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297 reviews for:
The Vela: The Complete Season 1
Becky Chambers, Rivers Solomon, Yoon Ha Lee, S.L. Huang
3.84 AVERAGE
297 reviews for:
The Vela: The Complete Season 1
Becky Chambers, Rivers Solomon, Yoon Ha Lee, S.L. Huang
3.84 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
emotional
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
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
Agh so crazy and such a creative way to write a book. It seems like each author got a few chapters to write and the story still ran smoothly.
The parallels to capitalism, climate change, genocide, and refugees are huge. This book doesn't shy away from posing ethical and moral dilemmas, either.
I liked most of the characters, and for most of the book I felt very invested. The main reason this book wasn't five stars from me is that I felt a little exhausted by the last 20% or so. But this shouldn't be a problem for people who love a lot of action.
I liked most of the characters, and for most of the book I felt very invested. The main reason this book wasn't five stars from me is that I felt a little exhausted by the last 20% or so. But this shouldn't be a problem for people who love a lot of action.
4.4 Stars! Really great! Only wished the end was more wrapped up. It just kinda leads right into the next book, which I’m not a huge fan of. Chambers parts were probably the best overall but all the writers did an excellent job. Just the beginning was a little weak. I guess I’ll have to continue this series eventually but unfortunately none of the writers are the same. I’ll try to stay optimistic about that though despite the lower ratings in book 2.
01. A Leisurely Extinction by SL Huang: 3
02. The Third Passenger by Becky Chambers: 5
03. The Death-Cold by Rivers Solomon: 4
04. Camp Ghala by SL Huang: 4.5
05. The Heart of the Web by Yoon Ha Lee: 4.5
06. Fortress World by Rivers Solomon: 5
07. The Traitor by Becky Chambers: 5
08. Gravity by SL Huang: 4.5
09. The Battle of Gan-De, Part 1 by Yoon Ha Lee: 4.5
10. The Battle of Gan-De, Part 2 by Becky Chambers: 4
Quotes:
- “I go where I am beckoned, I eat what I am given, I sing the harmony and am lost no more.”
- “War is math. How many dead, how many miles, how many bullets you have left. We—me, you, our stalwart protector here—we are all at war. Only, our enemy isn’t something we can outgun or outfox. It’s time. Time is our enemy, and resources are the only weapon we have…”
- “What you’ve seen doesn’t necessarily say anything about who or what you are.”
- “How, how can you do it, how can you keep going when there’s no end, when you’re just being told over and over to take a number, wait, another week, another year, another seventeen years—“
- “The cold facts, and the cold choices, here with the cold of space pressing in on every side to devour them all.”
- “There was something to Niko’s philosophy that talking your way out of a fight was easier than fighting your way out.”
- “Curiosity had its place, and its place wasn’t here.”
- “It’s all fucked to fucking pieces. That’s what I’ve got to say about it. You satisfied?”
- “How can you ever know what to do when you’re just a small piece in a small maze, one tiny subsection of a labyrinth that stretches back centuries?”
- “In many ways, someone who didn’t know how to use a gun was worse than someone who did know what they were doing.”
- “Nobody could think properly when sitting still, with slow blood and idle bones.”
- “Fear and foolishness were close cousins.”
- “She was trying to play four-hand chess with only half the pieces. She needed more.”
- “What a weird thing, having nature remind you of its mimic rather than the other way around.”
- “Silence. Silence was the worst, almost. Silence meant someone had won.”
- “Funny how everybody suddenly gives a shit about us now that we’ve got something worth taking.”
- “Be the sacrifice instead of requiring it.”
- “What was the point of making a decision that would leave her empty the rest of her life? Even if it was the smart one?”
- “The stars may be numberless, but we number our dead.”
- “The ships’ walls and the dark distance between you and death made it too easy to believe in the illusion of your own safety, to forget your soft and bloody body in that bloodless expanse… just because you couldn’t see danger didn’t mean it wasn’t about to shoot you in the head.”
- “May the sun watch you and the stars holds you safe.”
- “For what was more constant than your place in the stars?”
- “A life sentence doesn’t mean much if there’s no planet to build prisons on.”
- “We are more than these ships. We are on every world and we speak every tongue. You have already lost. You will have no surrender from us.”
