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To Be Taught, If Fortunate
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Science Fiction (2019)In her new novella, Sunday Times best-selling author Becky Chambers imagines a future in which, instead of terraforming planets to sustain human life, explorers of the solar system instead transform themselves.
Ariadne is one such explorer. As an astronaut on an extrasolar research vessel, she and her fellow crewmates sleep between worlds and wake up each time with different features. Her experience is one of fluid body and stable mind and of a unique perspective on the passage of time. Back on Earth, society changes dramatically from decade to decade, as it always does.
Ariadne may awaken to find that support for space exploration back home has waned, or that her country of birth no longer exists, or that a cult has arisen around their cosmic findings, only to dissolve once more by the next waking. But the moods of Earth have little bearing on their mission: to explore, to study, and to send their learnings home.
Carrying all the trademarks of her other beloved works, including brilliant writing, fantastic world-building and exceptional, diverse characters, Becky's first audiobook outside of the Wayfarers series is sure to capture the imagination of listeners all over the world.
Ariadne is one such explorer. As an astronaut on an extrasolar research vessel, she and her fellow crewmates sleep between worlds and wake up each time with different features. Her experience is one of fluid body and stable mind and of a unique perspective on the passage of time. Back on Earth, society changes dramatically from decade to decade, as it always does.
Ariadne may awaken to find that support for space exploration back home has waned, or that her country of birth no longer exists, or that a cult has arisen around their cosmic findings, only to dissolve once more by the next waking. But the moods of Earth have little bearing on their mission: to explore, to study, and to send their learnings home.
Carrying all the trademarks of her other beloved works, including brilliant writing, fantastic world-building and exceptional, diverse characters, Becky's first audiobook outside of the Wayfarers series is sure to capture the imagination of listeners all over the world.
153 pages, Paperback
First published August 8, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 7,006 reviews
December 27, 2020
One of my newest favorite books.
Becky Chambers has a way with words that makes every book she writes feel like home. I was sucked into this story from the first sentence ( If you read nothing else we've sent home, please at least read this. Eum yes?!).
I've never read such a wholesome character driven sci-fi and I can't recommend this enough.
A must read!
Becky Chambers has a way with words that makes every book she writes feel like home. I was sucked into this story from the first sentence ( If you read nothing else we've sent home, please at least read this. Eum yes?!).
I've never read such a wholesome character driven sci-fi and I can't recommend this enough.
A must read!
September 3, 2020
“We have found nothing you can sell. We have found nothing you can put to practical use. We have found no worlds that could be easily or ethically settled, were that end desired. We have satisfied nothing but curiosity, gained nothing but knowledge.”You have to possess a specific mindset to like this novella. You need to be that person who, in the middle of an adventure story featuring a group of explorers would pause and think — wouldn’t it be nice that if instead of battles/ chases/ intrigue/ tension/ plot we just got a few hours of watching the explorers/ scientists/ astronauts just go about and do their day-to-day work, engage in whatever activities their mission was supposed to be about instead of being distracted by an adventure?¹ You need to be that person who can read a textbook before the course begins just because it’s fun learning new things². Well, I am that person, ergo I loved this book.
¹ I remember reading (and watching) The Martian and feeling vaguely annoyed that we did not get just a few extra minutes/chapters for seeing what the astronauts would be like just doing their normally scheduled mission instead of getting out of there and leaving Mark Watney to grow potatoes in all the loneliness.
² Every geography and biology textbook in my school life, ever. Iwasam a proud nerd.
To Be Taught, If Fortunate is that kind of story. It’s not about adventures or plot. It is basically like reading field notes of a research team. It is full of contemplative musings on the humans role in space, in studying extraterrestrial life, and the moral obligations and ethical implications that arise — while showing us the everyday life of a future crew of four scientists sent on a purely observational ecological mission to four extraterrestrial planets where they for a few years at a time study (and not interfere with) the local lifeforms. It’s observing, cataloguing, marveling, and finding fulfillment and happiness in the observer role, while at the same time building close ties with the few people around you.
Discoveries are made, unsettling news encountered, a few challenges threaten to fray mind and sanity. Some planets are a fascinating paradise, others a damp screeching hell. And then it is time to pack up and move on.
What is this Hugo-nominated novella about? Well, to me it all boiled down to a few ethical questions and themes.
First, it’s the importance of humility for humans, the avoidance of acting as a dominant, superior, conquering species — and instead focusing on respect and learning and observing for no other reason than knowledge. Not for terraforming, not for profit, not for entertainment — but for science. This is what’s owed to those who sent you on the mission, as this space mission is the result of the crowdfunding effort independent of governments and countries.
“I’m an observer, not a conqueror. I have no interest in changing other worlds to suit me. I choose the lighter touch: changing myself to suit them.”
Second, it’s the relationships and formation of bonds between the crewmates, the four people who are isolated from the rest of humanity for decades. Ariadne, Elena, Chikondi and Jack form their own family that transcends norms and conventions and definitions, where connections are important whether they are emotional or sexual or both. Becky Chambers excels at writing about human connections and adopted, chosen families — and this ability shines here as well.
“Because sometimes we go, and we try, and we suffer, and despite it all, we learn nothing. Sometimes we are left with more questions than when we started. Sometimes we do harm, despite our best efforts. We are human. We are fragile.”
Third, it’s the disconnection from the rest of humanity. While you and your crewmates are light years away from everyone else, while any news that reach you are decades out of date, while everyone you knew and loved will die as you are in space, while nothing that really matters to you due to the gap of time and distance is going on on the far-away Earth, do you strive to remain a part of humanity, do you continue to care, or do you focus on yourself and your new worlds leaving the troubles of the old Earth behind? Do you still owe anything to the old planet? Do you still need their guidance?
“What we want you to ask yourselves is this: what is space, to you? Is it a playground? A quarry? A flagpole? A classroom? A temple? Who do you believe should go, and for what purpose? Or should we go at all? Is the realm above the clouds immaterial to you, so long as satellites send messages and rocks don’t fall? Is human spaceflight a fool’s errand, a rich man’s fantasy, an unacceptable waste of life and metal? Are our methods grotesque to you, our ethics untenable? Are our hopes outdated? When I tell you of our life out here, do you cheer for us, or do you scoff?”
It’s a quiet story, slow and measured and very unhurried. Told in a voice of one of the crew members, Ariadne, it is full of wonder at the things that she and her crewmates are incredibly lucky and grateful to see. It is quietly emotional and wondrous and touching and yet subdued. Reading it to me was akin to actually inhabiting Ariadne’s world of travel and discovery and wonder, and at time frustration and depression and despair. It was really like experiencing a slice of life on the Lawki mission, the good and bad, the wondrous and the heartbreaking, the exciting and the mundane.
I enjoyed this calm and quiet field notes — or rather a letter in the firm of field notes — specifically for how contemplative it was. Because ultimately it’s hopeful, and chooses to see the best in us, and believes in our ability not only to choose the right thing but to want to choose it. Collaboration, knowledge, responsibility and kindness - these can be our beacons, and I love it for making me believe in that. (Even if, to be honest with you, I don’t agree with the ending — but that just likely says something unflattering about me.)
“Where we go from there is up to you.”
4.5 stars.
———————
My Hugo and Nebula Awards Reading Project 2020: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
August 2, 2020
WOW, this reminded me so much of why I love sci-fi and why I need to make it a priority to read more of it. Becky Chambers has such a knack for writing heartbreakingly human, character driven stories. I loved this a whole heck of a lot.
January 4, 2021
A travelogue with frankly underdeveloped characters and a bonkers ending--and I don't mean in the Gideon the Ninth kind of way. No, I mean in the Tana French, authorial choice kind of way. A metaphor, in novella, for exploration, learning and weighing costs.
The set-up is that a team of four astronaut-scientists are on a long-term exploration mission from the Earth, with an agreed mission to explore four different targets and report back, engaging in a type of extended torpor between locations. The technology has advanced enough that there's some temporary genetic modifications they can do to adapt to the planet they are on; otherwise, it feels a little like standard advanced explore sci-fi, with habitats, labs, sampling, decontamination protocols and long-range communication. Early on, I had strong flashes of Children of Ruin, and We Are Legion (We Are Bob), and it is interesting that it unfolded so similarly. However, Chambers has a rough time with plots, and it went nowhere quite fast; despite all potential paths I looked for, it ignored all of them in favor of a philosophical point.
I'll be honest--I'm glad I got this on kindle sale, because it reads a little bit like a college writing assignment, and I mean that in the best possible way. Full of solid, imaginative writing about landing on other worlds and what it would take for an expedition team to make it work. Clever ideas about four different kind of planets and what each one of them would be like, although I'll note that they are all supposed to be Earth-analogue, so the exploration is mostly that of discovery.
Narrative consists mostly of telling, so your mileage will vary. The narrator is genuinely nice, and is aware she is writing for a non-science audience, so is accessible and hopefully interesting. There's a lot of science asides, which, depending on your level of science, may or may not be interesting. There's one on chimerism that came from Chemistry 101, but has an interesting application to evolutionary theory that one new to me.
More significantly, the characters are cut-outs, not people, that don't develop much beyond the types: Solitary Botanist, the Jock Geologist, and the Driven Zoologist. It's narrated by the Gentle Engineer, a woman who tries to keep everyone/thing going and happy. There's literally no interpersonal conflict between them . When they have issues, they turn inward. Like, clearly written by someone that hasn't lived through America in 2020, is what I'm saying. Or the author is appealing to some Greek ideal of a higher nature, but it's one that you let go of the second time someone betrays you in real life. Probably everything else should be put under spoilers.
Yeah, not buying the character actions. Chambers has given me exactly zero to hang my belief on for this one, and so I can't.
I ended up having two reactions to this story: one, "pretty!" You know, the same kind of reaction you get wandering past a cool aquarium. Two, derivative. I'm sorry, but everything she started to play with here was done better by Tchaikovsky. Existential dread? Better in Walking to Aldebaran. Team of explorers on a new planet? Better in Children of Ruin. End result: adequate but odd attempt at messaging, but too overt and too Schrödinger of an ending to be successful. Value rests on the one-trick pony ending. Definitely not buying any more Chambers until I read first.
It's a completely average 2.5 stars for me, rounding down to compensate for it's undeserved average. Next thing you know, it'll win a Goodreads Choice Award.
