The Galaxy and the Ground Within

[psocoptera]

The Galaxy and the Ground Within, Becky Chambers. Fourth and theoretically final book in the Wayfarers series (she talks about "ending a series" in the acknowledgments, although I would not be surprised if she decided to go play in this universe again in ten or fifteen years or whatever (and I wouldn't even roll my eyes about that, unlike some authorial revisiting)). I liked it a lot, and without the reservations I had about the previous one (that post here). This is a very tight-focus book, with five characters, one location, and a narrow span of time, and it works really well, delivering some characteristic poignant moments and nice little bits of worldbuilding and aliens being alien in neat ways. I think it would read just fine as a standalone, or as a followup to the first book if you haven't read 2 and 3.

Comments

[psocoptera]

I thought this while reading and then forgot to say it - this felt a lot like a LARP scenario to me, if you decided to play a small, cozy, non-violent LARP. A lot of different pairs or subsets of characters finding each other and having character moments. Has me thinking about what it takes to make a satisfying LARP. :)

[ajacs]

I ended up pausing about 60% of the way through about a week ago, after several days of making no progress. I really enjoyed all three of the previous ones, and absolutely LOVED the second one, so on paper "Becky Chambers writes 5 non-humans who get stuck together at the Intergalactic Molly Pitcher Rest Stop" sounded pretty amazing. Part of my issue is that I have trouble keeping track of the name/physiology/culture combinations. Is it the doggie alien whose culture is super-introverted? The encounter-suit alien who's involved in the gray market? Actually that's probably all of my issue. I'm not sure I'll pick it up again because I don't see myself getting better at this anytime soon.