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

It turns out, the Ann Leckie quote on the cover perfectly describes The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet: great fun! The closest comparison I can draw is to Joss Whedon's Firefly TV series. Becky Chambers has taken the spirit -- the joy! -- of Firefly and made it into a delightful novel. This is not high-brow, hard sci-fi, but rather a whimsical jaunt through space with a lovable cast and creative worldbuilding, much like Binti.

The novel follows the Wayfarer and its crew, who are effectively a construction crew that builds wormholes across the galaxy. We are introduced early on to Rosemary, a new crewmember who serves as The Watson to enable worldbuilding through blunt explanation. The first part of the book does read in quite a dry, explanatory way, but it's worth it to accelerate the reader into the fun parts of the plot. The core story is about the Wayfarer's crew taking on a particularly lucrative wormhole punching job near the center of the galaxy, from which shenanigans ensue. Along the way, each crew member gets an episodic chapter or two explaining their background and life.

Overall, the book feels quite a lot like watching the first season of a fun sci-fi show. Each character comes from a different, interesting species, with plenty of tropes to go around: reptilians, blobby octopus people, big mammalians, secretive and violent space lobsters, technologically-advanced beautiful space elves, et cetera. None of these tropes felt strung out or overdone, and the author cleverly uses them to explore diversity in gender, sexuality, race, neurology, and socioeconomic status. It makes thinking about diversity fun!

Perhaps my favorite aspect of the whole book is the episode revolving around Sissix, the Wayfarer's pilot and a member of the Aandrisk reptilian species (it is a slur to call them "lizards"). We learn about the social complexities and beauty of the polyamorous Aandrisk society, and how they treat children and elders fundamentally differently from what we are used to as humans. This cultural mismatch serves as an excellent analogy for the cultural divides we see in our own lives (and on social media!), and sets the stage for an incredibly touching and heartfelt bond between the characters.

To conclude, I would argue that this book is not especially sophisticated or intense, and that is part of what makes it so wonderful. It is great fun -- no more, but certainly no less! I am excited to read the rest of the series.