Reviews

Becky Chambers is magical, it was heartbreakingly beautiful like all her damn books. We jump around with all of these characters in another piece of this universe she has created and come out of it learning more about herself. I will never get over how much I love her books and writing.

Sci-Fi, Philosophical Discussions, Diversity

“So many years of training and study, always striving, always chasing the idea at the end of the road. She’d reached that end by now. She had everything she had set out to do. So now… what? What came next? Do well, be consistent, keep things up for however long she had?”

“Humans aren’t really supposed to do anything in particular, and we get to choose the kind of lives we have. But that doesn’t mean any of it has a point.”

“If the only reason you want to do it is because you’re looking for a point, you’re going to end up miserable. You’ll float around forever trying to make peace with that.”

“Give me someone who wants it and had to work for it any day.”

“Figure out what you love, specifically. In detail. Figure out what you want to keep. Figure out what you want to change. Otherwise, it’s not love. It’s clinging to the familiar— to the comfortable.”

Content Warnings

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4.0

Generations ago, a fleet of ships left a devastated earth and struck out to see what they could find. Chambers imagines a fascinating future society in detail. In fact, the bulk of this book is about describing what life would be like in such a fleet, contrasted with the alien races they encounter. Her most surprising insight is that all this time later, the push-pull between "stay with what we have" and "strike out for something different" is still relevant. Thoroughly enjoyed this entry in the Wayfarers series, even though--as other reviewers' have mentioned-- the emphasis is less on an over-arching plot and more on understanding the Exodans' lives. It gets a little preachy at times, but the cast of characters she creates were interesting enough to pull me in.