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A review by vimesbootstheory
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
- Strong character development? No
1.75
Unfortunately this book was an out-and-out disappointment. Chambers does not appear to understand how to write conflict; anything that even remotely teases actual stakes is almost universally solved over the course of a conversation between the relentlessly self-actualized, dull-as-mud crewmates, delivered in trite therapy speak.
A good rule of thumb when writing a thing, also, is that if you're tempted to reference or respond to or generally be in an implicit dialogue with another piece of media, you gotta be pretty sure that you can go toe-to-toe with the media you're referencing, or the reader is just going to remember how much they'd rather be spending time with this other better thing, which probably has a plot, unlike TLWtaSAP. This book has been compared to a lot of other stories, but I got the parallels with Mass Effect the most, and I spent most of my reading time wishing I was playing Mass Effect. You know, something with great worldbuilding But Also A Plot.
I will say the stakes at the end were a little stakier, and I appreciated that not EVERYTHING was solved over a conversation at the very end. There were real emotions there. And imagine my shock when, once the characters had actually been through some shit, all that cozy cuddling and those feel-good moments between crewmates actually felt earned! It's almost like you have to put your characters in actual story for me to care about them.
A good rule of thumb when writing a thing, also, is that if you're tempted to reference or respond to or generally be in an implicit dialogue with another piece of media, you gotta be pretty sure that you can go toe-to-toe with the media you're referencing, or the reader is just going to remember how much they'd rather be spending time with this other better thing, which probably has a plot, unlike TLWtaSAP. This book has been compared to a lot of other stories, but I got the parallels with Mass Effect the most, and I spent most of my reading time wishing I was playing Mass Effect. You know, something with great worldbuilding But Also A Plot.
I will say the stakes at the end were a little stakier, and I appreciated that not EVERYTHING was solved over a conversation at the very end. There were real emotions there. And imagine my shock when, once the characters had actually been through some shit, all that cozy cuddling and those feel-good moments between crewmates actually felt earned! It's almost like you have to put your characters in actual story for me to care about them.