The set-up is that a team of four astronaut-scientists are on a long-term exploration mission from the Earth, with an agreed mission to explore four different targets and report back, engaging in a type of extended torpor between locations. The technology has advanced enough that there's some temporary genetic modifications they can do to adapt to the planet they are on; otherwise, it feels a little like standard advanced explore sci-fi, with habitats, labs, sampling, decontamination protocols and long-range communication. Early on, I had strong flashes of Children of Ruin, and We Are Legion (We Are Bob), and it is interesting that it unfolded so similarly. However, Chambers has a rough time with plots, and it went nowhere quite fast; despite all potential paths I looked for, it ignored all of them in favor of a philosophical point.
I'll be honest--I'm glad I got this on kindle sale, because it reads a little bit like a college writing assignment, and I mean that in the best possible way. Full of solid, imaginative writing about landing on other worlds and what it would take for an expedition team to make it work. Clever ideas about four different kind of planets and what each one of them would be like, although I'll note that they are all supposed to be Earth-analogue, so the exploration is mostly that of discovery.
Narrative consists mostly of telling, so your mileage will vary. The narrator is genuinely nice, and is aware she is writing for a non-science audience, so is accessible and hopefully interesting. There's a lot of science asides, which, depending on your level of science, may or may not be interesting. There's one on chimerism that came from Chemistry 101, but has an interesting application to evolutionary theory that one new to me.
More significantly, the characters are cut-outs, not people, that don't develop much beyond the types: Solitary Botanist, the Jock Geologist, and the Driven Zoologist. It's narrated by the Gentle Engineer, a woman who tries to keep everyone/thing going and happy. There's literally no interpersonal conflict between them . When they have issues, they turn inward. Like, clearly written by someone that hasn't lived through America in 2020, is what I'm saying. Or the author is appealing to some Greek ideal of a higher nature, but it's one that you let go of the second time someone betrays you in real life. Probably everything else should be put under spoilers.
Yeah, not buying the character actions. Chambers has given me exactly zero to hang my belief on for this one, and so I can't.
I ended up having two reactions to this story: one, "pretty!" You know, the same kind of reaction you get wandering past a cool aquarium. Two, derivative. I'm sorry, but everything she started to play with here was done better by Tchaikovsky. Existential dread? Better in Walking to Aldebaran. Team of explorers on a new planet? Better in Children of Ruin. End result: adequate but odd attempt at messaging, but too overt and too Schrödinger of an ending to be successful. Value rests on the one-trick pony ending. Definitely not buying any more Chambers until I read first.
It's a completely average 2.5 stars for me, rounding down to compensate for it's undeserved average. Next thing you know, it'll win a Goodreads Choice Award.
July 21, 2023
‘Have you ever been in a place where history becomes tangible? Where you stand motionless, feeling time and importance press around you, press into you?’
Space, the final frontier. Since humans have first looked up in wonder at the cosmos we have always dreamed of knowing what awaits us there. As a kid I was a massive space nerd, I mean I was the kid with the planets on their bedroom ceiling surrounded by glow-in-the-dark stars and read countless books about space that often went way over my head and loved all the novels and films about space exploration (still a huge Star Wars fan). In 5th grade we had to turn in an original short story each semester and I opted to heavily research how a Mars mission would work and used each assignment as another chapter of my little kid hard-sci-fi story about me and my friends going to Mars. So needless to say, Becky Chamber’s Hugo nominated To Be Taught, If Fortunate, a novella that centers on the earnest scientific awe and discovery of scientists exploring exoplanets, is very much my jam. While technically a prequel (by thousands of years) to Chamber’s much-lauded Wayfarers series which has been dubbed ‘cozy sci fi’, this novella can also be enjoyed as a stand-alone. And what an enjoyable ride it is. Eschewing the standard space adventuring heroics of most sci-fi, Chamber’s story puts all the action in the joy of discovery and scientists doing scientist things while trying to not upset the ecosystems of the marvelous destinations on their trip. Chamber’s balances philosophical inquiry with an awe-inspiring story in a comfortably quiet book of the how and why for space exploration because ‘we’re scientists. We live and breathe why.’ While a slim novella, To Be Taught, If Fortunate has a vast cosmos of thought swirling through it, examining the purpose of exploration and how to remain pure in both intentions and execution, and delivering the reader the jaw-dropping magic of boldly going where no one has gone before.
‘We believe the potential answers are worth the challenges.’
Chambers effortlessly taps into the wonderment of space travel in a way that makes this just as gripping a story as the epic space operas despite mostly being scientists gathering observations and basking in the bliss of chronicling cutting-edge cosmic discoveries. I mean, this makes scientists quietly examining samples and running diagnostics into a thrill-ride. Like, when you are a kid and first learn about cool science stuff—Chambers has written a book for adults that launch us straight into the galaxies of childhood astonishment. Framed as a final transmission to Earth from the narrator with a question she’d like us all to ponder, the story follows this team of four across four exoplanets as they ponder the great existential questions of existing in such a vast universe full of life beyond our own. Not that this is bland, and while admittedly it seemed slow at first, this became impossible to put down and has plenty of friction and tension created without needing character’s with trauma or difficult personalities or even a high-stakes plot with threatening elements or villains. It’s just a celebration of the human quest for knowledge and it signs out in proud harmonies that echo from star to star.
‘if you understand that space exploration is best when it’s done in the name of the people, then the people are the ones who have to make it happen.’
I really enjoyed the discourse on how space exploration should be ethically conducted, which is a theme that pulses through the entire book. If we are to explore, we must ask ourselves why, must look at our methods and goals to ask who will it serve, and wonder what will be done with what we learn. Are we doing this for the sake of exploration and knowledge or is it tainted by ulterior motives that spoil the statement that “we came in peace for all mankind” as the US astronauts said on the moon missions we forever wonder how much flexing technological might at Russia was the motive behind such robust government funding. This is all asked lightyears away, wondering what people still think back on Earth.
Chambers never shirks the issues of capitalism and demonstrates how a profit motive will always poison the pot. The narrative examines previous attempts at launching into the cosmos and how ‘they found that dream inextricably, cripplingly anchored to the very founts of nationalistic myopia and materialistic greed that said dream was antithetical to.’ Funding by government leads to nationalism, funding by corporations leads to slapdash plans where cost cutting is valued over all else and built by the lowest bidder who’s shady business practices haven’t been a news scandal yet. So an international coalition of people who want to do science for the sake of science funds this expedition, but with over forty years of space travel separating the astronauts from the planet, what will change in priorities, funding, government and more when they need Earth to retrieve them home?
‘When the world you know is out of reach, nothing is more welcome than a measurable reminder that it still exists.’
Perhaps some of the most endearing moments of the book are the ways the astronauts engage with memories of a planet light years behind them. There are discussions on what they miss and often find it is the feelings and experiences around things more than the actual things themselves, such as when one astronaut states ‘I don’t miss drinking [coffee]. I miss it being around.’ In space they are forming a sort of found-family to stave off the loneliness being separated from the ones they left behind. But they also left behind a world that is constantly in flux and must acknowledge ‘how much a world can change within the bookends of a lifetime.’ I enjoyed the way they begin to reject the daily news updates which was
It is interesting to see how they decide to reject the daily play-by-play of politics (it doesn’t help that its a 40 year trip home so none of that will be relevant when they return anyways) but it is also a message to us, the reader, that the sports-castification of politics is about drawing us in for clicks and views for the sake of power, profits, and visibility. The story takes a twist when the transmissions cease (leading to the human diaspora which will lead to the Wayfarers series) and the book takes an interesting vantage point on the collapse of society from a planet not even visible across the void of space.
‘Because sometimes we go, and we try, and we suffer, and despite it all, we learn nothing. Sometimes we are left with more questions than when we started. Sometimes we do harm, despite our best efforts. We are human. We are fragile’
In this novella that probes what it means to be human against the infinite backdrop of space, Chambers grounds the story through a lot of explanation of the science behind the inner workings of the voyage. It never bogs down the story with unnecessary description and, honestly, I never care much how something works, mostly instead what it means philosophically and emotionally in context which is another element Chambers elegantly balances. I enjoy the idea that the freezing process for travel can only delay time and the scene about them having aged two years during the travel is delivered through their emotional responses and the narrator’s interior reactions to their own reflection. It really works and latches the readers emotions to the ideas.
This is another way the story centers the idea of science but in a way that focuses primarily on the ethical implications. There is an extreme care to not upset the planet’s ecosystem or interfere. This is balanced with the fact that ‘at some point, you have to accept the fact that any movement creates waves, and the only other option is to lie still and learn nothing,’ so they take great care to ethically approach this boundary. I really love this element of the book, the idea that communities thrive together and that science should be done for the sake of knowledge without any ulterior motive. No profit, no search for something that can be a weapon, no colonization, only knowledge for the benefit of all. The question is, will anyone else care about knowledge only for the sake of knowledge and this is how Chambers makes us look at our own lives, our own times and ask if our efforts are gifting or grifting.
‘We have found nothing you can sell. We have found nothing you can put to practical use. We have found no worlds that could be easily or ethically settled, were that end desired. We have satisfied nothing but curiosity, gained nothing but knowledge.
To me, these are the noblest goals.’
This is a short but sweet novella that hits so many high notes and is just a warm, comforting place to be. I love the efforts towards championing science over conquest and examining why this is as well as looking at the existential questions an explorer headed towards the unknown reaches of space might ponder. Chambers has a knack for folding into philosophical inquiry while keeping the pace moving forward. This is an inspiring story, one to uplift the curious minds and question our place in the greater cosmos, and one I definitely recommend to you.
See you, Space Cowboy.
4.5/5
‘Where we go from there is up to you.’
