A zoomed out view of the universe that Chambers' has created mostly from the human species point of view.
After reading Becky Chambers' first book I've been absolutely in love with the universe that they created.
What draws me in so much is the beautiful characters that Chambers' creates and lets us share a slice of their life.
This story starts with an event that's mentioned very much in passing in the first book about a collosal tragedy that results in the loss of one of the starships carrying the human species. That first chapter in itself is mind boggling, and the sheer tasks of collecting the bodies in space to offer the families a respectful funeral.
The story then jumps some amount of time forward (which initially I didn't realise) and we're introduced to more (I think) characters. There is also a tiny bit of connection to the first book (but sadly we don't get to revisit the original characters that I was so fond of).
For me the I struggled to keep track of the characters for around the first third of the book. I've found that Chambers' characters are drawn so vividly that this had not been a problem, but for this book I really struggled to distinguish the human characters (and I wasn't even sure if I had met them from the earlier section of the book).
Thankfully, eventually, the characters did settle out for me and I was able to tell them apart properly so I could understand who's story I was following.
As usual, the stories have a great deal of love and heart behind them and make me wish for a world like this.
It's a lovely book and story. Not my favourite of the series, but the bar was set so spectacularly high with the first it's almost impossible - that's to say that this is still a pretty darn good book on its own two feet.
11 Highlight(s)
inform Ollie that this was, without a doubt, his best batch yet. This was not always true, but what kind of monster would say otherwise?
Her wife looked at her seriously. 'I am seventy-nine years old. If I want dessert twice … I get dessert twice.'
She looked around the bed, beside it, under it, under blankets, under pillows, feeling ridiculous at being outwitted by a two-year-old who was placidly watching her with a finger up his nose.
and these days, even one drink was enough to make her start the next day with a headache. Somewhere within, her teenage self was screaming in horror.
'We'd traumatise the poor kid.' 'What? No. We're gorgeous.' Her eyes narrowed in thought. 'Didn't we make out on the Sunside once?' A very old memory dusted itself off:
What was better – a constant safeness that never grew and never changed, or a life of reaching, building, striving, even though you knew you'd never be completely satisfied?
You become a doctor because you want to help people. You become a pilot because you want to fly. You become a farmer because you want to work with growing things, or because you want to feed others. To an Exodan, the question of choosing a profession is not one of what do I need? but rather what am I good at? What good can I do?
Tessa looked forward to the day when linear conversations became a thing.
The guilt lingered, even so. Ghosts were imaginary, but hauntings were real.
Human infants are famously frail, and the amount of time they remain dependent on adults for needs as basic as eating or locomotion makes me wonder how the species didn't give up on the whole prospect millennia ago.
She hadn't thought it was anything a little kid needed to concern herself with, but clearly, it was. Sometimes, she lost sight of how easy it was for children to absorb the things adults whispered about.
Others I've read in the "Wayfarers" series: