A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers SF book reviewsA Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers science fiction book reviewsA Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

Warning: This review will contain a spoiler for the previous novel, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. It’s really impossible to talk about A Closed and Common Orbit without this spoiler. However, you don’t need to read The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet before reading A Closed and Common Orbit since this sequel focuses on two minor characters from the first book.

Becky Chambers’ debut novel The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is immensely popular but I didn’t like it. As I explained in my review, I thought it was sweet but dull — there just wasn’t enough action, tension, or plot. It was a light social SFF story that was heart-warming, but not at all challenging. Since I already owned the audio version of the second WAYFARER novel, A Closed and Common Orbit (2016), I decided to give it a try and hope I liked it better.

If you read it, recall that at the end of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, the crew of the Wayfarer had to reboot Lovelace (nickname “Lovey”), the ship’s AI, and when she came back online, she had lost a significant amount of her personality. Jenks, the engineering tech who was in love with her, was crushed by this so it seemed like it might be best for one of them to leave the ship. Since an expensive illegal body had already been purchased for Lovey, Pepper removed Lovey’s software from the Wayfarer and installed it in the body. Then Lovey settled down on Pepper’s planet and started working in Pepper’s shop.

The novel alternates between the perspectives of Lovey and Pepper. In Lovey’s story, we watch her as she learns to be a human. You’d think that this would be a wonderful experience for her, getting to feel things, taste food, hug people, etc., but Lovey feels constrained in her new body. This aspect of the story was well done and I thought it was interesting to think about the way that human bodies are limited (it’s good that we’re at the top of the food chain and mostly have to worry only about what other humans can do to us). However, the plot of this part of the story is dull. The things that Lovey does are mundane — the sorts of activities that humans do every day such as going to work, eating dinner, and making friends.

Pepper’s story is her history from childhood to adulthood. It’s a survival story and it would have been interesting if it had been shorter. However, we spend a couple hundred pages alongside young Pepper as she barely ekes out an existence by sheltering in a broken spaceship on a hostile planet. This mostly involves finding and cooking food and getting some education from children’s videos in the spaceship’s library. Again, mundane tasks.

At the end of the novel, the two storylines come together for a heart-warming finale. The ending is terrific, but not terrific enough to make up for the hours of boredom I endured to get there. As with the previous book, there are some nice messages about cooperating, the benefit of living in a multi-cultural society, and the importance of finding a purpose in life, but these ideas were all obvious and unchallenging.

This series reminds me of Anne Bishop’s THE OTHERS series which I thought was really boring but is (like Chambers’ WAYFARER novels) extremely popular. I am totally uninterested in stories about naïve women who are finding their way in the world by doing dull jobs. I don’t know why other people love these stories, which makes me think there must be something wrong with me. More evidence for this theory is that A Closed and Common Orbit was nominated for the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novel and was shortlisted for the 2017 Arthur C. Clarke Award. So, I guess, don’t believe this review unless you know that we have very similar tastes.

Rachel Dulude does a nice job narrating Tantor Audio’s version of A Closed and Common Orbit. It’s 11.5 hours long.

Published in 2016. Embark on an exciting, adventurous, and dangerous journey through the galaxy with the motley crew of the spaceship Wayfarer in this fun and heart-warming space opera – the sequel to the acclaimed The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. Lovelace was once merely a ship’s artificial intelligence. When she wakes up in a new body, following a total system shut-down and reboot, she has no memory of what came before. As Lovelace learns to negotiate the universe and discover who she is, she makes friends with Pepper, an excitable engineer, who’s determined to help her learn and grow. Together, Pepper and Lovey will discover that no matter how vast space is, two people can fill it together.

Author

  • Kat Hooper

    KAT HOOPER, who started this site in June 2007, earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience and psychology at Indiana University (Bloomington) and now teaches and conducts brain research at the University of North Florida. When she reads fiction, she wants to encounter new ideas and lots of imagination. She wants to view the world in a different way. She wants to have her mind blown. She loves beautiful language and has no patience for dull prose, vapid romance, or cheesy dialogue. She prefers complex characterization, intriguing plots, and plenty of action. Favorite authors are Jack Vance, Robin Hobb, Kage Baker, William Gibson, Gene Wolfe, Richard Matheson, and C.S. Lewis.

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