Space, the final frontier. Since humans have first looked up in wonder at the cosmos we have always dreamed of knowing what awaits us there. As a kid I was a massive space nerd, I mean I was the kid with the planets on their bedroom ceiling surrounded by glow-in-the-dark stars and read countless books about space that often went way over my head and loved all the novels and films about space exploration (still a huge Star Wars fan). In 5th grade we had to turn in an original short story each semester and I opted to heavily research how a Mars mission would work and used each assignment as another chapter of my little kid hard-sci-fi story about me and my friends going to Mars. So needless to say, Becky Chamber’s Hugo nominated To Be Taught, If Fortunate, a novella that centers on the earnest scientific awe and discovery of scientists exploring exoplanets, is very much my jam. While technically a prequel (by thousands of years) to Chamber’s much-lauded Wayfarers series which has been dubbed ‘cozy sci fi’, this novella can also be enjoyed as a stand-alone. And what an enjoyable ride it is. Eschewing the standard space adventuring heroics of most sci-fi, Chamber’s story puts all the action in the joy of discovery and scientists doing scientist things while trying to not upset the ecosystems of the marvelous destinations on their trip. Chamber’s balances philosophical inquiry with an awe-inspiring story in a comfortably quiet book of the how and why for space exploration because ‘we’re scientists. We live and breathe why.’ While a slim novella, To Be Taught, If Fortunate has a vast cosmos of thought swirling through it, examining the purpose of exploration and how to remain pure in both intentions and execution, and delivering the reader the jaw-dropping magic of boldly going where no one has gone before.
‘We believe the potential answers are worth the challenges.’
Chambers effortlessly taps into the wonderment of space travel in a way that makes this just as gripping a story as the epic space operas despite mostly being scientists gathering observations and basking in the bliss of chronicling cutting-edge cosmic discoveries. I mean, this makes scientists quietly examining samples and running diagnostics into a thrill-ride. Like, when you are a kid and first learn about cool science stuff—Chambers has written a book for adults that launch us straight into the galaxies of childhood astonishment. Framed as a final transmission to Earth from the narrator with a question she’d like us all to ponder, the story follows this team of four across four exoplanets as they ponder the great existential questions of existing in such a vast universe full of life beyond our own. Not that this is bland, and while admittedly it seemed slow at first, this became impossible to put down and has plenty of friction and tension created without needing character’s with trauma or difficult personalities or even a high-stakes plot with threatening elements or villains. It’s just a celebration of the human quest for knowledge and it signs out in proud harmonies that echo from star to star.
‘if you understand that space exploration is best when it’s done in the name of the people, then the people are the ones who have to make it happen.’
I really enjoyed the discourse on how space exploration should be ethically conducted, which is a theme that pulses through the entire book. If we are to explore, we must ask ourselves why, must look at our methods and goals to ask who will it serve, and wonder what will be done with what we learn. Are we doing this for the sake of exploration and knowledge or is it tainted by ulterior motives that spoil the statement that “we came in peace for all mankind” as the US astronauts said on the moon missions we forever wonder how much flexing technological might at Russia was the motive behind such robust government funding. This is all asked lightyears away, wondering what people still think back on Earth.
‘What we want you to ask yourselves is this: what is space, to you? Is it a playground? A quarry? A flagpole? A classroom? A temple? Who do you believe should go, and for what purpose? Or should we go at all? Is the realm above the clouds immaterial to you, so long as satellites send messages and rocks don’t fall? Is human spaceflight a fool’s errand, a rich man’s fantasy, an unacceptable waste of life and metal? Are our methods grotesque to you, our ethics untenable? Are our hopes outdated? When I tell you of our life out here, do you cheer for us, or do you scoff?’
Chambers never shirks the issues of capitalism and demonstrates how a profit motive will always poison the pot. The narrative examines previous attempts at launching into the cosmos and how ‘they found that dream inextricably, cripplingly anchored to the very founts of nationalistic myopia and materialistic greed that said dream was antithetical to.’ Funding by government leads to nationalism, funding by corporations leads to slapdash plans where cost cutting is valued over all else and built by the lowest bidder who’s shady business practices haven’t been a news scandal yet. So an international coalition of people who want to do science for the sake of science funds this expedition, but with over forty years of space travel separating the astronauts from the planet, what will change in priorities, funding, government and more when they need Earth to retrieve them home?
‘When the world you know is out of reach, nothing is more welcome than a measurable reminder that it still exists.’
Perhaps some of the most endearing moments of the book are the ways the astronauts engage with memories of a planet light years behind them. There are discussions on what they miss and often find it is the feelings and experiences around things more than the actual things themselves, such as when one astronaut states ‘I don’t miss drinking [coffee]. I miss it being around.’ In space they are forming a sort of found-family to stave off the loneliness being separated from the ones they left behind. But they also left behind a world that is constantly in flux and must acknowledge ‘how much a world can change within the bookends of a lifetime.’ I enjoyed the way they begin to reject the daily news updates which was
‘an odd mix of unpredictable changes that follow tragically predictable patterns. War, elections, lines drawn in the sand. The perpetual ebb and flow of some countries reaching out while others walled themselves in. A constant parade of societal drama, powerful within its own sphere, yet impotent when pitted against the colossal rhythms of the planet itself.’
It is interesting to see how they decide to reject the daily play-by-play of politics (it doesn’t help that its a 40 year trip home so none of that will be relevant when they return anyways) but it is also a message to us, the reader, that the sports-castification of politics is about drawing us in for clicks and views for the sake of power, profits, and visibility. The story takes a twist when the transmissions cease (leading to the human diaspora which will lead to the Wayfarers series) and the book takes an interesting vantage point on the collapse of society from a planet not even visible across the void of space.
‘Because sometimes we go, and we try, and we suffer, and despite it all, we learn nothing. Sometimes we are left with more questions than when we started. Sometimes we do harm, despite our best efforts. We are human. We are fragile’
In this novella that probes what it means to be human against the infinite backdrop of space, Chambers grounds the story through a lot of explanation of the science behind the inner workings of the voyage. It never bogs down the story with unnecessary description and, honestly, I never care much how something works, mostly instead what it means philosophically and emotionally in context which is another element Chambers elegantly balances. I enjoy the idea that the freezing process for travel can only delay time and the scene about them having aged two years during the travel is delivered through their emotional responses and the narrator’s interior reactions to their own reflection. It really works and latches the readers emotions to the ideas.
This is another way the story centers the idea of science but in a way that focuses primarily on the ethical implications. There is an extreme care to not upset the planet’s ecosystem or interfere. This is balanced with the fact that ‘at some point, you have to accept the fact that any movement creates waves, and the only other option is to lie still and learn nothing,’ so they take great care to ethically approach this boundary. I really love this element of the book, the idea that communities thrive together and that science should be done for the sake of knowledge without any ulterior motive. No profit, no search for something that can be a weapon, no colonization, only knowledge for the benefit of all. The question is, will anyone else care about knowledge only for the sake of knowledge and this is how Chambers makes us look at our own lives, our own times and ask if our efforts are gifting or grifting.
‘We have found nothing you can sell. We have found nothing you can put to practical use. We have found no worlds that could be easily or ethically settled, were that end desired. We have satisfied nothing but curiosity, gained nothing but knowledge.
To me, these are the noblest goals.’
This is a short but sweet novella that hits so many high notes and is just a warm, comforting place to be. I love the efforts towards championing science over conquest and examining why this is as well as looking at the existential questions an explorer headed towards the unknown reaches of space might ponder. Chambers has a knack for folding into philosophical inquiry while keeping the pace moving forward. This is an inspiring story, one to uplift the curious minds and question our place in the greater cosmos, and one I definitely recommend to you.
See you, Space Cowboy.
4.5/5
‘Where we go from there is up to you.’
November 16, 2020
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3.5/5 stars
This may surprise you, but unlike The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, I actually enjoyed reading To Be Taught, If Fortunate.
Becky Chambers is most often known for her work on Wayfarers series, a space-opera series that many people have called the ultimate feel-good space opera or literary hugs. Admittedly, I haven’t finished reading The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, either I was in the wrong reading mood, or maybe it indeed just wasn’t for me; I ended up DNFing the book at 25-30% mark, twice. However, hearing that one of my favorite booktubers, Emily Fox, loved Becky Chambers’s works so much, I decided to give To Be Taught, If Fortunate, a standalone space-opera novella separate from the Wayfarers series, a try. Verdict? I liked it.
The story in To Be Taught, If Fortunate follow Ariadne and her three crewmates as they went on an expedition to survey four habitable worlds. I believe that this novella can be considered a hard sci-fi; there’s a lot of calculated discussion on science and biology. I think what I liked most about this novella was Chambers’s prose; it flows really well, and this short book was able to capture my attention thoroughly. Unlike The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet which bored me, I feel like there are moments of tension in the plot, and the dilemma that the four main characters faced in their pursuit of knowledge was efficient and effectively well-written.
As you can probably guess from Becky Chambers, though, despite some of the intensity, this is at its core, a thought-provoking and hopeful book. I don’t think Chambers will ever write a grim sci-fi; even from the interview she did with her mother at the end of the book, it’s quite clear that despite the bleak reality of our world, Chambers remains a hopeful person. What didn’t click for me, however, was the communication report storytelling format and the short length of the novella itself—it took me about one to two hours to finish—that didn’t allow enough characterizations for the characters for me to care for. I actually wished that this was a longer book. I did enjoy reading To Be Taught, If Fortunate, I may not find myself completely enamored with this one like many of her fans did, but in the aspect of keeping hope, I will keep my fingers crossed that in the future, when the reading mood is right, maybe I’ll attempt and enjoy reading The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet more than my previous attempts.
You can order the book from: Book Depository (Free shipping) | Bookshop (Support Local Bookstores!)
You can find this and the rest of my reviews at Novel Notions
Special thanks to my Patrons on Patreon for giving me extra support towards my passion for reading and reviewing!
My Patrons: Alfred, Alya, Annabeth, Blaise, Devin, Diana, Edward, Hamad, Helen, Jimmy Nutts, Joie, Lufi, Michelle, Mike, Miracle, Nicholas, Zoe.
3.5/5 stars
This may surprise you, but unlike The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, I actually enjoyed reading To Be Taught, If Fortunate.
Becky Chambers is most often known for her work on Wayfarers series, a space-opera series that many people have called the ultimate feel-good space opera or literary hugs. Admittedly, I haven’t finished reading The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, either I was in the wrong reading mood, or maybe it indeed just wasn’t for me; I ended up DNFing the book at 25-30% mark, twice. However, hearing that one of my favorite booktubers, Emily Fox, loved Becky Chambers’s works so much, I decided to give To Be Taught, If Fortunate, a standalone space-opera novella separate from the Wayfarers series, a try. Verdict? I liked it.
“Don't believe the lie of individual trees, each a monument to its own self-made success. A forest is an interdependent community. Resources are shared, and life in isolation is a death sentence.”