01. A Leisurely Extinction by SL Huang: 3
02. The Third Passenger by Becky Chambers: 5
03. The Death-Cold by Rivers Solomon: 4
04. Camp Ghala by SL Huang: 4.5
05. The Heart of the Web by Yoon Ha Lee: 4.5
06. Fortress World by Rivers Solomon: 5
07. The Traitor by Becky Chambers: 5
08. Gravity by SL Huang: 4.5
09. The Battle of Gan-De, Part 1 by Yoon Ha Lee: 4.5
10. The Battle of Gan-De, Part 2 by Becky Chambers: 4
Quotes:
- “I go where I am beckoned, I eat what I am given, I sing the harmony and am lost no more.”
- “War is math. How many dead, how many miles, how many bullets you have left. We—me, you, our stalwart protector here—we are all at war. Only, our enemy isn’t something we can outgun or outfox. It’s time. Time is our enemy, and resources are the only weapon we have…”
- “What you’ve seen doesn’t necessarily say anything about who or what you are.”
- “How, how can you do it, how can you keep going when there’s no end, when you’re just being told over and over to take a number, wait, another week, another year, another seventeen years—“
- “The cold facts, and the cold choices, here with the cold of space pressing in on every side to devour them all.”
- “There was something to Niko’s philosophy that talking your way out of a fight was easier than fighting your way out.”
- “Curiosity had its place, and its place wasn’t here.”
- “It’s all fucked to fucking pieces. That’s what I’ve got to say about it. You satisfied?”
- “How can you ever know what to do when you’re just a small piece in a small maze, one tiny subsection of a labyrinth that stretches back centuries?”
- “In many ways, someone who didn’t know how to use a gun was worse than someone who did know what they were doing.”
- “Nobody could think properly when sitting still, with slow blood and idle bones.”
- “Fear and foolishness were close cousins.”
- “She was trying to play four-hand chess with only half the pieces. She needed more.”
- “What a weird thing, having nature remind you of its mimic rather than the other way around.”
- “Silence. Silence was the worst, almost. Silence meant someone had won.”
- “Funny how everybody suddenly gives a shit about us now that we’ve got something worth taking.”
- “Be the sacrifice instead of requiring it.”
- “What was the point of making a decision that would leave her empty the rest of her life? Even if it was the smart one?”
- “The stars may be numberless, but we number our dead.”
- “The ships’ walls and the dark distance between you and death made it too easy to believe in the illusion of your own safety, to forget your soft and bloody body in that bloodless expanse… just because you couldn’t see danger didn’t mean it wasn’t about to shoot you in the head.”
- “May the sun watch you and the stars holds you safe.”
- “For what was more constant than your place in the stars?”
- “A life sentence doesn’t mean much if there’s no planet to build prisons on.”
- “We are more than these ships. We are on every world and we speak every tongue. You have already lost. You will have no surrender from us.”
Rated 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5.
This was an amazing story. I'm usually not a fan of space operas at all, but this one grabbed me fast and didn't let go. I was going to read it, but then I found out it was a free-to-listen podcast with Realm.fm, so I put it on, got to work, and got immersed!
The story starts out very character focused: Asala is our war-hardened sniper, a refugee from a dying planet she hasn't seen in almost 40 years. Niko is the young, very idealistic tech-genius tasked with Asala to figure out what happened to The Vela, and to return it to their planet (Khayyam).
But of course the plot cannot be that simple. This plot takes Asala and Niko into space, jumping from planet, to space station, to planet, following clues that are just a bit too conveniently placed to help move the plot forward.
Which is honestly my main gripe with this story. I didn't notice any jankiness between sections written by different authors (in fact, it's quite cohesive aside from a very few continuity errors), but I did notice that the story itself was a bit simpler than I'd come to expect from these authors on their own. There is one in-universe reason given for some of the conveniences, but that is uncovered about halfway through and doesn't explain the rest of the story.
The characters are great, however, and carry the story through the less-than-stellar plot moments. There is a clear line being drawn in this work: it asks the reader to consider for themselves who is worth saving, what elements of humanity are worth supporting (greed? sacrificing yourself for the good of society? only saving your people and not the less fortunate?), what kind of people have the right to escape a dying solar system, and which deserve to suffer and die horribly?
These are not easy questions to answer. Every character seems to have their own answer. Which one is right? Well, these authors won't tell you. It's not that I need them to. Easy answers won't save our own planet. Or even help us escape to another one. Which, I believe, is ultimately the question what the authors are attempting to address with this space opera. What will we decide for our own planet? We all want to be Soraya but how many of us are secretly a General Cynwrig.
Notes to the end of this book:
This was an amazing story. I'm usually not a fan of space operas at all, but this one grabbed me fast and didn't let go. I was going to read it, but then I found out it was a free-to-listen podcast with Realm.fm, so I put it on, got to work, and got immersed!
The story starts out very character focused: Asala is our war-hardened sniper, a refugee from a dying planet she hasn't seen in almost 40 years. Niko is the young, very idealistic tech-genius tasked with Asala to figure out what happened to The Vela, and to return it to their planet (Khayyam).
But of course the plot cannot be that simple. This plot takes Asala and Niko into space, jumping from planet, to space station, to planet, following clues that are just a bit too conveniently placed to help move the plot forward.
Which is honestly my main gripe with this story. I didn't notice any jankiness between sections written by different authors (in fact, it's quite cohesive aside from a very few continuity errors), but I did notice that the story itself was a bit simpler than I'd come to expect from these authors on their own. There is one in-universe reason given for some of the conveniences, but that is uncovered about halfway through and doesn't explain the rest of the story.
The characters are great, however, and carry the story through the less-than-stellar plot moments. There is a clear line being drawn in this work: it asks the reader to consider for themselves who is worth saving, what elements of humanity are worth supporting (greed? sacrificing yourself for the good of society? only saving your people and not the less fortunate?), what kind of people have the right to escape a dying solar system, and which deserve to suffer and die horribly?
These are not easy questions to answer. Every character seems to have their own answer. Which one is right? Well, these authors won't tell you. It's not that I need them to. Easy answers won't save our own planet. Or even help us escape to another one. Which, I believe, is ultimately the question what the authors are attempting to address with this space opera. What will we decide for our own planet? We all want to be Soraya but how many of us are secretly a General Cynwrig.
Notes to the end of this book:
Spoiler
One thing Cynwrig will never understand is that she caused the destruction of her own planet: had she not attacked and tried to steal the tech for herself, the Galan's probably would not have triggered the wormhole so close to Gan-De and sealed it's demise. They might have anyway since there was so much hate, but it wouldn't have been a sure thing. Typical hateful, spiteful humans reaping what they sow. I am disappointed that she opted to go through at the end. I find her character boring and annoying.Spoiler
I was disappointed in how bigoted and terrible most of humanity was in this story. And yet, that's probably what the future would be like: just like now only with more tech. Human's ethics and brains are extremely slow to catch up with the amount of tech we can build. Even now we can't solve the issues on our own planet and people are already making plans to run to another. If there's one thing I took away from this book it's how humans really should just stop existing. We use and abuse and refuse to share as much as we should. And yet, somehow we hang on, we create beauty, we share, we have compassion and empathy to unlimited depth.
I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review
I really loved this, it had all the aspects of space sci-fi that I enjoy, fast-paced plot, hidden conspiracies, technological advances etc. I found the environmental degradation of the solar system very intriguing, as it's a plot I haven't come across much in sci-fi. The only thing that put me off this book was Niko. I loved Asala, found her an interesting MC that I was actively rooting for and cared about. Niko on the other hand just got on my nerves. Their idealism without critical thinking and the way they talked down to Asala about her own culture just bothered me too much and brought this down from a 5 to a 4 star for me.
I really loved this, it had all the aspects of space sci-fi that I enjoy, fast-paced plot, hidden conspiracies, technological advances etc. I found the environmental degradation of the solar system very intriguing, as it's a plot I haven't come across much in sci-fi. The only thing that put me off this book was Niko. I loved Asala, found her an interesting MC that I was actively rooting for and cared about. Niko on the other hand just got on my nerves. Their idealism without critical thinking and the way they talked down to Asala about her own culture just bothered me too much and brought this down from a 5 to a 4 star for me.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes