who had the right to be saved was depressingly realistic.
The audiobook was also fantastic. I really enjoyed the sound effects, which made this feel truly immersive (pretty much like I was in a Star Trek episode!). And of course, Robin Miles' narration was amazing as always.
My only complaint, and the main thing keeping this from being 5 stars, is that it ends on a complete cliffhanger to the point that this book doesn't feel like a complete story on its own. The characters are in the middle of a battle,go through the wormhole , and then the book just ends. What?? Where is the denouement after the battle? What were the ramifications of the events of this book on the societies? It's the kind of cliffhanger where the reader is just left hanging after a intense event, not one where a new plot element is introduced, and I just didn't like it. I felt like I was robbed of a resolution. I get it, Serial Box wants people to read the next one, but I wasn't planning on reading it since the authors are completely different and it has shitty reviews. So I guess I'll just have to live with never knowing what Asala finds on the other side of the wormhole with her sister, and how Niko deals with that. .
Characters: 5
Plot / Pacing: 4.5
Setting / World Building: 5
Writing Style: 4
Themes: 5
Rating: 4.75
I really loved both Asala and Niko, and their journeys both separately and together. Asala's family history was so heartbreaking and it was sad but understandable to see her try to distance herself from her past while still hoping she'd reunite with her sister, and then also feel the isolation that decision caused her. Niko's compulsion to both impress their father and do what they feel is the right thing was also very real and relatable. I was especially impressed with how their storyline intertwined with Asala's, and how both characters represented very different ways of looking at the world and trying to solve its problems -- Niko the idealistic young kid not personally affected who wants to save everyone even if it means screwing over their home, and Asala personally affected but wanting to stay alive so that the sacrifice of her family actually means something, even if her choices hurt others. It was a good reflection on how her profession in trying to protect people showed her how little she can actually do for the greater good. But then she went on and tried anyway!!
That was a bit of a ramble but I also really enjoyed the world building. This world felt pretty real and eeriely similar to our current world while still having a lot of different traditions between the planets and societies. The authors definitely thought through all the facets of society and how the environment of each planet really affected people. Of course, the parallel to climate change was spot-on, but seeing it from the opposite angle of the worlds getting extremely cold was really interesting. And the fact that all the planets just fought over who had the right to be saved was depressingly realistic.
The audiobook was also fantastic. I really enjoyed the sound effects, which made this feel truly immersive (pretty much like I was in a Star Trek episode!). And of course, Robin Miles' narration was amazing as always.
My only complaint, and the main thing keeping this from being 5 stars, is that it ends on a complete cliffhanger to the point that this book doesn't feel like a complete story on its own. The characters are in the middle of a battle,
Characters: 5
Plot / Pacing: 4.5
Setting / World Building: 5
Writing Style: 4
Themes: 5
Rating: 4.75
adventurous
medium-paced
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
This book was excellent. I love all of these authors individually so their joint project was a big win in my book. I appreciated that the audiobook style was kept consistent from one chapter/episode to the next. I really hope that there actually is a second season because the ending was definitely written assuming that there would be
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes