Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers

26 reviews

_david_'s review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective 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? No

3.5

This book had some great moments and I do recommend reading it if you liked the rest of the series! I think the author nailed the use of multiple characters to tell the story about a whole culture. It created beautiful dialogue and told an interesting story about the value of tradition. I adored the characters, especially Isabel and Tamsin since they remind me of my own relationship.

I have two reasons why I've rated it lower than the other Wayfarer books so far. A small downside of especially the beginning of the book is that there are a lot of similar names for characters and a lot of characters without a very clear identifying feature at first. I can imagine that it's very hard to go through this book slowly since you might forget which character did what. The other, bigger downside is how some characters' stories ended. I didn't mind the endings themselves, but for a few of them they were told about it by others. The book expressed its morals by a very much "tell don't show" way. I think it's a shame, it made the book feel very biased, I think the same story could've been told without the very explicit dialogue. The moments I mean are:
Isabel talking to Kip and 'Pop' talking to Tessa. I think the museum scene for Kip and the talk with George for Tessa would've sufficed.


Having said that, I still really enjoyed the book! It's just the weakest in the series so far to me and I wanted to reflect that in my rating. As I've expressed in the beginning of this review, it contains some beautiful moments.


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lauralia's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0


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the_reading_wren's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad 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? No

4.75

This one is less adventure and more reflective than the previous books in this series, covering heavy themes. Chambers guides us through these topics with masterful writing, while enveloping us in a world so well developed it feels like a home from home.
I think it was a work of genius weaving the reader’s role of bearing witness into Sawyer’s storyline in such a profound way…

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waqupi's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75


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arinheck's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This has been my least favourite Wayfarer book thus far. And yet, it made me laugh out loud and cry just as much as the others have. Although it was a bit slow to get going, Becky Chambers has yet to truly disappoint.

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mercerhanau's review against another edition

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hopeful reflective relaxing medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

This book is slower paced and less dramatic than the previous two books. I personally found the “slice of life” style less compelling, but still cozy and enjoyable to read. It continues to flesh out the galaxy Becky Chambers has created, focusing on the people living on “homesteaders” (generation ships, but self-sustaining and not heading to a new planet), especially from the perspectives of teenagers, parents with ordinary jobs, and elders. The author does her usual great job of having characters explore what they really want from life.

It’s fun to read sections of an ethnography about humans by a Harmagian. Interesting to see a human culture described by an outsider and compared to squishy, slug-like aliens with different rituals and cultural norms around birth and death.

Real-world themes the book touches on: (hidden for some minor spoiler details)

* Collective trauma, mass death (at the very beginning of the book)
* How we handle the dead, relationship to resources in a closed system (whether planetary or in a spaceship), human composting.
* Communal living
* Sex work (pro! As an important, legitimate, unstigmatized profession with regulations and safety measures for all involved)
* Ethical non-monogamy (mentioned more briefly than previous books)
* Challenges of solo parenting with a partner who travels frequently
* Children and toddlers using technology like video games (“sims”)
* Shared labor: everyone healthy and over 14 years old in the fleet takes turns working on sanitation so it isn’t out of sight or out of mind. Nothing is left to “lesser people.” Other roles are more specialized, but this shared responsibility both breaks up undesirable tasks and keeps people humbly in touch with the resource recycling.
* Professions and compensation: Labor isn’t compensated, nor do some professions receive more resources than others. All basic needs are met: food, water, housing, oxygen, etc. It’s rare for adults not to work, but it’s scorned. The question “what do you do?” asks what a person does for the community, for “us”. People thank each other for what they provide: artists for murals, farmers for food, doctors for medical attention, etc.
* Personal property: Property is communal until it enters a family home. Then stealing would be illegal, but people don’t need to steal anyway since their basic needs are met. (Cf. better social support reduces crime, rather than more criminalization and policing)
* Economics with multiple currencies: trade worked fine until outside currency and goods entered the equation. (Cf. Cuba, from my understanding?)
* Caring for aging parents. Some of this book’s topics remind me of A Prayer for the Crown-Shy: body mods, medical intervention for failing body parts, community care, alternative economic systems without strict currency
* Pros and cons of this lifestyle, especially for raising kids. Parents struggling to explain traumatic subject matter to their children, but also nice examples of parents being supportive and good listeners regarding their kids’ fears (and possible PTSD)
* Critiques of the inefficiency of bureaucracy meant to ensure fairness. People breaking protocol to claim more resources for themselves.
* Stages of fetal development between different species: a Harmagian reflects on how she doesn’t remember her life as a polyp, so it wasn’t really “her”. The transition between being a polyp and one’s baby self is seen as a death in her culture. Perhaps commentary on pro-life arguments of “life begins at conception”? She’s also bringing it up in the context of grieving for children and human parents holding their children close when they hear of a young person’s death. She has a different, more distant relationship to her own offspring. 
* Politicization of the death of a newcomer. Who to blame, who to grieve, what this means for immigration acceptance vs. restriction, outsiders using limited resources, how to prevent future tragedies, etc. 
* What kinds of jobs can (and will) be replaced by artificial intelligence
* A Harmagian’s brief reflections on her species’s “superiority” by means of conquest. Regret, reparations, sharing of technology and partnership with those they once harmed. What makes a species “worthy” of membership in the Galactic Commons?
* Archives and museums: what’s the point of keeping old things around rather than repairing/recycling them? Are people studying them and learning useful things? The homesteaders’ archives keep digital records and no physical objects, since space and resources are limited.

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tallulahlucy's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful relaxing slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I don’t understand this being marked medium paced - it’s slow. Don’t go in expecting anything else and you won’t be disappointed. Think of it as a documentary about the fictional Fleet rather than a single story. 

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lipstickitotheman's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional 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

4.0

Through the grief, this book is still wonderfully hopeful. It was really hard for me at first to keep all the narratives straight, but it got easier as I got to know the characters better. It was beautiful how they all intersected with each other and with the first book in the series. 

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annamorgan27's review against another edition

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hopeful reflective 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

3.5


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queersicles's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective relaxing slow-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

5.0

I love this book so much, have read it probably 15 times in the last 8 months. I struggled with this book the first time I read it because there were so many characters and I listen to audiobooks so I found it tricky to keep track of who I was listening about. Once I had a grip on who was who, multiple rereads have been super rewarding for me. I think the core theme of this book is being slightly and not very specifically dissatisfied with life, and trying to figure out how to engage with life differently to solve the unspecified, uncertain problem. Each character walks through doing that slightly differently, each "solution" is not created equally. Exceptionally generous to the internal life of each character, I felt like I was able to inhabit each so easily. I fell in love with the logic of living in the fleet, the community minded ethos, and at the same time the inherent infighting to all human civilizations was there too. It felt so hopeful but also so grounded in how humans truly behave. Left me wanting to live differently. An excellent read!! Also! I can't make a content warning for a mass casualty event, but this book does cover being witness to and the aftermath of a mass casualty. The cause of which was an accident, but still over 40,000 people died. I have made a request for them to add that as a content warning but as of now this is the best I can do.

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