There are rules in writing novels, commonly accepted conventions like, Thou Shalt Not attempt too many character viewpoints; Thou Shalt Not use exclamation points!; Thou Shalt amp the stakes to levels of existential significance for the climax; Thou Shalt conclude with a clever plot twist; Thou Shalt Not self publish thy book and launch a great career.
Well, rules are made to be violated. Some of them beg for it.
For some reason (pigheadedness on my part, if I’m being honest), I was in a no-sci-fi please phase in 2015, and so I missed Chambers’ debut, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. Recently a friend rectified that lack in my life with a battered trade edition that I had to glue back together before I could read it. I began the book with not a lot of hope — I thought it would be long on the hard technicals and short on the humanity. Man, was I wrong.
Not only did Chambers self-publish her first novel while funding it through Kickstarter, it was such a success that it was picked up for traditional print, was the first of a Hugo-award winning series, and launched a thriving career. She also breaks all of the aforesaid Thou Shalts and Thou Shalt Nots, the most striking one being the multi-point-of-view narrative, which is distinctly out of fashion these days. We expect a tight first- or third-person perspective and a tighter plot. Chambers’ work is more leisurely, discursive. Descriptive. The Long Way reminds us that, even if the destination is important, what makes a journey an adventure is the life lived along the way. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet feels like a science fiction cozy, with complexity, powerfully-drawn, disparate characters and cultures that feel real, lived in and, despite flaws, honestly just regular folks trying to do their best in a tough world.
The plot is pretty simple: Rosemary Harper needs a new identity and a new life, so she takes a job on a tunneling ship in an obscure frontier of space, a place where her past won’t find her. Ashby, captain of Wayfarer, needs a certified clerk to keep his licenses, records, and all inevitable paperwork in good form. Rosemary’s first real journey on Wayfarer takes the crew to the core of the galaxy, a long roundabout trip so the ship can tunnel a wormhole back to Galactic Commons space and admit a mysterious, possibly hostile species to the familiar space shared by a number of species. Humans are a minor, odiferous, and not particularly powerful, part of the alliance.
The crew of Wayfarer is delightfully interspecies. There are humans: Rosemary, Ashby, two mechanic techs named Kizzy (chaotic good) and Jenks (neutral good), and the sour fellow who cooks up the algae fuel, Corbin (bureaucrats gone wild). Ashby is tolerant, but clearly in charge. But there are other species, also: Sissix, the ship’s pilot, representing the Aandrisks, a saurian species; Ohan, a Sianat navigator who is described as a being somewhat resembling a … sloth? maybe?… with elaborate fractals shaved into their fur (they’re also a Pair — a Sianat host and a parasitic neurovirus called the Whisperer); and finally Dr. Chef, a Grum who is both ship’s cook and doctor, and described as “If you crossed an otter with a gecko, then made it walk like a six-legged caterpillar, you’d be getting somewhere” (p. 37). Finally, there’s Lovey, the AI interface that runs the ship, and with whom Jenks is in a relationship.
“Found family” is a cliché, but this disparate group has to function as both an efficient crew and a family if they’re going to last on their long way around. Like a family, the crew has its dysfunctions and annoyances, but every member is essential, and everyone gets to shine.
One of Chambers’ strengths is depicting a world that’s both exotic and universal, peopled with different cultures on other ships and in different ports, all of whom are treated with respect and drawn with sensitivity. There are modders, humans and others who modify their bodies with technical enhancements (which are controversial in polite society). There are desperately poor people, and oddball artists, and some genuinely scary individuals and cultures, but all of them possess intelligence and dignity. Rosemary, a sheltered young woman from Mars, is thrown in the interspecies deep end, but she’s surrounded by a crew that wants her to succeed.
Here and there are touches of profundity, but The Long Way is not deeply philosophical. We get musings on technology, on war and pacifism, on piracy and exploitation and imperialism, as well as on the best ways to live. It’s Jenks, who likely has a form of dwarfism, who counsels Rosemary when her past (as is inevitable) catches up to her, and he does it in a kind of roundabout way:
“Do you know why Human modders give themselves weird names?”
She shook her head.
“It’s a really old practice, goes back to pre-Collapse computer networks. We’re talking old tech here. People would choose names for themselves that they only used within a network. Sometimes that name became so much a part of who they were that even their friends out in the real world started using it. For some folks, those names became their whole identity. Their true identity, even. Now, modders, modders don’t care about anything as much as individual freedom. They say that nobody can define you but you. So when Bear gave himself a new arm, he didn’t do it because he didn’t like the body he was born in, but because he felt that new arm fit him better. Tweaking your body, it’s all about trying to make your physical self fit with who you are inside. Not that you have to tweak to get that feeling. Like me, I like to decorate myself, but my body already fits with who I am. But some modders, they’ll keep changing themselves their entire lives. And it doesn’t always work out. Sometimes they seriously mess themselves up. But that’s the risk you take in trying to be more than the little box you’re born into. Change is always dangerous.” He tapped her arm. “You’re Rosemary Harper. You chose that name because the old one didn’t fit anymore. So you had to break a few laws to do it. Big fucking deal. Life isn’t fair, and laws usually aren’t, either. You did what you had to do. I get that.” (p. 221)
It’s advice that can apply in a number of directions, no? So yes, you can find resonances. But you can also kick back and enjoy the kind of a novel that’s primarily a fun time, even when things get dark. Especially when things get dark. Because that’s when what we would call humanity if we were being speciesist about it shines brightest.
Announcement
(How’s that for official?) Starting in January, I’d like to do a group read of Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb series, starting with Gideon the Ninth. Oh, I know what you’re going to say: the final volume, Alecto the Ninth isn’t going to be published until next year, so shouldn’t we wait? Won’t all questions be answered then? I suspect strongly that, no, all questions will not be answered, not explicitly. The first three books are so layered, so interwoven, and so damned innovative that at best, we’ll be priming the engine so that we have some idea about what to look for when Alecto is finally published. I hope in the meantime we can pull out some threads, make some connections, and approach the final volume with as much cocky knowingness as is possible. Let me know if you’re interested — so far we have six willing victims eager readers.
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