The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet: the most hopeful, charming and cosy novel to curl up with

Becky Chambers

Mar 2015 · Hachette UK

About this ebook

LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEY'S WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION

'A quietly profound, humane tour de force' Guardian

The beloved debut novel that will restore your faith in humanity

#SmallAngryPlanet

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

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

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

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

PRAISE FOR THE WAYFARERS

'Never less than deeply involving' DAILY MAIL

'Explores the quieter side of sci-fi while still wowing us with daring leaps of imagination' iBOOKS

'So much fun to read' HEAT

'Chambers is simply an exceptional talent, quietly and beautifully redefining the space opera' TOR.COM

'The most fun that I've had with a novel in a long, long time' iO9

Ratings and reviews

Although this novel has its weaknesses - some of the subplots go astray - I enjoyed it a great deal. Reminded me, in terms of style, of Ready Player One. The characters are warm and rounded (on the whole), and I look forward to seeing what they get up to next time.

Superb, episodic, social sci fi. This is like the box set of season one of the best character driven science fiction show you'd ever watch, except without the content restrictions that even premium cable gives you. I delighted in the company of the Wayfarer's crew and look forward to returning to them soon.

Instead of interchangable one dimensional characters, machismo battles and bughunts, this is an intimate story about a bunch of loveable misfits who make up the crew of a "tunneling" ship, and what happens when they are offered a job that seems too lucrative to be true. Slow in parts, and painfully lacking in hard science, but makes up for it with the human interest aspect that is all too often lacking in science fiction.

About the author

Becky Chambers is a science fiction author based in Northern California. She is best known for her Hugo Award-winning Wayfarers series, which currently includes The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, A Closed and Common Orbit, and Record of a Spaceborn Few. Her books have also been nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Locus Award, and the Women's Prize for Fiction, among others. Her most recent work is To Be Taught, If Fortunate, a standalone novella. Becky has a background in performing arts, and grew up in a family heavily involved in space science. She spends her free time playing video and tabletop games, keeping bees and looking through her telescope. Having hopped around the world a bit, she's now back in her home state, where she lives with her wife. She hopes to see Earth from orbit one day.