#not to mention using her as some like. justification for queer male characters instead of her just existing for her own merit

[findafight]

Do you like Robin as a character or is she just a quirky lesbian to you.

[terramythos]

TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 18 of 26

Title: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers #1) (2014)

Author: Becky Chambers

Genre/Tags: Science Fiction, Third-Person, LGBT Protagonist, Female Protagonist

Rating: 6/10

Date Began: 7/14/2021 

Date Finished: 7/23/2021

Rosemary Harper is running from her past. She decides to reinvent herself and joins a ragtag crew aboard the Wayfarer, a piecemeal yet beloved wormhole tunneling ship. Here she hopes to blend in among the crew and keep her secret. But when the Wayfarer is offered the contract of a lifetime, she and the crew embark on a dangerous long-haul journey to the center of the galaxy. 

“We cannot blame ourselves for the wars our parents start. Sometimes the very best thing we can do is walk away.”

Content warnings and minor spoilers below the cut.  

Content warnings for the book: Non-graphic sexual content. Violence, death, and terminal illness. Recreational drug use. Descriptions of warfare and war crimes. Discussions of trauma. Brief mention of incest. 

This is another book I really wanted to like more than I did. It’s the first in a critically acclaimed science fiction series with many elements I adore; found family, creative aliens, casual queer rep, and so on. But even though I enjoyed the book, I ended up feeling lukewarm about it overall. 

One thing to get out of the way early: this book doesn’t have much of a plot. That’s not a criticism, but it’s something that might turn people off. Instead, The Long Way is episodic. There’s an opening premise and finale, but the meat of the book is devoted to smaller stories and encounters along the span of a year-long journey. While that might seem awkward in a novel format, I think Chambers does a good job tying the stories together. There are just enough subplots and end goal reminders to keep everything connected. Needless to say, the main focus of the book is on the characters and their relationships. 

Probably my favorite aspect of the book are the alien concepts, particularly the ones that play around with gender in interesting ways. There’s the Grum, who are born female but transition to male as they age. The whole idea of Sianat Pairs is fascinating; I love that they use they/them pronouns not due to gender, but as an actual plural. They’re infected with a neurovirus so integral to their identity they consider it a part of themselves. I found that entire subplot morally complex and compelling. I wish gender stuff was explored with the human characters, but that might not have been possible in a 2014 publishing environment. 

I also like the role of humans in the lore; often in stories with multiple sapient aliens a la Star Trek or Mass Effect, humans are super important. It’s refreshing to see a story where humans are a minor species. While several of the leads are human, I never felt like the alien crewmates were neglected in favor of them. The idea that humans split into two factions due to conflict on Earth and thus developed vastly different cultures is also cool. It’s not a huge part of this story, but I’d be interested in a deeper exploration of Martian versus Exodan humans. 

The Long Way contains heavy infodumps. To some extent I understand this; it’s a unique science fiction world with a lot of detail baked in. I don’t mind exposition if it’s blended into the story or presented in an organic way. But here it’s hit or miss. One of the best chapters in the book, “The Last War”, is nothing but exposition delivered via dialogue. Dr. Chef tells Rosemary about his past and the destruction of his species. Even though it’s a ton of information, it’s emotional and harrowing. It works because Dr. Chef is an unexpected foil to Rosemary; both have sketchy pasts where people close to them committed horrible acts, and both decided to break away and reinvent themselves. But then there’s other chapters that dump lots of information on the reader without a good justification. For example, when we visit an Aandrisk planet, Sissix monologues for PAGES about the different family types her species has. That information is needed later in the chapter, but I wish the ideas were introduced elsewhere in the story for a natural payoff rather than suddenly thrown at the reader mere pages before it becomes relevant. 

The big thing holding this book back for me is the characters, which is a significant problem in a character-focused story. There are nine crewmates on the Wayfarer, and I genuinely liked four of them--Sissix, Dr. Chef, Ohan, and Corbin. The first three are aliens with interesting backstories representative of their species. The human Corbin is an antisocial asshole who’s easy to hate, but goes through major character growth throughout the book. The rest of the crew I felt either neutral towards or outright disliked (I’m looking at you, Kizzy. Quirk for the sake of quirk, ugh). 

Likability isn’t a requirement for a good character. But when character is the focus of a novel, a compelling personal conflict is essential. Yet many of the crew have generic arcs. There’s the woman fleeing her mysterious past. Not one but TWO men have an arc dedicated to forbidden love with a non-human entity. Another woman figures out that… other people experience fear? Almost all character tension gets solved right away with no lasting problems, which feels like a missed opportunity. For example, there’s a great setup with Sissix and Corbin. The two despise each other, but Sissix has to make a huge personal sacrifice to save Corbin’s life. Yet this has zero impact further into the story; nothing about their daily lives changes, and it’s barely brought up in future chapters. It’s not that the characters lack development, but any interesting depth or conflict gets resolved or brushed aside as soon as it happens. Or there’s an interesting idea that never pays off. The main exception to this is the Jenks/Lovey subplot, but that’s not surprising considering it’s setup for the next book. 

I do have miscellaneous nitpicks as well. The writing contains lots of extraneous detail that isn’t relevant to the story. There are also some editorial issues— not the author’s fault, but still jarring. There’s an important transcript near the end with the wrong year on it, which made me page through the rest of the book in confusion until I realized it was a typo. (Nitpick of all nitpicks: no Oxford commas? Dear God, why?) 

To be fair, I think the ending is pretty good, and dodges several of the problems I have with the rest of the book. It might be because stuff happens that has lasting consequences for the whole cast, something lacking elsewhere. I wish we saw more of the Toremi Ka before shit hit the fan, but I realize they weren’t the point of the book, despite acting as an antagonistic force. It’s a genuine, bittersweet conclusion to the novel, and I just wish the rest of the book gave me that feeling. 

I feel like I’m being harsh in my review, because this book is… fine. I had fun reading it, and clearly a lot of people liked it more than I did. Perhaps I just expected more based on what I’d heard. That being said, I’m willing to give this series the benefit of the doubt. The Long Way is a debut novel, which could account for some of the issues I had. And apparently future books are standalones set in the same universe. Maybe different sets of characters will work better for me.