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

The result of a successful Kickstarter campaign, and self-published in 2014, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers has received a fair amount of buzz after it was short-listed in the ‘best debut’ category for the Kitchies this year. It has since gone on to find a traditional publishing home with Hodder, touted as optimistic space opera that is a joy to read. High praise indeed, though as is always the case with self-published novels, the question really does have to be asked: does The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet really live up to the buzz? The answer is a resounding, and unconditional, YES!

From the publisher:
When Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer, she isn’t expecting much. The Wayfarer, a patched-up ship that’s seen better days, offers her everything she could possibly want: a small, quiet spot to call home for a while, adventure in far-off corners of the galaxy, and distance from her troubled past.

But Rosemary gets more than she bargained for with the Wayfarer. The crew is a mishmash of species and personalities, from Sissix, the friendly reptillian pilot, to Kizzy and Jenks, the constantly sparring engineers who keep the ship running. Life on board is chaotic, but more or less peaceful – exactly what Rosemary wants.

Until the crew are offered the job of a lifetime: the chance to build a hyperspace tunnel to a distant planet. They’ll earn enough money to live comfortably for years… if they survive the long trip through war-torn interstellar space without endangering any of the fragile alliances that keep the galaxy peaceful.

But Rosemary isn’t the only person on board with secrets to hide, and the crew will soon discover that space may be vast, but spaceships are very small indeed.

The Wayfarer is the setting for The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, a patched-up tunnelling ship with a rag-tag crew that each bring something different to the table, from its captain, Ashby, a man who despises armed conflict and loves his ship and crew, to the insular and often rude Corbin, the ships resident algae specialist (a much-need source of power for interstellar ships). Others that make up the crew are Ohan, the Sianat pair (an alien whose virus gives it the plural) whose species can navigate the cosmos better than any other due to their unique ability to see space the way others simply can’t; the Aandrisk Sissix, a reptilian whose society and species are very touchy-feely; Jenks and Kizzy, the ships engineers, the former whose love is reciprocated by the ship AI Lovey, the latter a bubbly and frenzied master of her craft; and Dr Chef, a Grum who cooks for and looks after all aboard the Wayfarer. The crew is as much a patch-up as the ship itself.

When Rosemary joins the crew as an auditor – a position the company has been trying to get Ashby to fill for quite some time – she is introduced to all this, though she is not all she seems to be. With secrets in her past, she has used her money to buy a new identity and escape Mars, a tunnelling ship an almost perfect place for her to be to put distance between her and her old life. It’s through her experiences on-board the Wayfarer that was are introduced to the crew and the universe, learning quickly about the species and politics of the Galactic Commons. When a job opportunity comes up – to travel towards the core to set up a new wormhole connection between the GC and an alien species previously completely insular – it’s simply too good to pass up. The possibility of harvesting plenty of algi is a prime motivator for the GC to move forward with diplomatic communications, despite how aggressive this species has been in the past, and continues to be even now. It’s a job with plenty of danger, and a long journey to undertake before even facing the perilous conditions awaiting them at their destination.

It’s easy to see how The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet has found fans, for it is simply a pleasure to read. Chambers has taken a rag-tag crew, given them each unique and deep personalities, and run with it from there. While the aim of the story is to make a new tunnel route for the GC, it instead ends up being an excuse to spend time with the crew of the Wayfarer and to explore the universe created within the pages. We get to see many of the races that make up the GC, and visit systems and colonies that range from the home planet of Sissix, to a somewhat rogue Sianan colony. It’s all completely fascinating, and highly entertaining.

What The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet does, I think, more than anything else, is bring to the page aspects that are often seen on screen (Firefly and Star Trek are easy comparisons), and Chambers does so with a confidence not often seen in a debut novel. There is no part that bogs down the narrative in meaningless or endless info-dumping, yet it delivers throughout, and does so with surprising ease. It is, quite frankly, one of the best and most entertaining science fiction novels I’ve read in a long time.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is optimistic, but not unnecessarily so, which is more often than not down to the way Chambers has portrayed the crew and their outlooks. There are plenty of moments where the harsh realities of an interstellar community come to the fore, and it’s also a reminder that the happy-go-lucky crew live in a universe that feels real, not merely convenient for the narrative. During these moments Chambers examines the deeper aspects of the characters, exploring their emotions in a way that brings that realism home even harder.

I’m hard pushed to find fault in The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, and only wish that more science fiction would deliver even half of what can be found within these pages. Highly recommended.

Publisher: https://www.hodder.co.uk
Author: http://otherscribbles.com
March 2015, 608 Pages
Ebook, ISBN: 9781473619777
Review from purchased copy