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snukes 's review for:
Record of a Spaceborn Few
by Becky Chambers
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.