The Long Way to A Small, Angry Planet - Becky Chambers

"Rosemary Harper doesn’t expect much when she joins the crew of the aging Wayfarer. While the patched-up ship has seen better days, it offers her a bed, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy, and most importantly, some distance from her past. An introspective young woman who learned early to keep to herself, she’s never met anyone remotely like the ship’s diverse crew, including Sissix, the exotic reptilian pilot, chatty engineers Kizzy and Jenks who keep the ship running, and Ashby, their noble captain.

Life aboard the Wayfarer is chaotic and crazy—exactly what Rosemary wants. It’s also about to get extremely dangerous when the crew is offered the job of a lifetime."

I bought this book awhile ago while on holiday but never actually got around to reading it. I am now really happy that I waited for a few years to read it as I think a more mature outlook helps to appreciate this book. 

It is a heavily character driven book, that explores humanity, society and war and uses sci-fi as a wonderful vehicle to explore these themes.

First of all, I really liked the characters which is important due to the lack of action in the book. There is a highly diverse cast. Much like any ship-enclosed story, it largely becomes about the characters and how they interact. Characterization is one of the story strengths; through small, focused interactions, almost each crew member is fleshed out fully and beautifully. Rosemary, Sissex and Dr. Chef feel the most well-rounded but I love them all.  Kizzy and Jenks are the mechanical engineers who keep the ship running. Kizzy is often comic relief. At times, Kizzy bordered on the absurd, but her personality stayed solidly genuine and she did provide a few laugh-out-loud moments, particularly her (mis-heard) song about "My Socks Match My Hat." 

I adored the exploration of Sissex's culture and her character. I would say that was solidly one of my favourite aspects of the book. The creation of a culture that felt solid, realistic and fleshed out without huge amount of detail and exposition. It was also sooo different from any human culture but it was handled with a great amount of respect. 

This book emphasizes the importance of respect; respecting peoples’ pronouns, peoples’ bodies, and peoples’ feelings. The representation in this book is honestly unparalleled. From different species, to different races, to different genders, to different sexualities, to different mental health issues, to different bodies types, to different upbringings, to different cultures, to different traditions, to different religions, to different social settings, to so much more. 

I really appreciated how the human culture is as interesting as the alien cultures. Too often in Sci-fi does humanity become a homogenous group with the same beliefs and culture. I really loved how that didn't happen. Human culture has actually been shaped by history. For example, the culture of the Exodus Fleet has a pacifistic streak, which has formed Ashby’s strong aversion to weapons. The wealthy Martians have a superiority complex generations old. Certain sections of humans love technology, Modders, but some absolutely hate Tech. The complexity was a welcome change from the normal. 

Now that I have waffled on about why I enjoyed this book I have to talk about what I didn't. This book while it had many positive features wasn't in anyway perfect. 

It did fall in to being too didactic for my taste. It was obvious what issues where being handled and it didn't leave much interpretation up to the reader, it didn't spark discussion but rather preached. It was very in your face which moral point of view you should be following. There was little doubt as to the author's political and social beliefs. This was a bit of a problem for me, while a book is obviously written and a reflection on the author it shouldn't be so obvious. 

The plotting was also unsteady. A number of readers relate this book to the Firefly tv series, and it's easy to see why; a loveable, ragtag crew copes with various adversities in weekly adventures.

The wafer thin plot could be summarised as a bunch of super best friends have a great time pootling about the galaxy eating food and learning trite lessons on the importance of diversity with zero tension or conflict. The pacing of the smaller on-the-way elements to the overarching story of the big tunnelling job is incredibly uneven. The trip is supposed to take a standard year, but with a couple of very short stopovers, it seems no different to any other time period of the book. More significantly, the ending felt incredibly rushed and anticlimactic, again incongruous with the lengthy and significant trip. 

When I learned from one of my co-readers that Chambers had lost her job and created a Kickstarter to fund finishing the book, it made more sense. I can't wait to see what she does with time and resources. 
Over all a book worth reading and certainly with some very good elements. Not the most subtle or nuanced approach to the themes discussed however. I think it would have been greatly improved with more tension and action that could have provided a backdrop to the lessons being learnt by the characters. 

Age Rating 14+. Some quite adult themes are present. War, sex, sexuality, technology, culture and religion are all there.