Hugo Novella Round-up, 2020

I'm a bit late in posting this, even though I finished reading all the Hugo novellas weeks ago. As for many people, I'm sure, life has been a bit exhausting lately.

Anyway, below are brief summaries links to my full reviews of the Hugo novellas. The only exception is for the Ted Chiang because that's in a collection that I haven't finished reading, so I've included my full (not especially long) review in this post. Order is that used by  , out of laziness.

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Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom, Ted Chiang (Exhalation)

I really enjoyed this novella. It is possibly my favourite take on the manyworlds hypothesis/parallel timelines. The story follows a few different people as they interact with a new technology that allows them to communicate (via digital information only) with parallel timelines. The character driven story is interspersed with explanations of the technology, which I thought worked well and were not at all boring infodumps (though others might disagree). Overall, a very interesting and enjoyable read.

The Deep, Rivers Solomon, with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson & Jonathan Snipes

A key idea explored in The Deep is that if societal memory and specifically memory of trauma. The situation when the story opens is like this: one member of the wajinru people is the historian and only that person holds all the memories of past wajinru and events. ... As well as exploring how intergenerational trauma should be remembered, and by whom, The Deep questions whether it should be remembered at all, as Yetu grapples with some of these issues.

The Deep was a good read, though I found it was a little slow to start and not the sort of book I could read quickly. I recommend it to people interested in the premise and, perhaps, to fans of merpeople.

The Haunting of Tram Car 015, P. Djèlí Clark

In this story, a couple of public servants are tasked with fixing the problem of a haunted tram car in an alternate-world Cairo. Hijinks ensue. In this world, djinn exist and have helped cement Cairo and Egypt's significance on the world stage, including from a technological standpoint. (The steampunky cover is a pretty good representation of the setting, in my opinion.) Our put-upon agents have to contend with identifying the possibly dangerous being possessing the tram and then have to safely remove it. And all this is set against the backdrop of a Cairo-centred campaign to give women the vote.

In an Absent Dream, Seanan McGuire

Lundy was a mildly unhappy child before she found her door and her particular fairyland wasn't everyone's idea of a good time. But she liked it and she made friends and she felt like she belonged. She even made several trips between the two worlds, which isn't something we've seen close up before. The story spans years as Lundy goes back and forth and is more the story of her transitions than the story of adventures had on the other side of a door. It's the story of choices made, of fair value — because that's what the Goblin Market is all about — and of family.

This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

This is a remarkable book, told in a very poetic style, with chapters alternating between snippets of our characters’ lives and the letters they send each other. Although it is written as prose, one feels as though one is reading poetry. The use of imagery and metaphor is strong and frequent and the relationship between the characters shifts as they become more obsessed with each other as they learn more about the other.

... It is the kind of book that demands your full attention to properly take in its words and worlds.

To Be Taught, If Fortunate, Becky Chambers

The premise of To Be Taught, If Fortunate is quite straightforward: a small group of scientist-astronauts are on a multi-year mission to investigate four habitable planets and catalogue whatever lifeforms and other interesting things they find. The novella is basically a chronicle of their journey and the main interest in the book is the explanations of science and discovery. ... 

I wouldn't call it fast-paced, by any stretch of the imagination, but it worked for me.

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers is a novella that I read because it's on the Hugo shortlist. I considered picking it up a few times before (most notably when tempted with a hard cover at Dublin Worldcon) but held back because I didn't enjoy Record of a Spaceborn Few and I thought this novella was set in the same universe. It is not, but if it were, then it would be set much earlier than the Wayfarer books (aside from the one event that distinguishes it as a separate universe).

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.

The premie of To Be Taught, If Fortunate is quite straightforward: a small group of scientist-astronauts are on a multi-year mission to investigate four habitable planets and catalogue whatever lifeforms and other interesting things they find. The novella is basically a chronicle of their journey and the main interest in the book is the explanations of science and discovery. The background science did get a little tedious at times — especially at the start when the scene was being set — but overall there was a reasonable balance between duller background and exciting discoveries of weird things.

In coming to write this review I realised what, to me, set it apart from Record of a Spaceborn Few. Both books lack a fast-paced plot but To Be Taught, If Fortunate quickly establishes itself as an exploration log, whereas Record of a Spaceborn Few felt like things were about to happen, but then didn't. My favourite aspect of To Be Taught, If Fortunate is that just as I assumed nothing especially exciting would happen, something unexpected did happen. I wouldn't call it fast-paced, by any stretch of the imagination, but it worked for me. Because of this novella, I will consider reading more books from this author, which was not my stance before reading it.

Overall I enjoyed To Be Taught, If Fortunate, despite a bit of a slow start. I recommend it to readers who enjoy exploration narratives, and slower-paced stories. I think fans of Long Way To a Small Angry Planet will also enjoy To Be Taught, If Fortunate, although they are quite different books when it comes to the depth of characters (since there is less time in a novella to develop and evolve an ensemble of characters). I have not finished reading the Hugo novellas, but I expect this one will rate well.

4 / 5 stars

First published: 2019, Hodder & Stoughton / Harper Voyager
Series: No (not yet?)
Format read: PDF
Source: Hugo voter packet

Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers

Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers is another standalone novel set in the Wayfarers universe, along with Long Way To A Small Angry Planet and A Closed And Common Orbit both of which I've previously reviewed and enjoyed. Although it continues the trend of gorgeous covers, I didn't quite enjoy this one as much as the other two Wayfarers books.

From the ground, we stand. From our ship, we live. By the stars, we hope

Centuries after the last humans left Earth, the Exodus Fleet is a living relic, a place many are from but few outsiders have seen. Humanity has finally been accepted into the galactic community, but while this has opened doors for many, those who have not yet left for alien cities fear that their carefully cultivated way of life is under threat.

Tessa chose to stay home when her brother Ashby left for the stars, but has to question that decision when her position in the Fleet is threatened.

Kip, a reluctant young apprentice, itches for change but doesn't know where to find it.

Sawyer, a lost and lonely newcomer, is just looking for a place to belong.

When a disaster rocks this already fragile community, those Exodans who still call the Fleet their home can no longer avoid the inescapable question:

What is the purpose of a ship that has reached its destination?

The title of this novel pretty literally describes the story. The book is about a fleet of generation ships that left Earth in search of better worlds after it had been completely ruined. Some time after that, the Exodan fleet encountered the Galactic Commons which is a conglomeration of alien with much better technology than what the Exodans left home with. So the Exodan fleet, a few generations after first contact, find themselves in a position to merge with the rest of galactic civilisation (including the humans left behind on Mars and around the Solar System), and some use the opportunity of new technology to head for planets. But some are used to the way of life on the ships and, with a few technological improvements and the gift of a sun no one else was using, continue to live life their ancestors did. This is a story about some of those people.

It's quite a philosophical premise and makes for a fairly philosophical and very character-driven story. The characters are set up to show us different aspects of life among the Fleet and how Exodan values clash and mesh with the outside world. We get a very good idea of how life works for the Exodans — the foil of a visiting alien was very useful on that front — and the problems faced with integrating with the rest of the galaxy; down to the fact that Exodans don't have a currency but rather a barter system, and speak a different language to Martians.

The reason I didn't enjoy Record of a Spaceborn Few as much as the earlier stories is mainly because there were so many characters that I kept getting some of them confused for a pretty large chunk of the book. I'm not great with remembering character names, so even though each chapter was headed by the relevant PoV character's name, I was still getting a bit lost and losing track of things for a bit more than half the book. I had it sorted in my mind by the end but the frustration had already taken place by then. (I was tempted to go back and reread the prologue again to see if it had a bigger impact, but didn't.)

The issue, for me, was that the female characters, of which there were three, had quite distinct work lives but their home lives were not that obviously connected to their work. My brain just struggled to link character at home A with character at work A. I'm not even sure that it was because I was especially tired when I was reading... I had less trouble with the male characters because they were kind of less multifaceted; one was clearly distinguished as The Foreigner, while the other was The Teenager.

By the time I got to the end of this book I was properly enjoying it but I think it's a pity that it took me so long to get to that point. All of Chambers' work has been quite character-driven but this is the first time it didn't really work for me (there were parts of A Closed and Common Orbit that I found a bit dull, but they were interspersed with the parts I was more invested in, making up for it). While I didn't dislike any of the characters, I also wasn't solidly invested in any of them — probably thanks to getting them confused earlier on. This isn't the ideal situation for a character-driven story, alas.

Anyway, if you enjoyed the earlier Wayfarers books and you have a penchant for character-driven stories, then I definitely recommend Record of a Spaceborn Few. If the premise and the concepts I mentioned interest you, then I also suggest giving this book a go. I think it would be interesting to reread Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and then this one to get the full impact of the worldbuilding of different areas across both books... but it's definitely not necessary to have read any other Chambers books before starting this one.

3.5 / 5 stars

First published: July 2018, Hachette Australia
Series: Wayfarers book 3 of 3 so far, but they can be read in any order
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers is a companion novel to Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. It follows characters which appear in Long Way to a Small Angry Planet but covers events that happen both before and after the events in the earlier book. The two books can be read in any order, although the existence of one of the characters in A Closed and Common Orbit is a spoiler for one of the events in Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. Otherwise, there is very little overlap.

Lovelace was once merely a ship's artificial intelligence. When she wakes up in an new body, following a total system shut-down and reboot, she has no memory of what came before. As Lovelace learns to negotiate the universe and discover who she is, she makes friends with Pepper, an excitable engineer, who's determined to help her learn and grow.

Together, Pepper and Lovey will discover that no matter how vast space is, two people can fill it together.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet introduced readers to the incredible world of Rosemary Harper, a young woman with a restless soul and secrets to keep. When she joined the crew of the Wayfarer, an intergalactic ship, she got more than she bargained for - and learned to live with, and love, her rag-tag collection of crewmates.

The environment and ensemble cast in A Closed and Common Orbit are quite different to those in Long Way to a Small Angry Planet  The book consists of alternating chapters from the points of view of two characters: an AI who has just been moved to a human-looking body, after having been a ship AI; and Pepper, the human woman helping the AI. The AI sections are set in the "present", having some temporal overlap with Long Way to a Small Angry Planet  whereas Pepper's sections recount her rather horrific childhood. Sidra, the AI, has relatively mundane concerns regarding learning how to function as a person, and fitting in so as not to be discovered (an AI pretending to be human is illegal). Pepper's childhood and teen years, however, are much starker than might normally be expected and I found her half of the story more gripping and emotive.

It was not immediately apparent how the two stories tied together — aside from the obvious part where Pepper features in Sidra's story — but this became clear at the end (and a bit earlier, if you were paying attention). Even so, I was more invested in (young) Pepper for the entire book. The ending was wonderfully touching, and Sidra was involved in that, but it was mainly touching because of what we had learnt about Pepper's life. Which is not to say that Sidra's story was boring — it certainly had its exciting moments — but my interest in it was more intellectual than emotional.

If you enjoyed Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, then I expect you will also enjoy A Closed and Common Orbit. However, if you didn't like the plot structure of Long Way to a Small Angry Planet  then, despite the dual storylines, A Closed and Common Orbit might not be for you. If you enjoy sociological SF about community and the meaning of personhood, then this is definitely the book for you. I am keen to see what else Chambers writes, whether or not it is set in the same universe as her first two books.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: 2016, Hachette Australia
Series: Sort of. Wayfarers universe, second publication set in that world
Format read: eARC
Source: publisher via NetGalley

Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers is a debut science fiction novel by a new-to-me author. It's a standalone book, although I hear a companion novel is on the way.

When Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer, she isn't expecting much. The Wayfarer, a patched-up ship that's 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.

I had heard a lot of comparisons of this book to Firefly, and also how the cover, while pretty, was not representative of that. That commentary was part of what made me pick this book up sooner rather than later (a friend gushing and a sale are what led me to buy it). However, aside from being an ensemble cast on a spaceship in the distant future, there really aren't many similarities to Firefly. I'd argue that the significance of each character in Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is more evenly spread than in Firefly, too. And then there's the plethora of alien races, the lack of criminal activity on the part of the crew as a whole, no fugitive magical girls... The differences are endless.

It probably will appeal to a similar demographic, though.

The plot in Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is less direct than in most of the books I've read lately, possibly because I've been reading a lot of YA and comics. Each crew member has their own goals as well as the common goal of doing their jobs and not dying in the process. At the start, we probably get a bit more of Rosemary's perspective since she's the new arrival and a good in for the audience. But we also see a lot of Captain Ashby's point of view to set the scene. As the story progresses, we learn backstories for all the characters, which are diverse and interesting.

The title comes from a key job the crew takes on, which takes a significant portion of the book to complete and does contribute to the climax. But it's not the only significant thing happening to the characters and I liked that.

I read this book on a transcontinental flight and I'd rank it as one of my better-chosen plane reads. I don't think I enjoyed it less for the severe sleep deprivation I was experiencing and I actively wanted to come back to it when I wasn't dozing. So much so that I ended up not watching any movies, not even during meals.

I highly recommend Long Way to a Small Angry Planet to all science fiction fans. I think it's a book with broad appeal with both fun and serious moments. The cast of characters is also broad enough that even if you're not interested in one character, there will be others to pick up the slack (I found all the stories interesting, however).

5 / 5 stars

First published: 2014, self-pub (Kickstarter was involved) then picked up by a couple of large publishers for the edition I read
Series: Standalone but another book in the same world ("Wayfarers") is on the way
Format read: ePub on Kobo
Source: Purchased from Google Play