idn’t we just talk about this author? Becky Chambers, writer of A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and A Closed and Common Orbit. She’s that author who takes a wondrous set of characters and locations and trashes them, telling the story with edge-case characters and briefly-mentioned locations. You aren’t getting sausage grinding with this author. You get a new telling of a new perspective in a “loose universe”. I like this, if only because it is ballsy writing.

So in Record of a Spaceborn Few, earlier books have hinted that when the Earth collapsed into ecological disaster, the human race split into two tribes, one settling on Mars and the outer planets, the other launching a fleet of generation ships (literally known as The Fleet). This ships eventually reached space inhabited by the known races and so the exodus fleet circled a provided star, accepted some technological gifts and pretty much called this vacuum wasteland their home. And this book is a study of the people who stay, who come and go.

There is Tessa, the sister of the Wayfarer’s captain (the ship in the first book), who is just trying to raise a family in this static ship-world she’s in. And Isabel, the historian who is trying to explain this static way of life to a visiting alien researcher. And Sawyer, a human on a crummy colony world seeking stability in his confused life. And Kip, his counterpart, a young kid who chafes under the Fleet’s stability). And Eyas, whose job is to recycle those who pass on (i.e. composting them) using quasi-religious observances.

And all these characters come together in unique ways, a tangle of wants, wishes and plots that, suddenly, at the end, make a thoughtful sort of sense. I really had to hand it to Miss Chambers; her books continue to impress.

So it’s worth a look if you are an adult and think that everything isn’t action and light sabers. Have a look.

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