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4.19 AVERAGE
4.19 AVERAGE
I'm really confused on what to rate this book.
Seriously, we need 1/2 star ratings enabled in Goodreads ASAP.
This would be an easy 3.5, mainly because it's a bit underwhelming compared to the previous books, BUT it's still a nice and comforting book which can be the first step to many other stories.
I was a bit bored at times with some characters, and was desperate for more developments on others, but it is what it is.
Still a nice light read.
Seriously, we need 1/2 star ratings enabled in Goodreads ASAP.
This would be an easy 3.5, mainly because it's a bit underwhelming compared to the previous books, BUT it's still a nice and comforting book which can be the first step to many other stories.
I was a bit bored at times with some characters, and was desperate for more developments on others, but it is what it is.
Still a nice light read.
emotional
hopeful
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This one hit me like a ghibli movie, where I was enjoying these characters and what they were up to as the story slowly progresses, but wasn't entirely sure I knew what each characters problems were, or where their story was going. Like a Ghibli movie, where I'm enjoying it but perhaps missing some of the point, I cried a lot towards the end as characters had moments. Very enjoyable book....if the second in the series was about being a person, this book is about what it means to be in a community, and the ways we navigate the dynamics between our own and others needs. While having 5 distinct points of view, each characters arc was compelling on it's own, but also in how they together created a multi-faceted look at what being a part of this community (or indeed, any community), can mean.
Content Warnings
2021 REREAD: This one hit a little closer to home this time out. Growing up and living in a small and unchanging town that may have been a decade or two past its prime while I was there, there was an odd balance between desperation (wanting to escape however I could) and static comfort (making do until further notice) that always nagged at me. Wayfarers 3 is definitely THIS kind of story, so I felt even closer to the characters for this second read. Each character had their own way of dealing with figuring out their place in this history, and each had to find their own way to act on it. Still my favorite of the first three!
Now to read the new (and last) Wayfarers book! :)
**
Becky Chambers has written yet another absolutely lovely novel in her Wayfarers universe; i love that her stories are small and contained within the cradle of a much larger universe. This time she focuses on community -- specifically the Fleet -- and how each person's life is woven into everyone else's, in one way or another.
Now to read the new (and last) Wayfarers book! :)
**
Becky Chambers has written yet another absolutely lovely novel in her Wayfarers universe; i love that her stories are small and contained within the cradle of a much larger universe. This time she focuses on community -- specifically the Fleet -- and how each person's life is woven into everyone else's, in one way or another.
Another thoughtful installment in the Wayfarer universe, this time focusing on the human Fleet.
Like the second book, this one felt very quiet. It reads like a series of profiles rather than a novel with a thrilling plotline. I can understand reviewers who found it dull or otherwise difficult to engage with, but again I enjoyed Chamber’s way of taking an anthropological approach to a fictional futuristic world. This book in particular feels more like a literary novel than a science fiction novel.
I personally found all the perspectives relatable. The teenager desperately struggling to break out of their known world, which is feeling like an outgrown and embarrassing sweater. The single young woman succeeding in her career but feeling vaguely unsatisfied. The young man yearning for a community after feeling untethered for most of his life. The middle-aged mother balancing her career, marriage, children, and parents. The older woman who still has a lot of life within her, and who hosts the alien guest who provides yet another perspective on human life. As with the previous books, the characters feel authentic and whole to the point where I often forget they are fictional.
Chambers writes a human world that is familiar and different. The Fleet seemed a smidge too utopian to be believable, but nonetheless it served as a useful example of the types of structural and social needs of a human community on a generational ship.
Like the second book, this one felt very quiet. It reads like a series of profiles rather than a novel with a thrilling plotline. I can understand reviewers who found it dull or otherwise difficult to engage with, but again I enjoyed Chamber’s way of taking an anthropological approach to a fictional futuristic world. This book in particular feels more like a literary novel than a science fiction novel.
I personally found all the perspectives relatable. The teenager desperately struggling to break out of their known world, which is feeling like an outgrown and embarrassing sweater. The single young woman succeeding in her career but feeling vaguely unsatisfied. The young man yearning for a community after feeling untethered for most of his life. The middle-aged mother balancing her career, marriage, children, and parents. The older woman who still has a lot of life within her, and who hosts the alien guest who provides yet another perspective on human life. As with the previous books, the characters feel authentic and whole to the point where I often forget they are fictional.
Chambers writes a human world that is familiar and different. The Fleet seemed a smidge too utopian to be believable, but nonetheless it served as a useful example of the types of structural and social needs of a human community on a generational ship.
This is not a happy book.
I don't mean it's sad. It's about people (or similar terms) and their strength to live and thrive — as most of Becky Chamber's work — but it doesn't have the optimistic tone from the second book or the novelty of the first one.
Even though this is not a dark and gritty story — no war, guns-blazing spaceships, blood and gore — it opens with a scene with dozens of thousands of casualties. It's difficult to imagine lifeless bodies floating in space, a consequence of a technical issue — all in the very first chapter. It's difficult to digest.
Even though it's a book about family and connection, it's a work about death and meaning — redundantly, the meaning of death. To me, a person that met death closely — both as someone who saw their parents go way before their time and as someone who was in a near-death experience — this is a difficult book because it tries to discuss the taboo around what death means to us.
My eyes teared up when a character reads the Litany; when a wrong button press ends a chapter abruptly; when a person smiles at the moon; or when an old man gets a date with an old woman.
Although the fleet is every Communist's wet dream, we are still human, and we have to deal with the eternal cycle of life and death — and Chambers does it again, baffling me with her storytelling power. I can't stress enough how this book is a must-read.
I don't mean it's sad. It's about people (or similar terms) and their strength to live and thrive — as most of Becky Chamber's work — but it doesn't have the optimistic tone from the second book or the novelty of the first one.
Even though this is not a dark and gritty story — no war, guns-blazing spaceships, blood and gore — it opens with a scene with dozens of thousands of casualties. It's difficult to imagine lifeless bodies floating in space, a consequence of a technical issue — all in the very first chapter. It's difficult to digest.
Even though it's a book about family and connection, it's a work about death and meaning — redundantly, the meaning of death. To me, a person that met death closely — both as someone who saw their parents go way before their time and as someone who was in a near-death experience — this is a difficult book because it tries to discuss the taboo around what death means to us.
My eyes teared up when a character reads the Litany; when a wrong button press ends a chapter abruptly; when a person smiles at the moon; or when an old man gets a date with an old woman.
Although the fleet is every Communist's wet dream, we are still human, and we have to deal with the eternal cycle of life and death — and Chambers does it again, baffling me with her storytelling power. I can't stress enough how this book is a must-read.
Reading Becky Chambers is like wrapping yourself up in a warm, fluffy, fiction blanket. Her scenarios are fascinating, her characters full of beauty and pathos, her moral themes are gentle and important.
Record of a Spaceborn Few, like the second in the series, is only tangentially related to the other novels. There is no continuous plot arc being followed. These books - and this one in particular, I think - are more a thought experiment on the "what if"s of various future, space-faring scenarios. The first book centered on the huge variety possible among sentient species. The second took a deep look at the meaning of consciousness. In this installment, we have a meditation on the meaning of Home: the importance of having one, the importance of leaving one, the way it shapes one's identity, and the way it is perceived by those both inside and outside.
The central characters, all human residents of The Fleet (a collection of generation ships that left Earth hundreds of years ago when Earth became uninhabitable, originally seeking out a new planet to call home but now filling the role of new home itself) are loosely connected to each other, but each is pursuing different goals and wrestling with different (metaphoric) demons. Chambers allows each character's specific circumstances to inform the way they make decisions - wisely or not. Showing how the correctness of every choice in life is hugely relative is one of her overarching themes, and I love it.
The cynic in me does wonder at the near Utopia she's created on the ships of the Fleet. She does moderate this perfection by showing ways different people are discontent, but their discontent mostly has more to do with boredom than any actual strife. Everyone on the fleet has a home, a job, and enough to eat - guaranteed. All lifestyles (except the murderous ones) are accepted respectfully. It's an admirable dream, and I hope she's right that we might some day come to such a place.
Hopefully without wrecking our own planet first, but. Y'know.
Record of a Spaceborn Few, like the second in the series, is only tangentially related to the other novels. There is no continuous plot arc being followed. These books - and this one in particular, I think - are more a thought experiment on the "what if"s of various future, space-faring scenarios. The first book centered on the huge variety possible among sentient species. The second took a deep look at the meaning of consciousness. In this installment, we have a meditation on the meaning of Home: the importance of having one, the importance of leaving one, the way it shapes one's identity, and the way it is perceived by those both inside and outside.
The central characters, all human residents of The Fleet (a collection of generation ships that left Earth hundreds of years ago when Earth became uninhabitable, originally seeking out a new planet to call home but now filling the role of new home itself) are loosely connected to each other, but each is pursuing different goals and wrestling with different (metaphoric) demons. Chambers allows each character's specific circumstances to inform the way they make decisions - wisely or not. Showing how the correctness of every choice in life is hugely relative is one of her overarching themes, and I love it.
The cynic in me does wonder at the near Utopia she's created on the ships of the Fleet. She does moderate this perfection by showing ways different people are discontent, but their discontent mostly has more to do with boredom than any actual strife. Everyone on the fleet has a home, a job, and enough to eat - guaranteed. All lifestyles (except the murderous ones) are accepted respectfully. It's an admirable dream, and I hope she's right that we might some day come to such a place.
Hopefully without wrecking our own planet first, but. Y'know.
The Exodan Fleet were the last humans to leave Earth, on ships made from their crumbling cities. The ships were supposed to be home to future generations until they found a new planet to land on, but the Exodan Fleet is still flying, albeit parked in orbit around a new star, and remains home to many who will never live planetside. This is a story told from the point of view of five people living in the Exodan fleet, which explores what the Fleet has to offer its people and why people want to continue living there. It is a story about continuity, about finding one’s own way, and about the cycle of life and death.
This was really good. It is much more character-driven and idea-driven than plot-driven, but still really enjoyable. I did not enjoy this one as much as the previous two books, but still really good.
This was really good. It is much more character-driven and idea-driven than plot-driven, but still really enjoyable. I did not enjoy this one as much as the previous two books, but still really good.
I didn't expect to be so - emotional - reading this: but it was perfect for the story, and entirely appropriate. Highly recommended. (as, of course, are the first two books in the series)
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
hopeful
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