The story in To Be Taught, If Fortunate follow Ariadne and her three crewmates as they went on an expedition to survey four habitable worlds. I believe that this novella can be considered a hard sci-fi; there’s a lot of calculated discussion on science and biology. I think what I liked most about this novella was Chambers’s prose; it flows really well, and this short book was able to capture my attention thoroughly. Unlike The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet which bored me, I feel like there are moments of tension in the plot, and the dilemma that the four main characters faced in their pursuit of knowledge was efficient and effectively well-written.
“It is difficult to give thought to the stars when the ground is swallowing you up.”
As you can probably guess from Becky Chambers, though, despite some of the intensity, this is at its core, a thought-provoking and hopeful book. I don’t think Chambers will ever write a grim sci-fi; even from the interview she did with her mother at the end of the book, it’s quite clear that despite the bleak reality of our world, Chambers remains a hopeful person. What didn’t click for me, however, was the communication report storytelling format and the short length of the novella itself—it took me about one to two hours to finish—that didn’t allow enough characterizations for the characters for me to care for. I actually wished that this was a longer book. I did enjoy reading To Be Taught, If Fortunate, I may not find myself completely enamored with this one like many of her fans did, but in the aspect of keeping hope, I will keep my fingers crossed that in the future, when the reading mood is right, maybe I’ll attempt and enjoy reading The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet more than my previous attempts.
“The amount a person can spare is relative; the value of generosity is not.”
You can order the book from: Book Depository (Free shipping) | Bookshop (Support Local Bookstores!)
You can find this and the rest of my reviews at Novel Notions
Special thanks to my Patrons on Patreon for giving me extra support towards my passion for reading and reviewing!
My Patrons: Alfred, Alya, Annabeth, Blaise, Devin, Diana, Edward, Hamad, Helen, Jimmy Nutts, Joie, Lufi, Michelle, Mike, Miracle, Nicholas, Zoe.
February 29, 2020
I’m sad I didn’t love this as much as I wanted to 😔
“We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship - to teach, if we are called upon; to be taught, if we are fortunate.” We know full well that our planet and all it’s inhabitants are but a small part of this immense universe that surrounds us, and it is with humility and hope that we take this step.”
I love Becky Chambers. Her Wayfarers series had me utterly spellbound. But this one just didn’t do it for me.
It is written as a diary, from the perspective of an astronaut in our not so distant future. Ariadne and a team of 3 others travel to numerous different planets in order to study them and report back to Earth.
But as we’d expect, they encounter many problems. From an infestation of bug like sticky insects, to being trapped inside for four months, to losing contact with earth.
There were some parts that truly stood out. But for me, reading needs a story, and it just wasn’t there in this case. If you like more informative books that imagine what space travel would be like then this is for you!
I was happy. Content like I could never remember being. I was surrounded by people I loved, safe in a place free of noise and performance and the empty trappings of civilisation. Here, nobody cared about status or money, who was in power, who was kissing or killing whom. There was only water, and the wonders living within it.”
*****************
I’ve been getting withdrawals from Becky Chambers’ wonderfully optimistic Sci Fi so thank God for this novella 💖😊
“We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship - to teach, if we are called upon; to be taught, if we are fortunate.” We know full well that our planet and all it’s inhabitants are but a small part of this immense universe that surrounds us, and it is with humility and hope that we take this step.”
I love Becky Chambers. Her Wayfarers series had me utterly spellbound. But this one just didn’t do it for me.
It is written as a diary, from the perspective of an astronaut in our not so distant future. Ariadne and a team of 3 others travel to numerous different planets in order to study them and report back to Earth.
But as we’d expect, they encounter many problems. From an infestation of bug like sticky insects, to being trapped inside for four months, to losing contact with earth.
There were some parts that truly stood out. But for me, reading needs a story, and it just wasn’t there in this case. If you like more informative books that imagine what space travel would be like then this is for you!
I was happy. Content like I could never remember being. I was surrounded by people I loved, safe in a place free of noise and performance and the empty trappings of civilisation. Here, nobody cared about status or money, who was in power, who was kissing or killing whom. There was only water, and the wonders living within it.”
*****************
I’ve been getting withdrawals from Becky Chambers’ wonderfully optimistic Sci Fi so thank God for this novella 💖😊
January 9, 2022
“Our mission is to catalogue, not to colonise.”
Beautiful and often startling musings on ethics, philosophy, and psychology, as a crew of four search for life on four worlds, light-years from home, over many decades. You feel the awe, the dislocation and discombobulation, the excitement, the struggle to describe the utterly unfamiliar, the camaraderie, and, sometimes, the fear.
It's built on a simple plot that nevertheless has dramatic moments. It could be horribly self-righteous or boring, but I found it profound, provocative, and moving. There’s enough science for sci-fi buffs, but it is primarily about ideas and relationships, and should be appreciated beyond the realm of genre.
Leave no trace?
As 2021 passes into history and 2022 begins, it’s natural to think of new year resolutions: what mark we want to leave on the world in our personal and professional lives, perhaps on GoodReads too? But there is another way.
Image: "Leave nothing but footprints. Take nothing but pictures. Kill nothing but time." Variously attributed to John Muir, Aliyyah Eniath, and others. (Source)
“I have no interest in changing other worlds to suit me. I choose the lighter touch: changing myself to suit them.”
The crew use enzyme patches (somaforming) to temporarily change their bodies to suit each planet: glittery skin when there’s almost no light, and extra muscle bulk where gravity is high, for example.
Like all the best sci-fi, the underlying message is also a metaphor to our circumstances. It’s one we can all strive to apply in daily life here on Earth.
“We have found nothing you can sell. We have found nothing you can put to practical use. We have found no worlds that could be easily or ethically settled, were that desired. We have satisfied nothing but curiosity, gained nothing but knowledge.”
Truly, the noblest goals.
Field trip diary
Ariadne, born on Earth in 2081, recounts the four, very different, worlds she and her crewmates, Chikondi, Elena, and Jack, visit. Four years of study are planned on each, with years in “torpor” while travelling, and waking from it differs from waking from sleep in practical and psychological ways. It requires mental adjustment as much as physical, so “the kindest object placement” of the cabin mirror is crucial: out of sight on waking, but visible as soon as the astronaut chooses to float forward.
The relationships between the crew are subtly drawn: they know each other so well, much is unsaid, but understood.
Chambers is also good at gently educating the reader where necessary. For example, the wings of a bat, a bird, and a bee serve the same purpose, but they’re structurally very different because they evolved separately.
Image: Bat, bird, and insect wings, compared (Source)
On Earth, spines evolved only once, but on Mirabilis, there are at least three different types, so Earth-based taxonomy can’t be used.
“The artist’s palette was robbed of green and blue, and every assumption of vertebrate evolution had been thrown out the window.”
Instead, the crew categorise by analogy, “mammal approximate”, for example. Just because something looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck doesn’t necessarily mean it is a duck.
Quotes
• “A forest is an interdependent community. Resources are shared, and life in isolation is a death sentence.”
• “When the world you know is out of reach, nothing is more welcome than a measurable reminder that it still exists.”
• “I was surrounded by people I loved, safe in a place free of noise and performance and the empty trappings of civilization.”
• “A home can only exist in a moment. Something both found and made. Always temporary.”
• “A face like the ghost of a greyhound, breathtaking in its oddness and shocking in its beauty.”
See also
This was my first Becky Chambers. I loved her lyricism, profundity, and poetic descriptions which reminded me of Ray Bradbury, especially some of The Martian Chronicles (see my review HERE) and also Fahrenheit 451 (see my review HERE).
Image: The cover and inside of the Voyager Golden Record (Source)
The book’s title comes from the Voyager Golden Record, launched in 1977, and quoted at the end of the book:
“I send greetings on behalf of the people of our planet. We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship, to teach if we are called upon, to be taught if we are fortunate. We know full well that our planet and all its inhabitants are but a small part of the immense universe that surrounds us and it is with humility and hope that we take this step.”
Beautiful and often startling musings on ethics, philosophy, and psychology, as a crew of four search for life on four worlds, light-years from home, over many decades. You feel the awe, the dislocation and discombobulation, the excitement, the struggle to describe the utterly unfamiliar, the camaraderie, and, sometimes, the fear.
It's built on a simple plot that nevertheless has dramatic moments. It could be horribly self-righteous or boring, but I found it profound, provocative, and moving. There’s enough science for sci-fi buffs, but it is primarily about ideas and relationships, and should be appreciated beyond the realm of genre.
Leave no trace?
As 2021 passes into history and 2022 begins, it’s natural to think of new year resolutions: what mark we want to leave on the world in our personal and professional lives, perhaps on GoodReads too? But there is another way.
Image: "Leave nothing but footprints. Take nothing but pictures. Kill nothing but time." Variously attributed to John Muir, Aliyyah Eniath, and others. (Source)
“I have no interest in changing other worlds to suit me. I choose the lighter touch: changing myself to suit them.”
The crew use enzyme patches (somaforming) to temporarily change their bodies to suit each planet: glittery skin when there’s almost no light, and extra muscle bulk where gravity is high, for example.
Like all the best sci-fi, the underlying message is also a metaphor to our circumstances. It’s one we can all strive to apply in daily life here on Earth.
“We have found nothing you can sell. We have found nothing you can put to practical use. We have found no worlds that could be easily or ethically settled, were that desired. We have satisfied nothing but curiosity, gained nothing but knowledge.”
Truly, the noblest goals.
Field trip diary
Ariadne, born on Earth in 2081, recounts the four, very different, worlds she and her crewmates, Chikondi, Elena, and Jack, visit. Four years of study are planned on each, with years in “torpor” while travelling, and waking from it differs from waking from sleep in practical and psychological ways. It requires mental adjustment as much as physical, so “the kindest object placement” of the cabin mirror is crucial: out of sight on waking, but visible as soon as the astronaut chooses to float forward.
The relationships between the crew are subtly drawn: they know each other so well, much is unsaid, but understood.
Chambers is also good at gently educating the reader where necessary. For example, the wings of a bat, a bird, and a bee serve the same purpose, but they’re structurally very different because they evolved separately.
Image: Bat, bird, and insect wings, compared (Source)
On Earth, spines evolved only once, but on Mirabilis, there are at least three different types, so Earth-based taxonomy can’t be used.
“The artist’s palette was robbed of green and blue, and every assumption of vertebrate evolution had been thrown out the window.”
Instead, the crew categorise by analogy, “mammal approximate”, for example. Just because something looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck doesn’t necessarily mean it is a duck.
Quotes
• “A forest is an interdependent community. Resources are shared, and life in isolation is a death sentence.”
• “When the world you know is out of reach, nothing is more welcome than a measurable reminder that it still exists.”
• “I was surrounded by people I loved, safe in a place free of noise and performance and the empty trappings of civilization.”
• “A home can only exist in a moment. Something both found and made. Always temporary.”
• “A face like the ghost of a greyhound, breathtaking in its oddness and shocking in its beauty.”
See also
This was my first Becky Chambers. I loved her lyricism, profundity, and poetic descriptions which reminded me of Ray Bradbury, especially some of The Martian Chronicles (see my review HERE) and also Fahrenheit 451 (see my review HERE).
Image: The cover and inside of the Voyager Golden Record (Source)
The book’s title comes from the Voyager Golden Record, launched in 1977, and quoted at the end of the book:
“I send greetings on behalf of the people of our planet. We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship, to teach if we are called upon, to be taught if we are fortunate. We know full well that our planet and all its inhabitants are but a small part of the immense universe that surrounds us and it is with humility and hope that we take this step.”
September 20, 2019
This is a beauty. A novella which packs twice the punch of the average full length novel. A story of hope and a better future. An ending which makes you want to cry. Wonderful.
I love well written sci fi and To Be Taught, If Fortunate is exactly that. It follows the experiences of four scientists/astronauts who are basically crowd funded by a future Earth to explore several previously unvisited planets. Time passes and eventually they lose contact with Earth. What should they do next?
I must admit I did not like the author's choice of ending yet it was very appropriate to the context of the novella. The four scientists experienced so much, spent all their time with each other and yet maintained a well balanced relationship with each other. When things start to go wrong and their relationships falter they must find a solution of whatever kind.
I read it in one afternoon and loved it all. Becky Chambers must go on my list of favourite authors/
I love well written sci fi and To Be Taught, If Fortunate is exactly that. It follows the experiences of four scientists/astronauts who are basically crowd funded by a future Earth to explore several previously unvisited planets. Time passes and eventually they lose contact with Earth. What should they do next?
I must admit I did not like the author's choice of ending yet it was very appropriate to the context of the novella. The four scientists experienced so much, spent all their time with each other and yet maintained a well balanced relationship with each other. When things start to go wrong and their relationships falter they must find a solution of whatever kind.
I read it in one afternoon and loved it all. Becky Chambers must go on my list of favourite authors/
Read
August 8, 2019Since I first read Joanna Russ' WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO... I've had a hole in my heart. This book healed it. This extraordinary novella proves that you don't have to write a long book to pack a big punch. Becky Chambers' writing gets better and better with everything she writes, and this is no exception. Every sentence is perfectly balanced without attracting unnecessary attention; characterization is subtle but effective; and the impact of the ending is everything I hoped it would be. A future sci-fi masterwork in a new and welcome tradition.
May 26, 2023
“If I ask what I'm asking only of people who agree with me at the outset, with whom I already share a dream and a language, then there's no point in asking at all.”
becky chambers really is just a once in a lifetime writer, and i truly am always so profoundly touched by everything she writes. in this novella, we follow four astronauts on a space mission to visit and research four exoplanets. and each visit, the crew uses their perfected somaforming to adapt their human bodies to the new uncharted land, instead of adapting the land to their human bodies. and each landing is quite a different research experience. but this book also focuses on the importance of love and relationships - all the different kinds - and the exploration of those relationships while traveling through the galaxies. and it was just wonderful, and i fell so easily in love with this crew (like i always do with becky chambers stories)!
this book will really make you think about the wondrous joy of discovery and all the beautiful things that can come from learning about new things and new ways, but also make you think about the ethical side of things and what is okay for us to discover and learn, and at what cost do we also deem that learning and discovery to be an okay price. there is a constant theme of community and how if we want to build greater things, we need so many individuals that also believe in greater things (and greater hope for better things… one day). also, how things change so vastly from decade to decade, but seeing how things change in a blink of an eye in this book is really haunting and, again, really thought provoking. and as always, her books make you think about how small we are in the grand scheme of the universe, but that doesn't make us less important, or less beautiful, or less destructive.
lastly, i dont really know how to put this in a more eloquent way - but i read the special edition with a little extra acknowledgement to her mom, and it was lovely and brought an extra tear to my eye. every part of this story is written thoughtfully, hopefully, and so very beautifully. i highly recommend this one for everyone.
trigger + content warnings: blood, talk of cancer briefly, vomit, a little talk of eating/eating habits, talk of war + famine, depression depictions, anxiety depictions, implied loss of loved ones, suicide ideation
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➽ 1.) The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet ★★★★★
➽ 1.) A Psalm for the Wild-Built ★★★★★
September 27, 2020
The moment Mrin realized that she did not enjoy FANTASY her go-to genre BUT ended up liking this book...
This was me after reading this book
NO, I WON'T LET YOU GUYS KNOW THE PLOT OF THE BOOK!!!!
I forbid you all to look at the blurb!!!!
Just go into it blindly
This book was so atmospheric and fascinating !!!
Also, you DON'T have to be a science student to enjoy this
though you will enjoy it more if you are (Which is what happened to me🤗)
The various terms the author used were something I was familiar with BUT she did an AMAZING job of explaining it!!
It felt like I went with the crew on an adventure!!
It also seemed like a mixture between The MARTIAN and INTERSTELLAR
This book was unlike ANY OTHER book I have read!!
The story itself was unique
Mrin to the author:
Thanks to my friend Rue for bringing this under my radar😊🥰
SORING CEREMONY!!!🤗
Chikondi: Hufflepuff
Elena: Slytherin
Jack: Gryffindor
Ariadne: Ravenclaw
Special mention to the fuffy animal (I still mourn its loss)
I had named it fluffy
I thought it looked like this😥😭
RIP Fluffy😭😣
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Reading this because my friends were raving about this ...
So even though we have different taste in books...I have decided to give this book a try
*shrugs*What can I say?? Its peer pressure
This was me after reading this book
NO, I WON'T LET YOU GUYS KNOW THE PLOT OF THE BOOK!!!!
I forbid you all to look at the blurb!!!!
Just go into it blindly
This book was so atmospheric and fascinating !!!
Also, you DON'T have to be a science student to enjoy this
though you will enjoy it more if you are (Which is what happened to me🤗)
The various terms the author used were something I was familiar with BUT she did an AMAZING job of explaining it!!
It felt like I went with the crew on an adventure!!
It also seemed like a mixture between The MARTIAN and INTERSTELLAR
This book was unlike ANY OTHER book I have read!!
The story itself was unique
Mrin to the author:
Thanks to my friend Rue for bringing this under my radar😊🥰
SORING CEREMONY!!!🤗
Chikondi: Hufflepuff
Elena: Slytherin
Jack: Gryffindor
Ariadne: Ravenclaw
Special mention to the fuffy animal (I still mourn its loss)
I had named it fluffy
I thought it looked like this😥😭
RIP Fluffy😭😣
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Reading this because my friends were raving about this ...
So even though we have different taste in books...I have decided to give this book a try
*shrugs*What can I say?? Its peer pressure
January 11, 2020
“Hello, I hope you are listening and it’s okay even though I’m a space traveller I won’t exclude you by using fancy words coz I want to talk to ALL of you so I’m gonna talk like you’re all simpleminded idiots ok? So yesterday I found a stone and it was so pretty and this is the whole meaning of life, you know? I used to live somewhere that sounds pretty and today we’re having this for dinner and I find animals so fascinating especially insects because they are one thing and then they are another. Let’s take the caterpillar for example” NO PLEASE LET’S NOT HOW DO I GET OFF THIS TRAIN OF RAMBLING TEENAGE DIARY?
Other parts of the story consisted of “you know how a mammal looks a certain way and a cat looks a certain way so if you see a cat like thing you go oooh a cat except this wasn’t a cat so it would be wrong to say a cat when it really isn’t a cat because long explanation of limbs and vertebrae AND YET I’m going to say oooh it looked like a cat coz otherwise you wouldn’t understand what I mean. OK I GET IT THINGS LOOK DIFFERENT FROM ON EARTH BUT THANK YOU FOR 22 MINUTES OF EXPLANATIONS AND 14 ALLEGORIES JFC.
I’m sorry, but I have rarely been talked down to as much as Becky Chambers loves to do. Just as an exercise I’d like her to try and write children’s books, just to test how fast kids would zone out of her mile long explanations of the simplest concepts that anyone with an ounce of imagination can do on their own!
Less is more! Show, don’t tell!
Uughhh no. I just cannot.
Other parts of the story consisted of “you know how a mammal looks a certain way and a cat looks a certain way so if you see a cat like thing you go oooh a cat except this wasn’t a cat so it would be wrong to say a cat when it really isn’t a cat because long explanation of limbs and vertebrae AND YET I’m going to say oooh it looked like a cat coz otherwise you wouldn’t understand what I mean. OK I GET IT THINGS LOOK DIFFERENT FROM ON EARTH BUT THANK YOU FOR 22 MINUTES OF EXPLANATIONS AND 14 ALLEGORIES JFC.
I’m sorry, but I have rarely been talked down to as much as Becky Chambers loves to do. Just as an exercise I’d like her to try and write children’s books, just to test how fast kids would zone out of her mile long explanations of the simplest concepts that anyone with an ounce of imagination can do on their own!
Less is more! Show, don’t tell!
Uughhh no. I just cannot.
August 12, 2020
3.5 stars
Well written, but this kind of felt like the result of a creative writing assignment. It's like someone gave the author a prompt of "write a novella where a small number of humans are visiting unknown planets/moons light years away" and this is what the author came up with. Don't get me wrong, I would give this an A if I was a teacher grading this. There's thought given to how humans would need to adjust to different conditions (gravity, light, etc), how they would attempt to identify alien animal/plant life, how isolation can wear on them mentally, and there's even some LGBTQ representation in the characters. It's lovely. But as far as the plot goes, it's not particularly exciting reading, no matter how well it was written and thought out. I would give this author another try though.
