The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet: Wayfarers 1

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Everyone has a different perception of what is a spoiler, so here are a few examples of what would be spoilers:

Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet Quotes - Goodreads The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet Quotes - Goodreads

This book reminded me of the tv series Firefly (2002) and the follow up movie, Serenity (2005). The plot follows the travels of an independent contractor in the Galactic Commons, a loose alliance of different worlds and species, a multi-verse version of globalisation. The captain, Ashby Santoso, faces the same dilemmas any manager does however his involve smoothing relations between different species co-workers and negotiating contracts to punch tunnels through time and space. This time I was just looking for something funny and queer to read in a difficult time. It is those things, and more. It is bittersweet, but more sweet than bitter. It is smart and contemplative, untethered to trope an expectation, and full of the vitality and warmth of found family. It is a reminder of what we fight for. Chapter 19: Seven Hours: The crew frantically tries to stabilize The Wayfarer. Ohan tries to navigate but his hands fail him. Chef doses him with adrenaline to keep him going. Lovey can’t help but they manage to get things stable for now. They manage to escape the hole even with Ohan collapsing. Things seem alright, until Jenks frantically calls about Lovey. She is unresponsive. Speaking of non-humans: the worldbuilding worked for me big time as well. This is a really interesting world with fairly alien aliens - not just from the phenotype point of view, but also culturally. These differences in cultures are, on occasion, used as plot points or subjects for discussion, and it is interesting to read. Overall it's a positive book and quite episodic. What problems there are to overcome are usually done by the end of a chapter and tend to be fairly small and personal in the grand scheme, which is a nice thing and part of what made this a fast read.One thing I really liked in the book was the variety of alien races. I’ve not read, watched or played an awful lot of sci-fi stuff, but from my experience most aliens tend to be humans, but with scales or fur, or just caricatures of one characteristic, a bit like poorly-written orcs in fantasy. But that’s just not in this book. Each of the races have meaningful differences in their mannerisms and appearance, and they all have different viewpoints on various issues based on their history. For example, there’s a bit where you end up learning about all the different species’ views on cloning, and there are several times where humans are made fun of for being so pacifistic, a trait which they’ve developed after realising how their history of war has harmed them. None of the races seem like an exaggerated version of one emotion though, because they all have a depth to them, and there are characters who are exceptions to the way their species normally behaves.

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The attitudes used would work fine if this is the first human this species met (say) but they're not, they're the diaspora of their relative cultures living in multi-cultural space and are used to this. This is the first book in a space faring tetralogy in which basically everyone is queer and humans are the pity species of the galaxy because we were dumb enough to destroy our own planet. It follows a motley crew as they make their way to a small, angry planet near the galactic core to see if this planet is worthy of entry into the main galactic community. The Wayfarer is a multi-species ship with a sentient AI ship, no not you Bargie!, that welcomes a new human on board at the beginning of the novel. The book is told from various points of view while exploring different worlds and space stations along the way. Rating. Difficult one. I dinged this book sufficiently for a D-list (books that are in my opinion flawed), but at the end of the day, despite what I wrote above, I did not experience any negative emotions reading this book, so it winds itself on the C-list, which, to me is the basic standard sci fi/fantasy.I loved this book, and I can't wait to share my thoughts on the sequels with you later because I think I loved books 2 and 4 the most.