The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

What's the title?

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet

Who wrote it?

Becky Chambers

When was it written?

2014

Would I recommend it?

Yes, especially for fans of Firefly and SJWs. Caveat - if you cannot abide being preached at in any way, then maybe pass on this version of this future liberals want.

What's it about? (non-spoilers)

A crew of loveable misfits take a job that mandates they sail their spaceship across the universe. Along the way readers get to discover the Galactic Commons, its history, and the different alien cultures that comprise it. There’s a pseudo-plot, but the main focus of this book is its character and world building.

What did you think? (spoilers)

The first thing I’ll say about this book is the first thing I noticed about it – the prose is exactly my cup of tea. There have been a handful of books where the writing itself feels simultaneously like breathing sharp mountain air and curling up under a blanket with a warm cup of tea. An Untamed State by Roxane Gay. Kindred by Octavia Butler. The Harry Potter Series. Like Fred Astaire dancing, this kind of prose makes all that hard work look effortless. Deceptively simple but holding a wallop of an impact, reading Planet’s first sentence felt like coming home.

The characters were endearing and fully individualized. In crew discussions where not all the dialogue was tagged, it was still clear to tell who was talking at any given point. Each character was given time for us, the readers, to get to know them better. Certainly there were characters that were given more narrative love than others, but they all were fully fleshed out, three-dimensional and nuanced characters. Which was good, considering that this novel is focused on them and barely even bothers with having a plot.

I don’t consider the lack of emphasis on plot to be a flaw of the book. While this wasn’t a page turner in the traditionally understood sense, my joy at getting to know these characters better and exploring this well crafted and fascinating world called known as the Galactic Commons kept me glued till the end. Chambers’s descriptions are so clear and concise I could easily picture all the various species and their homes.

As I mentioned earlier, this book doesn’t shy from preaching. Chambers obviously has a specific (leftist) worldview, and the readers are privy to her position on a gamut of issues. Off the top of my head I remember this book covering race, religion, gender, sexuality, colonialism, ally behavior, disability (mental and physical), body modification, library science, and gun rights. Yet while this book preaches, it never felt too preachy – at least to me it didn’t. Your mileage may vary. So while I didn’t agree with all of the positions espoused in this book, the presence of those positions in the narrative didn’t diminish the fun I found in this novel. I have friends and loved ones with whom I disagree. I still think they're great people. The same sentiment can be applied to this novel.

Honestly, my main problems with this novel happened in the final five chapters. They are one – the treatment of Ohan, and two – the position of the GC & Wayfarer crew in regards to the Toremi.

I’ll start by saying that I was originally impressed with the Ohan storyline. Ohan’s decision to die by the Wane as opposed to submitting to the heresy of removing/murdering the Whisperer was complex. I thought Ashby’s and Sissix’s discussion about how they as a crew should respond to that decision was a nuanced examination of differing points of view regarding the issue. Ultimately, I aligned with Ashby’s position – that while it truly sucked to allow a friend to die when there was an alternative available, it was ultimately their friend’s decision. And what’s more, I felt like the novel endorsed that position as well. (Characters may have varying points of view regarding any issue, but normally the novel sanctions one. Hence the previously mentioned not preachy preaching).

As fluffy a read as this novel was, I didn’t expect it would end with Ohan dying. I assumed when the Wayfarer was at jeopardy tunneling out from Hedra Ka that Ohan would choose of their own volition to commit the heresy to have enough cognitive function to save their crewmates. That would’ve aligned with the themes of cooperation and friendship that are present throughout the novel. But this is not what happened. Instead Corbin removes the Whisperer from Ohan without their consent and against their express wishes. As icky as that is, this is read as a redeeming moment for Corbin and as an ultimately happy ending for Ohan and the crew at large. Yay, Corbin really does care about his crewmates, and, yay, Ohan gets to live! But this isn’t happy for all the reasons Ashby said to Sissix just a few chapters back. Sure, there is some token mention of Ashby being furious with Corbin for what he did and assuming that Ohan hangs out with Corbin now to act as a specter of punishment for him. But this time Ashby’s view feels demoted from being the novel’s view of the issue to being only his as a character. After all, Ohan and Corbin’s dynamic post-incident read more like one of true friendship and gratitude as opposed to vengeance - again to me. YMMV.

It all felt double-minded, thematically inconsistent, and like the novel was trying to have its cake and eat it too. What’s more frustrating is this quagmire could have easily been avoided given that there was a thematically consistent way for Ohan to choose the cure for themselves and giving Corbin another redemption moment wouldn’t have been difficult. He says that he’s hurting for Jenks. Have him do something for Jenks then. Or Sissix. Or have Ohan ask him to give the cure while they’re tunneling from Hedra Ka. For a novel as tightly constructed as Planet, this felt like such a disappointing oversight.

Now to address the Toremi. Throughout the novel, respect of other cultures and species is a big deal. Corbin starts out as an unlikable character because he is speciesist against Sissix. As far as the metaphors go, speciesism is pretty clearly a one-to-one metaphor for racism. Throughout the novel we see the characters struggle with appreciating all aspects of another species's culture, but ultimately respecting that culture, even when the individual characters don’t understand it, is seen as a decent and even necessary thing to do. It’s part of the whole Sianat Pair question.

The Toremi are a species perceived by the GC for violence and infighting, with whom the GC are trying to ally themselves with in order to have better access to a valuable and rare energy resource, ambi. Rosemary sees this as wrong, a large political power exploiting another culture for their own gain and jeopardizing already tenuous political alliances within that other culture to do so. This felt like another one of the novel’s preachy moments, and it felt like a metaphor for Western intervention in the Middle East for resources, namely oil. Maybe that metaphor was accidental, but, regardless, it’s a pretty obvious comparison to miss.

So after members of the Toremi commit an act of terrorism to keep the GC out of Hedra Ka, Ashby reports to the heads of the GC that they had no right to be messing with the Toremi. All of this is well and good. But then Ashby essentially says that the GC should have no dealings with a race that is capable of such violence. He more or less says the Toremi should be avoided because they are a dangerous species and shouldn’t be messed with – like a feral dog. The novel seems to imply that the Toremi is bad as a species because not only do they bomb a tunnel, they don’t think Aeluons are attractive, something all the other species can agree on. It’s not that the Toremi posess a different culture and, like all species, have among their number awful individuals willing to commit heinous acts. No, it’s that all of those Toremi are violent and dangerous and not to be touched with a ten foot pole.

To be clear - I don’t think this is the author’s nor even the novel’s intended position on Middle Eastern people. I imagine Chambers would be aghast to think anyone reading Planet would think that she was arguing that Middle Eastern people are inherently bad. And maybe I’m reading this with a certain bias, seeing as how I majored in Near Eastern Studies and am keenly sensitive to Middle Eastern portrayals. However, in a novel where speciesism/racism is so discussed, to have a species whose only POV character is a terrorist and have one of the main heroes of the novel then declare that species is just too dangerous to mess with, and to drape on that species Western stereotypes about the Middle East – it feels like an all to defendable interpretation of the text. That the reading is antithetical to the major themes of the novel makes it all the more frustrating.

I wish the plot points previously mentioned had stayed true to the overarching themes and worldview of the novel at large. As it was, the novel didn't quite stick the landing for me, but I still found this a fun and light sci-fi read with a great cast in a magnificent world.

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