Well written, but this kind of felt like the result of a creative writing assignment. It's like someone gave the author a prompt of "write a novella where a small number of humans are visiting unknown planets/moons light years away" and this is what the author came up with. Don't get me wrong, I would give this an A if I was a teacher grading this. There's thought given to how humans would need to adjust to different conditions (gravity, light, etc), how they would attempt to identify alien animal/plant life, how isolation can wear on them mentally, and there's even some LGBTQ representation in the characters. It's lovely. But as far as the plot goes, it's not particularly exciting reading, no matter how well it was written and thought out. I would give this author another try though.
February 29, 2024
I am in the minority here with this rating but I found myself unable to immerse in the story like her other books that I have read.
June 18, 2019
THE MARTIAN meets INTERSTELLAR, this is high-concept speculative fic at its finest. Rendered with startling clarity, Chambers' latest offering is a short but fierce ode to humanity and all our reaches and flaws. Unputdownable.
May 22, 2020
Guys, if you haven't read any of Becky Chambers' uplifting solar punk (see her Hugo-award wining
Wayfarers
trilogy), then To Be Taught, If Fortunate is the perfect place to start. Stuffed into less than 200 pages, it is a compelling, intelligent, and deeply humanistic science-fiction yarn that is representative of what Chambers does best.
The story is told as a letter being sent back to Earth from Adriane, pilot of a OCA spaceship meant to categorize and study exoplanets. These four pilots travel the stars, alter their physiology, and do massive scientific investigations of local flora and fauna. The story's structure is roughly chopped into four planets that the team explores throughout their journey, with decades spent in suspended animation in the interim.
Chambers has a real knack for pulling the hope out of hopeless-seeming situations. The crew of Merian modify their bodies to be able to absorb the harsh radiation of the stars, manage 2G gravity, and prevent the blood in their veins from freezing. This human ability to adapt and evolve is a constant in Chambers' work, but is most prominent here. Even though the wacky science transformations are cool, it is just as satisfying to travel with Adriane, Elena, Chikondi, and Jack through their personal hardships. Their unbridled excitement for scientific discovery is heartening and captures both the mundane reality of benchwork with the exhilaration of uncovering something heretofore unknown.
Overall, this is a super solid sci-fi. It is interesting, well constructed, and has that uniquely positive spin that makes Chambers' work so satisfying. This tends more toward hard sci-fi than Wayfarers' more fantastical alien civilization, but also touches on real-world struggles of today (climate change is a frequent talking point). Again, if you haven't given Chambers' solarpunk a try, To Be Taught, If Fortunate provides the perfect entry point.
The story is told as a letter being sent back to Earth from Adriane, pilot of a OCA spaceship meant to categorize and study exoplanets. These four pilots travel the stars, alter their physiology, and do massive scientific investigations of local flora and fauna. The story's structure is roughly chopped into four planets that the team explores throughout their journey, with decades spent in suspended animation in the interim.
Chambers has a real knack for pulling the hope out of hopeless-seeming situations. The crew of Merian modify their bodies to be able to absorb the harsh radiation of the stars, manage 2G gravity, and prevent the blood in their veins from freezing. This human ability to adapt and evolve is a constant in Chambers' work, but is most prominent here. Even though the wacky science transformations are cool, it is just as satisfying to travel with Adriane, Elena, Chikondi, and Jack through their personal hardships. Their unbridled excitement for scientific discovery is heartening and captures both the mundane reality of benchwork with the exhilaration of uncovering something heretofore unknown.
Overall, this is a super solid sci-fi. It is interesting, well constructed, and has that uniquely positive spin that makes Chambers' work so satisfying. This tends more toward hard sci-fi than Wayfarers' more fantastical alien civilization, but also touches on real-world struggles of today (climate change is a frequent talking point). Again, if you haven't given Chambers' solarpunk a try, To Be Taught, If Fortunate provides the perfect entry point.
August 17, 2021
This is a book difficult to review. Not in its parts, I mean, it has a plot, and an interesting one, and the characters are profound and very well written. Interaction between them is credible, the same as the dialogues. Chambers is a naturally gifted storyteller, and it shows. There's not much action, though, and that can make the reading a little boring. Where's then the difficulty? The thing is, this book, as is often the case with Chambers, has a heart. A spark of something unexplainable, a soul that is the soul of Humanity. A specular quality that forces the reader to look into himself and question what he finds there. Everyone that reads this book will find out something about themselves. And they may not like it, but it will be true. And Becky Chambers always writes true.
Read
November 12, 2019A terrific piece of specfic showing you don't need hostile aliens or laser shootouts to do terrifying. Ariadne and her three colleagues are sent on a long-term science mission into space which involves going into a kind of hibernation to get there before dying of old age--so a lot of time has passed on Earth before they wake up, and then they spend years on the planets they're studying. It's absolutely fascinating and immersive--the pictures of completely alien habitats, the amazing but constricted lives of the four (rep includes queer, trans, ace and POC). What's scary is their isolation--they are alone in their spaceship and on the various planets, and it slowly dawns that they may be alone in the universe.
It's a tremendous read in the way Chambers does so well--intensely immersive and persuasive, and powerfully focused on the sparks of humanity that light up a very big empty night out there.
It's a tremendous read in the way Chambers does so well--intensely immersive and persuasive, and powerfully focused on the sparks of humanity that light up a very big empty night out there.
September 24, 2019
I’ll say right off the bat that I’m not a science fiction reader, and initially I struggled to get into this. There’s not much in the way of a traditional ‘story’ beyond following four explorers as they leave Earth to investigate specific planets. These planets are varied, some teeming with life, some none. All have differing environments too, and the book explores how we humans can ‘change’ to adapt to that environment - which was interesting, as well as the moral dilemma of interfering with life for our own gain. There was certainly a lot of moral thinking here.
It’s a quiet novella, with a small amount of mystery and internal struggles. It’s about life, familial love, science and space. It’s a very different kind of read for me, and while I couldn’t get into this at first, when the mystery element kicked in I was intrigued. Intrigued enough to give Becky Chambers’ other books a go.
It’s a quiet novella, with a small amount of mystery and internal struggles. It’s about life, familial love, science and space. It’s a very different kind of read for me, and while I couldn’t get into this at first, when the mystery element kicked in I was intrigued. Intrigued enough to give Becky Chambers’ other books a go.
September 29, 2019
The good:
I honestly enjoyed the science bits and exploring the worlds. I kept thinking of Peter Watts' book, Starfish, where the people alter themselves for the harsh environment rather than the other way around. But unlike Peter's book, this is downright mild and doesn't go for the mental health issues. At least, it doesn't go for them in quite such a hardcore way.
The bad:
This is hard-SF, and while the cool focus is mostly on biology rather than physics, we still have to ignore quite a few things. My main concern is that it felt quite a bit like the dozens of short stories, novelettes, and novellas that go this same route to one degree or another. The only new thing this brings to the table is HOW the story is told, and even that is... okay. I still had a good time.
But all told? Interesting worlds and a slightly interesting end.
Never mind that we can almost always expect Earth to fall apart during ANY space exploration attempt. That's always a done-deal.
I honestly enjoyed the science bits and exploring the worlds. I kept thinking of Peter Watts' book, Starfish, where the people alter themselves for the harsh environment rather than the other way around. But unlike Peter's book, this is downright mild and doesn't go for the mental health issues. At least, it doesn't go for them in quite such a hardcore way.
The bad:
This is hard-SF, and while the cool focus is mostly on biology rather than physics, we still have to ignore quite a few things. My main concern is that it felt quite a bit like the dozens of short stories, novelettes, and novellas that go this same route to one degree or another. The only new thing this brings to the table is HOW the story is told, and even that is... okay. I still had a good time.
But all told? Interesting worlds and a slightly interesting end.
Never mind that we can almost always expect Earth to fall apart during ANY space exploration attempt. That's always a done-deal.
May 20, 2023
4.5 stars. May have more to say when it’s not 2:30am and I haven’t just dealt with 19 hours of flight delays 😭
This book was exactly the win I needed on this travel nightmare. Becky Chambers does not miss.
This book was exactly the win I needed on this travel nightmare. Becky Chambers does not miss.
September 30, 2019
A lovely, hopeful book. A love letter to science, a meditation on the wonder of space and discovery, both without and within.
October 16, 2019
Sigh. This is a case of managing your expectations. If you are coming into this book expecting what you've already read by Becky Chambers, well... Maybe don't read it (or don't have those expectations).
This book is basically a big metaphor. I would call it literary, not the typical scifi. Not a bad thing, and in another context on its own, I would have enjoyed it. But that's not what I was expecting. Not the author's fault at all! But I feel like this might happen to a lot of fans when it comes to this book.
Then again, maybe it's also a bit unfair that I read this really down to earth, thought-driving scifi after I just finished the most mind-blowingly fantastic and out there scifi trilogy by Octavia Butler.
Anyway...
To Be Taught If Fortunate is soft, slow and diverse. And it's by one of the authors I really like. So many things speaking for it. But for some reason, I had the hardest time getting into it, even though it's so short. The pages were simply crawling by, and that's a rarity for me. By page 50 I was still yawning and only got invested by page 100. (The story ends at page 138..)
It's weird, but I felt more like I was reading nonfiction than fiction. Nonfiction about a fantasy world. 50 pages in and we're still describing animal species, and essentially nothing has happened... I love nonfiction, but I prefer it to talk about real life stuff. When I read scifi, I want at least some sort of plot. Or character dynamics. Not nature descriptions. Or, I mean, not ONLY nature descriptions. This book basically only had those, and also a very quiet, underlying message that only comes through at the end.
I especially don't recommend this book for people with aphantasia, because you have to picture everything. Without that it's drudgery. If you are not into picturing while reading, I doubt you'll even come close to enjoying it.
Book Blog | Bookstagram | Bookish Twitter
This book is basically a big metaphor. I would call it literary, not the typical scifi. Not a bad thing, and in another context on its own, I would have enjoyed it. But that's not what I was expecting. Not the author's fault at all! But I feel like this might happen to a lot of fans when it comes to this book.
Then again, maybe it's also a bit unfair that I read this really down to earth, thought-driving scifi after I just finished the most mind-blowingly fantastic and out there scifi trilogy by Octavia Butler.
Anyway...
To Be Taught If Fortunate is soft, slow and diverse. And it's by one of the authors I really like. So many things speaking for it. But for some reason, I had the hardest time getting into it, even though it's so short. The pages were simply crawling by, and that's a rarity for me. By page 50 I was still yawning and only got invested by page 100. (The story ends at page 138..)
It's weird, but I felt more like I was reading nonfiction than fiction. Nonfiction about a fantasy world. 50 pages in and we're still describing animal species, and essentially nothing has happened... I love nonfiction, but I prefer it to talk about real life stuff. When I read scifi, I want at least some sort of plot. Or character dynamics. Not nature descriptions. Or, I mean, not ONLY nature descriptions. This book basically only had those, and also a very quiet, underlying message that only comes through at the end.
I especially don't recommend this book for people with aphantasia, because you have to picture everything. Without that it's drudgery. If you are not into picturing while reading, I doubt you'll even come close to enjoying it.
Book Blog | Bookstagram | Bookish Twitter
January 2, 2021
2.5 stars
I am in the minority on this one, but I did not care for this at all. I loved all of the Wayfarer books, and this novella was certainly well written, but the ending just felt so contrived and unrealistic that I can't move past that.
I liked the idea of a long-term scientific mission of exploration, with significant chunks of time spent on each planet to catalogue all the amazing finds. I liked the idea that the mission was essentially funded by a bunch of interested individuals after governments showed little interest in putting the money. I also enjoyed the close and family-like relationship between the four crew members.
The dilemma the crew ultimately ends up facing is a great question, and not something that would never have been thought of in advance of launch by any prepared crew heading out on an extended multi-year trip. But what could have been an incredibly interesting part of the story was resolved in the weakest way possible. There is no real discussion among the crew, just a sudden about face on the larger mandate of scientific exploration simply for the sake of knowledge, and a complete denial of the existence of any biological imperative to survive. The whole thing seemed so unlikely to me that I just could not buy into the story as a whole.
I am in the minority on this one, but I did not care for this at all. I loved all of the Wayfarer books, and this novella was certainly well written, but the ending just felt so contrived and unrealistic that I can't move past that.
I liked the idea of a long-term scientific mission of exploration, with significant chunks of time spent on each planet to catalogue all the amazing finds. I liked the idea that the mission was essentially funded by a bunch of interested individuals after governments showed little interest in putting the money. I also enjoyed the close and family-like relationship between the four crew members.
The dilemma the crew ultimately ends up facing is a great question, and not something that would never have been thought of in advance of launch by any prepared crew heading out on an extended multi-year trip. But what could have been an incredibly interesting part of the story was resolved in the weakest way possible. There is no real discussion among the crew, just a sudden about face on the larger mandate of scientific exploration simply for the sake of knowledge, and a complete denial of the existence of any biological imperative to survive. The whole thing seemed so unlikely to me that I just could not buy into the story as a whole.
March 21, 2020
“It is difficult to give thought to the stars when the ground is swallowing you up.”
★★★★.5
representation: queer characters, asexual rep, trans rep, polyamorous relationship, characters of colour (Mexican and Zambian).
[trigger warnings are listed at the bottom of this review and may contain spoilers]
A lovely, quiet novella that is quite thought-provoking and packs quite a punch. Becky Chambers is a master at writing heartbreakingly human stories that just happen to be set in space.
“I know how much a world can change within the bookends of a lifetime.”
trigger warnings: animal death, suicide attempt.
★★★★.5
representation: queer characters, asexual rep, trans rep, polyamorous relationship, characters of colour (Mexican and Zambian).
[trigger warnings are listed at the bottom of this review and may contain spoilers]
A lovely, quiet novella that is quite thought-provoking and packs quite a punch. Becky Chambers is a master at writing heartbreakingly human stories that just happen to be set in space.
“I know how much a world can change within the bookends of a lifetime.”
trigger warnings: animal death, suicide attempt.
September 16, 2020
Space exploration SF that sets its focus on science, biology in particular, instead of adventures on far away worlds.
This novella is written as an account of the survey mission the main character and her three fellow astronauts are on, sent back to Earth fifty years after they left the planet on their way to the four habitable worlds in orbit around the red dwarf star Zhenyi. All four worlds (Aecor, Mirabilis, Opera and Votum) are either known or suspected to harbour life. Ariadne and her colleagues are sent there to observe and study, but not to intervene. The mission is not about colonisation, but the gathering of knowledge.
Decades pass on Earth, while the crew of the Merian is on their way to the four exoplanets, a journey they mostly spend in torpor. The news packages they are receiving from Earth, years after the fact, become ever more foreign to them. They are very much on their own. Four people in search of alien life.
Like I said in the beginning, the focus is very much on science. One aspect of that is the somaforming, meaning that the bodies of the astronauts get altered in a way to make them adapt to the very different environments of the four worlds. But a much stronger focus is put on the biology of the "animals" the crew encounters. That was by far the most stimulating part of the story for me.
The relationships between the crew members are just an okay part of the book. I felt characters as well as the psychological effects of isolation were underdeveloped. The same is true for the developments on Earth. But that somehow works just fine in the context of that particular story, even though I expected it to be a much more prominent part of the book.
Generally speaking, this was much different from what I expected. Chambers‘ novella lacks a traditional plot, and I needed some time to get used to that. Not gonna lie, there were some dull moments, especially in the beginning. It all reads a bit like a textbook. But once I got used to it I found it very enjoyable. Some basic interest in biology certainly doesn’t hurt if you’re contemplating to pick up this book. But there are also some moments of contemplation, mainly on getting detached from our home world and the way we’re supposed to conduct ourselves when we enter into a foreign ecosystem. The exofauna in particular was quite fascinating, and human / alien contact offered one or two great moments. I’m not the biggest fan of the ending. But your opinion might be different.
Bottom line: Good, but not for everyone.
3.5 stars, rounded up.
Hugo 2020 nominee for Best Novella.
____________________________
Best Novel
• The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
• Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
• The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley
• A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
• Middlegame by Seanan McGuire
• The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
Best Novella
• Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom by Ted Chiang ( Exhalation)
• The Deep by Rivers Solomon, with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson & Jonathan Snipes
• The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark
• In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire
• This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
• To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
Best Novelette
• The Archronology of Love by Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed Magazine, April 2019)
• Away With the Wolves by Sarah Gailey ( Uncanny Magazine Issue 30: Disabled People Destroy Fanatsy! Special Issue)
• The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye by Sarah Pinsker ( Uncanny Magazine Issue 29: July/August 2019)
• Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin
• For He Can Creep by Siobhan Carroll
• Omphalos by Ted Chiang
Best Short Story
• And Now His Lordship Is Laughing by Shiv Ramdas (Strange Horizons 9 September 2019)
• As the Last I May Know by S.L. Huang
• Blood Is Another Word for Hunger by Rivers Solomon
• A Catalog of Storms by Fran Wilde (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 26, January-February 2019)
• Do Not Look Back, My Lion by Alix E. Harrow (Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #270)
• Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island by Nibedita Sen (Nightmare Magazine, Issue 80)
Best Series
• The Expanse by James S. A. Corey
• InCryptid by Seanan McGuire
• Luna by Ian McDonald
• Planetfall series by Emma Newman
• Winternight Trilogy by Katherine Arden
• The Wormwood Trilogy by Tade Thompson
Best Related Work
• Becoming Superman: My Journey from Poverty to Hollywood by J. Michael Straczynski
• Joanna Russ by Gwyneth Jones
• The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick by Mallory O’Meara
• The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein by Farah Mendlesohn
• 2019 John W. Campbell Award Acceptance Speech by Jeannette Ng
• Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin, produced and directed by Arwen Curry
Best Graphic Story or Comic
• Die, Volume 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans, letters by Clayton Cowles
• LaGuardia, written by Nnedi Okorafor, art by Tana Ford, colours by James Devlin
• Monstress, Volume 4: The Chosen, written by Marjorie Liu, art by Sana Takeda
• Mooncakes by Wendy Xu and Suzanne Walker, letters by Joamette Gil
• Paper Girls, Volume 6, written by Brian K. Vaughan, drawn by Cliff Chiang, colours by Matt Wilson, letters by Jared K. Fletcher
• The Wicked + The Divine, Volume 9: "Okay" by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie, colours by Matt Wilson, letters by Clayton Cowles
This novella is written as an account of the survey mission the main character and her three fellow astronauts are on, sent back to Earth fifty years after they left the planet on their way to the four habitable worlds in orbit around the red dwarf star Zhenyi. All four worlds (Aecor, Mirabilis, Opera and Votum) are either known or suspected to harbour life. Ariadne and her colleagues are sent there to observe and study, but not to intervene. The mission is not about colonisation, but the gathering of knowledge.
Decades pass on Earth, while the crew of the Merian is on their way to the four exoplanets, a journey they mostly spend in torpor. The news packages they are receiving from Earth, years after the fact, become ever more foreign to them. They are very much on their own. Four people in search of alien life.
Like I said in the beginning, the focus is very much on science. One aspect of that is the somaforming, meaning that the bodies of the astronauts get altered in a way to make them adapt to the very different environments of the four worlds. But a much stronger focus is put on the biology of the "animals" the crew encounters. That was by far the most stimulating part of the story for me.
The relationships between the crew members are just an okay part of the book. I felt characters as well as the psychological effects of isolation were underdeveloped. The same is true for the developments on Earth. But that somehow works just fine in the context of that particular story, even though I expected it to be a much more prominent part of the book.
Generally speaking, this was much different from what I expected. Chambers‘ novella lacks a traditional plot, and I needed some time to get used to that. Not gonna lie, there were some dull moments, especially in the beginning. It all reads a bit like a textbook. But once I got used to it I found it very enjoyable. Some basic interest in biology certainly doesn’t hurt if you’re contemplating to pick up this book. But there are also some moments of contemplation, mainly on getting detached from our home world and the way we’re supposed to conduct ourselves when we enter into a foreign ecosystem. The exofauna in particular was quite fascinating, and human / alien contact offered one or two great moments. I’m not the biggest fan of the ending. But your opinion might be different.
Bottom line: Good, but not for everyone.
3.5 stars, rounded up.
Hugo 2020 nominee for Best Novella.
____________________________
2020 Hugo Award Finalists
Best Novel
• The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
• Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
• The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley
• A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
• Middlegame by Seanan McGuire
• The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
Best Novella
• Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom by Ted Chiang ( Exhalation)
• The Deep by Rivers Solomon, with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson & Jonathan Snipes
• The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark
• In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire
• This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
• To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
Best Novelette
• The Archronology of Love by Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed Magazine, April 2019)
• Away With the Wolves by Sarah Gailey ( Uncanny Magazine Issue 30: Disabled People Destroy Fanatsy! Special Issue)
• The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye by Sarah Pinsker ( Uncanny Magazine Issue 29: July/August 2019)
• Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin
• For He Can Creep by Siobhan Carroll
• Omphalos by Ted Chiang
Best Short Story
• And Now His Lordship Is Laughing by Shiv Ramdas (Strange Horizons 9 September 2019)
• As the Last I May Know by S.L. Huang
• Blood Is Another Word for Hunger by Rivers Solomon
• A Catalog of Storms by Fran Wilde (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 26, January-February 2019)
• Do Not Look Back, My Lion by Alix E. Harrow (Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #270)
• Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island by Nibedita Sen (Nightmare Magazine, Issue 80)
Best Series
• The Expanse by James S. A. Corey
• InCryptid by Seanan McGuire
• Luna by Ian McDonald
• Planetfall series by Emma Newman
• Winternight Trilogy by Katherine Arden
• The Wormwood Trilogy by Tade Thompson
Best Related Work
• Becoming Superman: My Journey from Poverty to Hollywood by J. Michael Straczynski
• Joanna Russ by Gwyneth Jones
• The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick by Mallory O’Meara
• The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein by Farah Mendlesohn
• 2019 John W. Campbell Award Acceptance Speech by Jeannette Ng
• Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin, produced and directed by Arwen Curry
Best Graphic Story or Comic
• Die, Volume 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans, letters by Clayton Cowles
• LaGuardia, written by Nnedi Okorafor, art by Tana Ford, colours by James Devlin
• Monstress, Volume 4: The Chosen, written by Marjorie Liu, art by Sana Takeda
• Mooncakes by Wendy Xu and Suzanne Walker, letters by Joamette Gil
• Paper Girls, Volume 6, written by Brian K. Vaughan, drawn by Cliff Chiang, colours by Matt Wilson, letters by Jared K. Fletcher
• The Wicked + The Divine, Volume 9: "Okay" by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie, colours by Matt Wilson, letters by Clayton Cowles
August 28, 2020
5 stars - another new favourite - I'm getting better at finding these
This, THIS is the type of SciFi story I've been searching for. While reading other books, I've found myself wishing we could stop and explore the imagined worlds in greater detail. To partake in the joy of a discovery without a breakneck pace and nonstop human dramas to worry about. If you've ever had that wish, give this novella a try.
Oh and the respect for all other lifeforms puts Star Trek's prime directive to shame.
This, THIS is the type of SciFi story I've been searching for. While reading other books, I've found myself wishing we could stop and explore the imagined worlds in greater detail. To partake in the joy of a discovery without a breakneck pace and nonstop human dramas to worry about. If you've ever had that wish, give this novella a try.
Oh and the respect for all other lifeforms puts Star Trek's prime directive to shame.
June 24, 2021
Becky Chambers does it again with To Be Taught, If Fortunate. A beautifully written, incredibly quick read full of wonder, exploration, and discovery within and without.
This novella is centred around four astronauts on a mission to a far away system of planets and moons orbiting a red dwarf star. Sent on a several decade long mission to discover new life, learn all they can, and return home to share it with the world - even if their families won’t be around to see it.
Our main cast of characters are incredibly diverse and well fleshed out, and honestly just an absolute joy to meet. There is representation of queerness, asexuality, and polyamory, as well as transgender representation and racial diversity. I would encourage you to seek out own voices reviews to determine the quality of the representation, but I will say it felt quite natural and non-exploitative.
Chambers is incredibly talented when it comes to creating three dimensional characters with rich relationships, and she is equally adept at the creation of alien species. I will never tire of the detailed descriptions of alien life in this novella that had me stopping and searching for pencil and paper to sketch them and marvel right along with the characters.
This novella left me with a lingering feeling of awe and the pure joy of scientific discovery. As a Star Trek fan, this novella scratched an itch for wholesome science heavy sci fi with a side of moral quandary to my utter satisfaction.
We read this book as our final 2020 selection for my PBB Patreon Book Club and it incited a few hours of in depth and absolutely fascinating discussion! I would highly recommend this novella to any sci-fi lover. It has certainly become a new favourite of mine!
“Viewed in this way, you can never again see a tree as a single entity, despite its visual dominance. It towers. It’s impressive. But in the end, it’s a fragile endeavour that can only stand thanks to the contributions of many. We celebrate the tree that stretches to the sky, but it is the ground we should ultimately thank.”
Trigger Warnings: suicidal ideation
Watch me rave about how much I loved this in my December Wrap Up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEUKd...
You can find me on...
Youtube | Instagram | Twitter
This novella is centred around four astronauts on a mission to a far away system of planets and moons orbiting a red dwarf star. Sent on a several decade long mission to discover new life, learn all they can, and return home to share it with the world - even if their families won’t be around to see it.
Our main cast of characters are incredibly diverse and well fleshed out, and honestly just an absolute joy to meet. There is representation of queerness, asexuality, and polyamory, as well as transgender representation and racial diversity. I would encourage you to seek out own voices reviews to determine the quality of the representation, but I will say it felt quite natural and non-exploitative.
Chambers is incredibly talented when it comes to creating three dimensional characters with rich relationships, and she is equally adept at the creation of alien species. I will never tire of the detailed descriptions of alien life in this novella that had me stopping and searching for pencil and paper to sketch them and marvel right along with the characters.
This novella left me with a lingering feeling of awe and the pure joy of scientific discovery. As a Star Trek fan, this novella scratched an itch for wholesome science heavy sci fi with a side of moral quandary to my utter satisfaction.
We read this book as our final 2020 selection for my PBB Patreon Book Club and it incited a few hours of in depth and absolutely fascinating discussion! I would highly recommend this novella to any sci-fi lover. It has certainly become a new favourite of mine!
“Viewed in this way, you can never again see a tree as a single entity, despite its visual dominance. It towers. It’s impressive. But in the end, it’s a fragile endeavour that can only stand thanks to the contributions of many. We celebrate the tree that stretches to the sky, but it is the ground we should ultimately thank.”
Trigger Warnings: suicidal ideation
Watch me rave about how much I loved this in my December Wrap Up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEUKd...
You can find me on...
Youtube | Instagram | Twitter
April 23, 2020
So, I think Becky Chambers is brilliant at finding the kindness in collective humanity and making it interesting, and that her ability to imagine alien life is phenomenal. But I don't think she played to her strengths here.
CONTENT WARNINGS:
Things I liked:
-The description of the worlds. I think it's inarguable that the worlds she's imagined are so cool and fascinating. The imaginative bits are great.
-Some of the science. I liked the things she brought up that I didn't know about, like the handedness of sugars. That was neat.
-The relationships. Nice to have a group who is very competent and cares about each other, even in stressful situations.
-Somaforming. I thought this was a super cool idea I'd have liked to have explored more.
Things that didn't work for me:
-The story. Well there really wasn't one. It's a meandering exploration of planets that we then learn is Ariadne trying to give info to the reader so they can make a choice.
-Bad use of foreshadowing. The author sets up that something big happens and then doesn't address it until the very, very end in a way that didn't feel like a twist but rather an inevitability. If you say "you need to know what happened so you can understand what I've done," then everything we read about should be in service of that understanding, and the "what I've done" aspect should be a big effing deal. This threw it all away, in my estimation.
-Way too rambly. She's asking a very piercing question but instead of letting it be a knife, she gave us kiddie scissors. This would have been a cutting short story. It's a woolly novella.
-Ariadne. She's meant to be an "everywoman" character. Not the scientist, just the person who keeps things going, so we can use her as a proxy in our own ignorance. But she comes off as pretty condescending several times, oddly callous at others, and I found the focus of her serving as everyone's physical release partner to be...an odd focus.
-They don't address the big issue! Okay, real spoilers here. Really, I wanted this to be the central focus of the book, the idea that informed all of the threads Ariadne pulled at to weave her story (see what I did there?) but I don't think she did. If this is a web, she's like one of those spiders on meth who makes some sort of weird MC Escher hellscape out of silk.
Very disappointing. Lacking in the charm and insight I expect from Chambers, with no plot, what we're left with is a travelogue that abruptly ends in a question meant to be philosophical but comes across rather passive aggressive given the set up.
CONTENT WARNINGS:
Things I liked:
-The description of the worlds. I think it's inarguable that the worlds she's imagined are so cool and fascinating. The imaginative bits are great.
-Some of the science. I liked the things she brought up that I didn't know about, like the handedness of sugars. That was neat.
-The relationships. Nice to have a group who is very competent and cares about each other, even in stressful situations.
-Somaforming. I thought this was a super cool idea I'd have liked to have explored more.
Things that didn't work for me:
-The story. Well there really wasn't one. It's a meandering exploration of planets that we then learn is Ariadne trying to give info to the reader so they can make a choice.
-Bad use of foreshadowing. The author sets up that something big happens and then doesn't address it until the very, very end in a way that didn't feel like a twist but rather an inevitability. If you say "you need to know what happened so you can understand what I've done," then everything we read about should be in service of that understanding, and the "what I've done" aspect should be a big effing deal. This threw it all away, in my estimation.
-Way too rambly. She's asking a very piercing question but instead of letting it be a knife, she gave us kiddie scissors. This would have been a cutting short story. It's a woolly novella.
-Ariadne. She's meant to be an "everywoman" character. Not the scientist, just the person who keeps things going, so we can use her as a proxy in our own ignorance. But she comes off as pretty condescending several times, oddly callous at others, and I found the focus of her serving as everyone's physical release partner to be...an odd focus.
-They don't address the big issue! Okay, real spoilers here. Really, I wanted this to be the central focus of the book, the idea that informed all of the threads Ariadne pulled at to weave her story (see what I did there?) but I don't think she did. If this is a web, she's like one of those spiders on meth who makes some sort of weird MC Escher hellscape out of silk.
Very disappointing. Lacking in the charm and insight I expect from Chambers, with no plot, what we're left with is a travelogue that abruptly ends in a question meant to be philosophical but comes across rather passive aggressive given the set up.
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