Review: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers
by
Stuart Holland
Capital I Incredible. Becky Chambers manages to keep the pacing of her shorter stories even in a novel-length work, racing from one important event to the next without feeling like you’re only watching a highlight reel.
The cast of characters in this book are great, and feel so real. I feel like I know how they’d respond and what they’d think when encountering situations in the book.
The alien species (and there are lots of them!) are all well thought out and distinct. The way their cultural differences pop up relentlessly makes a ton of sense, but also the way that they work through them feels very authentic.
The future of humanity this book envisions is both aspirational and disquieting, the terrible things that have happened in their past are things you could see happening in our future.
Overall, a strong recommend from me. I’m very glad there are already three more books in this series for me to read soon!
