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sofresh 's review for:
Record of a Spaceborn Few
by Becky Chambers
Closer to a 3.5.
It's definitely not the best Wayfarer book but it's still worth reading.
The main thing I didn't love about it was that it felt disconnected and aimless. I usually like multi-POV stories, but none of the characters really connect with each other and interact until right at the end. In The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet, the multi-POV worked because the experience of one character's POV carried over to the next. Here, I didn't get that sense. It almost read like a short story collection, which I don't particularly like. I also didn't care that much for Tessa, but I absolutely loved Kip and Isobel. I think it potentially had too many POVs it was juggling around without meaningfully drawing connections between characters.
That being said, I love the worldbuilding and philsophy of the Exodan Fleet. I suppose it's a kind of verison of space communism. It reiterates the whole Wayfarer series' themes of identity and belonging in a vast, diverse galaxy. It explores what humans place is in such a big universe where they're not that particularly special. In sci-fi, humans are the neutral, boring group in a massive world of different cultures, but I love how Becky Chambers makes humanity feel unique and foreign. We aren't stagnant, we evolve.
Also Ghuh'loloan is the best.
It's definitely not the best Wayfarer book but it's still worth reading.
The main thing I didn't love about it was that it felt disconnected and aimless. I usually like multi-POV stories, but none of the characters really connect with each other and interact until right at the end. In The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet, the multi-POV worked because the experience of one character's POV carried over to the next. Here, I didn't get that sense. It almost read like a short story collection, which I don't particularly like. I also didn't care that much for Tessa, but I absolutely loved Kip and Isobel. I think it potentially had too many POVs it was juggling around without meaningfully drawing connections between characters.
That being said, I love the worldbuilding and philsophy of the Exodan Fleet. I suppose it's a kind of verison of space communism. It reiterates the whole Wayfarer series' themes of identity and belonging in a vast, diverse galaxy. It explores what humans place is in such a big universe where they're not that particularly special. In sci-fi, humans are the neutral, boring group in a massive world of different cultures, but I love how Becky Chambers makes humanity feel unique and foreign. We aren't stagnant, we evolve.
Also Ghuh'loloan is the best.