★★★★ (of 5)

• Full Title: Record Of A Spaceborn Few
• Author: Becky Chambers
• Year: 2018
• Pages: 358
• Genre: Science fiction
• Publisher: Harper Voyager
• ISBN 978-0-06-285115-4 (library hardcover)
• Wikipedia page
• Author’s Wikipedia page

 

Summary

This is the third book in a series that begins with The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet (2015) and mostly lists anecdotes in the lives of five characters: Tessa, Isabel, Sawyer, Kip, and Eyas — with each chapter being simply the name of one of those characters (and not always in the same order). At this point in the fictional universe, many humans are “Exodan Humans” — that is, inhabitants of the Exodan Fleet that left Earth many years before. Some humans have left the fleet to live among other sentients on their planets. I gleaned that some humans still live in the Sol System, but little was said of this.

 

Commentary

My final impression of the book is that it’s unlike any science fiction novel I’ve read in the past. Primarily, this is due to there being no plot, which flummoxed me throughout. As readers, we are trained both implicitly and explicitly that books should have some sort of antagonist — even intangible antagonists like peril or tragedy or the way society is structured. And the story arc usually revolves around the struggle, whether internal or external. This one did not have any of that, unless it was very subtle and I missed it. It was, as I said in the summary above, merely a collection of vignettes or anecdotes about five people (and secondary characters like neighbors, friends, relatives, etc.) — just their daily lives. What they do at their jobs, what they say to the people around them, how they feel when they come home from work. There were a couple of points during the book when I believed I had recognized a plot at long last, but each time I was mistaken. The theft at Bay Eight (page 109) turned out to just be a random theft. When Sawyer is approached by a stranger offering a job (page 120), it wasn’t a hint at a criminal underbelly of this society as I suspected. Life just went on.

But before I noticed the lack of plot, I noticed that this was definitely a sequel — it’s my own fault for failing to check the series order before bringing the book home. There is world-building and exposition here, but it’s the kind you get in sequels, when the author has already fully explained everything in earlier books and here are just a few reminders of the kind of universe these characters live in. For example, the initials “GC” were used repeatedly, but it wasn’t until page 169 that I learned it stands for “Galactic Commons” (I had assumed commonwealth, so pretty close). There are plenty of non-human species mentioned, but mostly in passing. Only one species is described in any physical detail. The ships are background characters, but aren’t described at all until more than 50 pages in. (And then I learned that the “plaza” mentioned in the prologue was probably inside one of these ships rather than on a planet like I’d assumed.)

But even before that, something that threw me off was: it’s written in British. I hadn’t expected that, believing the author to be American, but the first drop of ink was a backward apostrophe used as a quotation mark, and it was quickly followed by “clamour”, “centre”, “practised”, “honour”, and “grey”, just to name a few. I had to stop and look at the back flap, and my memory had been correct; Chambers is from California and lives there now. So then I went to Wikipedia to learn that this book was published by a British company, which explains the British formatting and spelling. My point is that it took me out of the story. (I do read plenty of British authors, but they’re often published by U.S. companies so I’m seeing their work in my language/formatting. And even if they use their native writing norms, I’m expecting it because I know them to be British.)

But the narrative itself is interesting. The characters were believable, realistic people. The fictional universe was (eventually) well-described and it was well-conceived. It’s clear that a lot of work went into developing the background of this story and the design of the ships.

 

Points Off For...

I’m not taking off points for the lack of a plot. That was odd to me, and a bit distracting because I kept looking for one, but that’s on me. On this point, I remain taken aback, but don’t necessarily see it as a negative. I simply wasn’t aware publishers were accepting books written in such a way.

I do take off points for the delayed explanations and the assumptions that readers have already been through the first two books. I take off points for the repeated exclamation ‘Stars!” (in place of “damn” or “my lord”, apparently), which was a cute bit of futuristic lingo until it started showing up on every other page. Speaking of futuristic lingo, Chambers came up with quite a bit and I admire the effort — because we simply must assume that distant future people will continue changing the language as we have. But the reader is still in the 21st Century and doesn’t know what these words mean without explanation or helpful context.

 

Something Else

I don’t even know how to say this part, but... Everything was just really nice. Even the lawbreakers/looters turned out to be nice people, and were really heartbroken when one of their new recruits died in an accident. The shipboard police were calm and nonviolent and understanding and not pushy in any way. People apologized a lot — for things like: answering a question, asking a question, not knowing what had been bothering someone else. No one apologized for any really bad thing, because no one did any really bad things. Everyone works and helps and is an integral part of the spacebound society.

I couldn’t tell if this was part of the author’s message — “hey, if we take care in organizing our society correctly then things will be very much better” — or whether the author simply didn’t want to have bad things happening in the story. (There is a traumatic event in the prologue, but it’s mostly offscreen and it was a total accident.)

I’m not taking points off for this either; it was simply strange, due to me being accustomed to villains and laziness and unbridled capitalism, both in real life and in fiction.

 

Conclusion

As explained here, the biggest portion of my ratings of fiction books comes from whether I enjoyed it. And I did enjoy this one. I enjoyed that it was unusual. I enjoyed the characters and the clear/precise writing. Dialog was believable and felt natural. I sympathized most with the mother of a toddler; that all felt very real. Once I reached the halfway point, my reading pace picked up; I could see myself as an observer on these ships, watching these people live their lives.

 

 

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