Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Galaxy, and the Ground Within: A Novel
    The Galaxy, and the Ground Within: A Novel
    The Galaxy, and the Ground Within: A Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Galaxy, and the Ground Within: A Novel

    Written by Becky Chambers

    Narrated by Rachel Dulude

    4.5/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    Return to the sprawling, Hugo Award-winning universe of the Galactic Commons to explore another corner of the cosmos—one often mentioned, but not yet explored—in this absorbing entry in the Wayfarers series, which blends heart-warming characters and imaginative adventure.

    With no water, no air, and no native life, the planet Gora is unremarkable. The only thing it has going for it is a chance proximity to more popular worlds, making it a decent stopover for ships traveling between the wormholes that keep the Galactic Commons connected. If deep space is a highway, Gora is just your average truck stop.

    At the Five-Hop One-Stop, long-haul spacers can stretch their legs (if they have legs, that is), and get fuel, transit permits, and assorted supplies. The Five-Hop is run by an enterprising alien and her sometimes helpful child, who work hard to provide a little piece of home to everyone passing through.

    When a freak technological failure halts all traffic to and from Gora, three strangers—all different species with different aims—are thrown together at the Five-Hop. Grounded, with nothing to do but wait, the trio—an exiled artist with an appointment to keep, a cargo runner at a personal crossroads, and a mysterious individual doing her best to help those on the fringes—are compelled to confront where they’ve been, where they might go, and what they are, or could be, to each other.


    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateApr 20, 2021
    ISBN9780063069190
    Author

    Becky Chambers

    Becky Chambers is a science fiction author based in Northern California. She is best known for her Hugo Award-winning Wayfarers series, which currently includes The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, A Closed and Common Orbit, and Record of a Spaceborn Few. Her books have also been nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Locus Award, and the Women's Prize for Fiction, among others. Her most recent work is To Be Taught, If Fortunate, a standalone novella. Becky has a background in performing arts, and grew up in a family heavily involved in space science. She spends her free time playing video and tabletop games, keeping bees, and looking through her telescope. Having hopped around the world a bit, she’s now back in her home state, where she lives with her wife. She hopes to see Earth from orbit one day.  

    More audiobooks from Becky Chambers

    Related to The Galaxy, and the Ground Within

    Titles in the series (3)

    View More
    View More

    Related audiobooks

    Science Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Guide To The GALAXY

      May 29, 2020

      Guide To The GALAXY
      7 min read

    • Article

      Rock Of Ages

      Dec 27, 2020

      Rock Of Ages
      6 min read

    • Article

      Six Bestiary Poems

      Nov 1, 2020

      The world, is it finite? Pliny the Elderon what he saw and heard, 37 “books” toround that up, early C.E. as heproceeded to be infinite. His Naturalis. His Historia.First bestiary ever in Book 8. Land lifeand sea life and through-the-air and undergrou

      4 min read

    • Article

      89 Utah, USA

      Dec 16, 2020

      89 Utah, USA
      4 min read

    • Article

      Desert Soul

      Jan 30, 2018

      Desert Soul
      3 min read

    • Article

      Mosi-oa-tunya

      Jun 30, 2021

      Mosi-oa-tunya
      3 min read

    • Article

      Extraterrestrial

      Dec 1, 2019

      Extraterrestrial
      7 min read

    • Article

      TRAVEL Guy

      Oct 12, 2021

      TRAVEL Guy
      8 min read

    • Article

      TRAVEL Guy

      Oct 12, 2021

      TRAVEL Guy
      8 min read

    • Article

      Wild At Heart

      Sep 9, 2022

      Wild At Heart
      13 min read

    • Article

      The Spaces In-between

      Jul 15, 2020

      We were just off South Cape when a voice came out of the long-wave radio and announced that Tasmania had closed its borders. Everyone stopped moving. Eyes like plates, jaws dropped to the floor. Coffee mugs suspended mid-flight. The whole catastrophe

      3 min read

    • Article

      Six Pictures of Paradise: I was puzzled by the artist’s photographs of my home in the Amazon—then I looked again.

      Jun 26, 2014

      For many years I ran a field station in Amazonian Peru. The station was a five-hour canoe ride from the nearest road, and every Friday our boat made the long trip upriver carrying crates of groceries, drums of gas for the generator, a mountain of scu

      4 min read

    • Article

      LETTER FROM Vredehoek

      Jul 20, 2020

      My right hand holds a pair of braai tongs and sporadically busies itself by turning a chicken drumstick on the grid. My left hand holds my phone at an angle where I can see the image on the screen clearly: A big pack of wild dogs are trotting athleti

      3 min read

    • Article

      In Search Of . . .

      Jan 1, 2019

      In Search Of . . .
      7 min read

    • Article

      Nature’s Gentle Giants

      Jun 12, 2020

      ‘I CAN’T hear anything.” “Nothing at all?” “Honestly, just feedback. Wasn’t his last point here?” “Oh, but that point was very early this morning. Let’s look for him.” I sighed and took the radio receiver from my ear. I was tracking a male elephant n

      8 min read

    • Article

      Letter Bocks

      Jan 5, 2022

      ◻ I STAYED up late last month to see that International Space Station fly over our house. Quite apart from the disappointment of just seeing a white dot cross the sky, I was very concerned at the speed they appeared to be doing. I don’t care how much

      13 min read

    • Article

      Back of Beyond

      Mar 30, 2020

      It isn’t every day that you do something life-threateningly stupid. Our cities and towns are bubbles of civilisation, and just outside their confines are South Africa’s wild lands – great open spaces in which the landscape is the same as it was thous

      2 min read

    • Article

      Sweet Fantasy

      Nov 20, 2021

      Sweet Fantasy
      8 min read

    • Article

      We Are All Made Of Stars

      Oct 7, 2022

      We Are All Made Of Stars
      27 min read

    • Article

      Sarah Baxter Stranded in Peru

      Jun 25, 2020

      After ten days of trekking and a couple of Cusqueña beers, I was spark out in my hotel room when the telephone rang. Nothing made much sense, as things don’t when you’re jerked from sound sleep. For reasons I couldn’t fathom, the lady on the other en

      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Galaxy, and the Ground Within

    4.5/5

    495 ratings34 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Delightful world with very rich characters. I loved the interaction they had. Peaches us all to keep our minds open.
    • 5/5
      I cannot rave enough about this book. Thoughtful, articulate, nuanced, and deeply felt. Questions I never would have thought to ask, that nevertheless become startlingly relevant when you can't make so many assumptions about the individual next to you. I laughed out loud in both surprise and recognition at many points along the way. I cried more than once, especially during the epilogue for Speaker and Tracker, and it was the best kind of book cry. It is always stunning to me how much depth, potency, and creativity Chambers can combine in a novel without turning it into a doorstopper as some others do. I wish we could replace some dated required classroom reads with books by Becky Chambers - we could use many more minds thinking so beautifully.
    • 5/5
      Beautiful. As with the previous entries in the series, brought me to tears several times (in a good way).
    • 5/5
      Once again Becky Chambers has written a magnificent space soap opera, bringing together another assortment of aliens into a gripping narrative that had me hooked from the start.

      If you have enjoyed the previous books, snap those up as fast as you can!
    • 5/5
      Lovely return to one of my favorite universes! Focusing on one returning character (Pei, Ashby's friend) and other new ones, this novel is about 4 or 5 disparate species forced to spend five days together when a catastrophic event prevents all flight on or off planet. Satellite. Whatever the tiny rock is called. Everything is not harmonious, but they get along well enough that I found this novel enjoyable to listen to (I'm not up for dystopian novels these days given, given our current existence in the US). I started this book, but went back and re-read A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, still my favorite work by Becky Chambers. I'm so glad I did that, because I had forgotten much about the crew of the Wayfarer. Then I finished this book. A near tragedy brings all the characters closer together, but sadly, that seems to happen more than when good things occur. This is probably my second fave in the series, and anyone looking for an outsider's explanation of what cheese is, will love it, too!
    • 3/5
      As always, I enjoyed the characters so much. I do wish there had been more of a plot but the author works in character driven stories and I enjoy them.
    • 4/5
      The fourth book in the series is a self-contained story. There are characters from previous books, but the reader doesn’t need to know them to enjoy this story. Like last book this is more of a slice of life and not a huge story of heroes and villains. This story covers group of various species of travelers stuck at a waystation due to a global satellite failure. It covers how they interact with one another and their host at the fuel stop. It also gives the reader more insight to the various aliens that make up this story universe. Reading this felt like a comfortable blanket wrapping around you. There are life decisions made by each character at the end of the book and it is because of the time and talks they had with each other. There are some spoilers for the previous books but a new reader will not be lost.

      Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Netgalley
    • 3/5
      Another “ordinary sf,” where some aliens stuck together at a rest stop after an accident have to figure out how to wait for repairs, which involves a lot of making food and a bit of interpersonal conflict, including dueling perspectives on colonization. It was cozy but the best bit was when all the aliens were appalled by the human practice of eating cheese—solidified milk from another mammal! Meanwhile, the kid I take in carpool explained a few days ago that he would definitely eat a me-burger made from his own cultivated skin cells. Humans: space orcs or space teenagers?
    • 4/5
      To close out her Wayfarers series, author Becky Chambers gives us The Galaxy and the Ground Within which features five aliens as the main characters. Although there is very little action or story to follow, the book alternates between these characters and slowly lets us understand who they are, and how the others see them. They meet at an out of the way space station and are forced to stay and mingle with each other due to a tech failure. Their interactions with one another creates interest, tension, humour and understanding. Other than a mother and child combination, the characters do not share a history, customs or physicality. And yet, even though there are political disagreements, they are able to overcome their differences and work together when they need to. The author’s viewpoint is rather idealized as she explores alien perspectives, but her simplified messages give the book heart and warmth.I have enjoyed all the Wayfarer books and although The Galaxy and the Ground Within is not my favorite of the series, I appreciated the read and was happy that the author gave a nod back to the first book of the series by having Pei Tem from Aeluon as one of the stranded aliens. This is a story about bonding and widening one’s outlook, something that I am sure the author would like to see happen in our troubled real world.
    • 5/5
      Thoughts: I loved this book just as much as the last one. Where the last book really focuses on the humans that live in the Fleet, this book is more focused on other alien races. The book is set on Gora, a dull planet that's on a major travel route. Gora is pretty much an intergalactic truck stop. In particular we are introduced Ouloo who is Laru, her and her teen child (Tupo) who run the Five-Hop One-Stop travelers rest. It's a place for travelers to park their ships, re-fuel, have a snack and stretch their legs. When disaster strikes above Gora, Ouloo's visitors are forced to interact a lot more and have a much longer stay than they were expecting.The premise is simple but this book was so rich in thoughtfulness and amazing characters. Ouloo and Tupo are fun characters all on their own. They are joined by Roveg a Quelin (who is a crustacean-like character), Speaker who is one of the Akarak (who as a species was denied entry into the GC because of their short lifespans), and Pei an Aeluon who is Ashby's (Ashby is human) love interest from the first book. Each character is dealing with their own trauma and has their very separate lifestyle but somehow they all ended up coming together and supporting each other.I absolutely love Chambers' creativity in developing these different alien species and love how she brought them together. This is such a feel good book. The different species all have their different perceptions of the other species as a whole, but of course your perception of a species is not the reality of the individuals of that species. In this book the characters are constantly surprising each other, both with their differences and similarities. They may live different lifespans and breath different types of air but they might love the same music or enjoy the same types of activities. In the end, when a child is injured it doesn't matter what species that child is, they all put aside their differences to help in the best way they each individually can.Chambers makes these species come alive and I loved all the individual characters as well. They felt so real and reading about them was completely engrossing and intriguing. I am still in awe at how Chambers can pull me completely into a story like this when there really isn't a strong plot driving anything forward. These are just aliens hanging out at a rest stop and the book was completely impossible to put down. I loved every minute of it. My only complaint is that this didn't feel like the end of the series and I feel like there must be a lot more stories that want to be told in the Wayfarers world.My Summary (5/5): Overall I loved this book and really loved this series as a whole. The amazing alien races and the thoughtfulness with which they interact was fascinating. These characters are so easy to engage with and love and so fascinating to read about. If I have any complaints it is that I am super sad that this series is over and I would love to read more stories set in the Wayfarers universe. I would highly recommend this series if you are interested in the softer more introspective side of science fiction. All the Wayfarers books are thought-provoking, heart-warming and just flat out fascinating.
    • 4/5
      Nice. This is quite a small story - most of it takes place in one habitat dome, with a few travelers and their hosts trapped within by... circumstance and accident, basically. Because they're caught together, and they're all decent people, they talk - and argue - and find out about each other and help each other with problems that arise, from their own circumstances and from being trapped there (missed schedules and the like). It shows the readers a lot more about this universe and some of its peoples, though all of them are iconoclasts of various types. Small events give rise to perception changes which lead to bigger changes - I hope there are very big ones, Speaker and her people deserve better. Fun and fascinating, as usual for Becky Chambers.
    • 5/5
      An amazing novel in the Wayfarers' universe. The story can be read as a stand alone and only shares the same world as the previous books. The story is about different, individual aliens getting stranded together. This gives them time to connect, learn about each other's cultures and opinions, and essentially grow in their own world view. Each character is amazing and unique. It can be super interesting or even beautiful when different cultures get explained together and accepted for their differences. There really is no plot and has more of a slice of life feel. I really recommend this book.
    • 5/5
      Exactly what I hoped for from another Wayfarer's book -- a diversity of species in a weird situation trying to get along and discovering more about each other in the process. I particularly loved that in many way this book centers on reproduction -- on the challenges of childrearing, on the autonomy of parents regardless of the love for offspring, and on the ultimate and unassailable power of choice. Very topical, and I respect more than I can say that Chambers kind of pulled the wool of her own world-building back to remind us of the ugly side of the GC; to show us that there are winners and losers in Utopia, too, and that there are still wrongs to rectify. Speaker is such a great character, and her strength of opinion and mind are amazing. I also love that there is a an argument that she and Pei cannot get through -- that they cannot come to agreement or pretend to like someone who holds the opposite opinion, but they still manage to respect each other. They still manage civil discourse. That costs them, but it's an example that America needs right now, in so many ways.
    • 5/5
      Gah, I love Becky Chambers' work so much!We are back in the Wayfarers world of "A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet," this time at a stopover joint for interstellar travel. There is the site host and her child and three travelers passing through. Deliciously, none of these main characters are human and so we get to explore different cultures, foods, ways of being and moving and communicating. Due to unforeseen circumstances, they end up having to stay at the Five-Hop One-Stop longer than planned. The reader learns more about each character and gets to see how their interactions influence each other. Lovely and deceptively simple and heartfelt. Review cross-posted to Goodreads
    • 4/5
      This fourth book in Becky Chambers' loosely connected Wayfarers series is set in a sort of interstellar truck stop, where some kind of orbital disaster traps several aliens of various kinds together for a few days.You know, I remember reading The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, the first book in the series, and commenting that I was something like a hundred pages in before it suddenly occurred to me that basically nothing had happened in it, and that I didn't remotely care because I was really enjoying hanging out with all of the characters, and learning about all the different aliens species in this universe and their cultures and interactions with each other, and so on.Well, this one is also largely about hanging out with characters and learning about alien cultures while not much actually happens, but this time I definitely noticed. Everything was mildly interesting, and all the characters were mildly likeable, but it wasn't exciting me or keeping my attention in anything like the same way. I also couldn't escape the very strong sense that the entire thing was basically an exercise in the author carefully modelling How to Behave Well Towards Others and Respect Their Personal and Cultural Diversities for the benefit of her readers. As moral lessons go, this is one I'm in favor of, and it's done pleasantly enough and not in a way that's terribly clunky or preachy, but, nevertheless, I sometimes felt like I was experiencing some sort of science-fictional Mr. Roger's Neighborhood gently attempting to teach me good behavior by example. But, with the greatest of respect and love for the late Fred Rogers... I really do feel a bit too old for that.
    • 5/5
      The whole series seems of its time — not that it’s going to feel dated, just that 2015-2021 is such a particular, eventful era that anything thoughtful written in that time is going to feel like it couldn’t have been written anytime else. This is the COVID lockdown / having difficult race conversations with conservative loved ones entry in the series. Again, it’s specific enough to its own universe that I doubt it’ll feel dated, but some moments were deeply emotional for me (like the lights flashing at each other across the habitat domes, the way we stood on our porches with flashlights in early pandemic) that may just go by unnoticed for a younger reader 20 years from now. I understand Chambers needing to move on from this universe, but I will miss it tremendously.
    • 4/5
      In The Galaxy and the Ground Within, a handful of travelers have been stranded at a galactic rest stop due to a natural disaster. Each of these travelers (including the innkeeper) is a different alien race, and while they are united by a galactic government, they come from very different cultures. Despite their differences, the travelers move from the politeness of strangers to actively supporting one another, as each wrestles with a delay to their urgent personal reasons for travel. It's refreshing to see how everyone is able to open up, not only in providing emotional support for one another, but also in their willingness to learn about each other's ways of life. This is definitely a comfort read, and better captures the feeling of The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (the first book in the series) than the other works.
    • 5/5
      On a bare, rocky planet in the middle of nowhere, you wouldn't expect to find much of anything. However, the planet's location makes it a good stopover for ships making interstellar jumps. Ouloo, a Laru, and her adolescent child staff the Five-Hop One-Stop, a sort of convenience store for travelers. There are snack foods, a bath house, and a garden where the space-weary can stretch their legs planet-side. Nobody stays for long -- at least, not when things are going well. But when a planet-wide mechanical disaster strands three very different travelers at the Five-Hop for a time, they must learn to put aside their prejudices and first impressions in order to deal with their situation.You guys have failed me. How did I not know that there was a new Becky Chambers? It's (*sob*) the last book in the Wayfarers series. Like the books before it, there are only tenuous connections to the other volumes in the series, but I feel like this one takes us full circle in a way. It's a lovely tale of relationships and the connections that can be formed in difficult circumstances. If you enjoyed the other books in the series, this is not to be missed -- and if the premise of this one intrigues you, it's fine to start here.
    • 4/5
      This installment of the Wayfarers series is more like the first one than the other two: it goes back to the original theme of different species of aliens putting real effort into getting along despite major cultural and biological differences. Not much really happens in the story, but that's just fine. It is the epitome of cozy sci-fi, with interesting characters who genuinely care about each other, and it shows how things work out for the best when people just try to understand each other.It is set on a boring little planet, which happens to be at the center of several major travel routes, so the whole planet is basically just a bunch of hotels for people on their way to other places. Several different races stay together at one little hotel, whose hostess does everything she can to accommodate the needs and palates of all of her guests, while her teenage child causes some normal teenage chaos. The satellite communications network around the planet is offline for a few days, so everyone is stuck on the planet and they have to work a little harder to get along while dealing with their own anxieties, prejudices, and personal problems. This is a charming and cozy read, and it's just nice to think about people trying to understand each other and get along.
    • 4/5
      4.5 stars Becky Chambers is by far my favorite contemporary author, this book fits perfectly in her Wayfarers universe. I'm so sorry to see that this is the last book planned in the series. Her characters were perfect, not that they were perfect but rather they were perfectly believable. The slice of life story tells of 4 alien races trapped together, how they opened up to each other and came to understand each other. Roveg was my favorite character, but each of the others came in a close 2nd.
    • 4/5
      Social SF. You'll detect the themes/topics of difference, diversity, colonialism, and systemic discrimination. Nicely done. Sappier than LeGuin.
    • 5/5
      Another great book by Chambers.This one is set on a way-station got deep-space travelers. Two characters are from that place, with others being temporary visitors. One character, Pei, is from previous books.
    • 5/5
      I love this! The best in the series!
    • 5/5
      An Akarak, a Quelin, and an Aeuluon walk into a planetary co-op...

      Oh, stars. I am so sorry for that. It was the first thing that came to mind when I was thinking about how to summarize this book.

      Words cannot express how connected I've felt with this series. I am so sorry to see it ending (and so excited for the new worlds to come!), but this really encapsulated all the things I have loved about it, about the worlds that Chambers creates. It was so funny and sweet and quietly thrilling. I particularly loved the through-line of accessibility and inclusion in this one. I'm left just wanting the cradle the book in my arms. Becky Chambers' books are my desert island books, for real.
    • 1/5
      Has the early 21st century witnessed the death of the original? No-one seems able to write anything new these days, be it literature or TV film scripts - everything is a rehash, a reboot, a new slant on the old if not a shameless copy. 19th century fin de siècle Western society brimmed with the new, the adventurous (good and bad). The avant-garde across Europe, Russia and the USA were delighting a few and horrifying masses and this trend exploded in the early 1900's - Joyce, T.S Eliot, E.E. Cummings, Brecht. We had a sort of creative end to the 20th Century in music and art (good and bad) if not literature but it was shallow (the lazy conceptualism of massively over hyped YBAs is a prime example). There were no great new ideas driving art or society forward and no great new art created. Even the burst from the end of the 90's fizzled out completely within a few years and we are left with what...no new genre of music, art, literature or anything in 20 years. A dull landscape of repetition, hype and money & marketing in place of true creativity. Some of it expertly done I concede but passion and talent without originality is still a poor substitute for the real thing. The poor imitations we have today lack depth, lack quality, lack value - they do not merit or deserve the attention they receive in the absence of anything better. Perhaps there can be nothing new until the old is called out for what it now is - worthless - and destroyed accordingly. Of course, when it comes to SF the problem is perhaps 10-fold worse (Sturgeon’s Law applies here). The cultural "SF industry" today works in certain ways, limiting our access to a multitude of works. Originality is no longer a virtue strongly associated with modernity and modernism in particular. What has come after that – if we want to broadly call it postmodernism – accepts rewrites, versions, variations and loans. This is not bad in and of itself. After all, all of Brecht's works are essentially rewrites of earlier stories, and he made no secret of it. I'm still stunned at how many "writers" in any genre today and in SF in particular are seemingly content to retread old ground and don't even try to push boundaries. We’re not in Brecht territory here. There is a lot and I mean A LOT more to Brecht’s reworking than yet another redo of “Pride and Prejudice” (LINK) I'd hope you'd agree. When it comes to “new” SF it’s even more depressing; it seems that SF has exhausted itself and cannot come up with new forms and ideas, but looks yearningly back to the golden heydays…unfortunately present day SF hasn’t got any idea on how to write good stuff. Personally I think that as soon as a SF writer thinks more about remaining relevant and appealing (i.e. commercially viable) than remaining true to their artistry they cease to be writers. At least these SF writers should still be able to write a good yarn...
    • 5/5
      Like all the books in the Wayfarers series, this book has a rich setting and wonderful characters. I love the thoughtfully-designed multi-species civilization and how all the characters interact with their own cultures and each other. The protagonists were all really interesting, and I was happy with the endings they got.
    • 5/5
      So enjoyable. As with all this series nothing much actually happens and yet it's like sinking into a warm comfortable bath - relaxing and enjoyable and easy. After some of the chunksters I've been ploughing my way through recently, this was short and relatively undemanding.
    • 4/5
      Well, my space-faring friends, Becky has done it again. The Galaxy, and the Ground Within marks the final, standalone instalment in her Wayfarers series, and it is just so damn lovely.TGatGW is essentially a lockdown situation – with which we are all now painfully familiar – but with several sentient species, all stuck in the same planetary habitat and suddenly having to figure each other out. This happens on the commuter planet of Gora, where travellers layover while waiting to go through one of the nearby wormholes and travel to another, more exciting place. A low-orbit accident leads to the destruction of Gora’s satellite network, forcing all ships to be grounded. The ensuing story is essentially an answer to the age-old question, “what do you get when an Auleon, Quelin and Akarak get stranded in a Laru-owned Five-Hop One-stop”? And the answer is not a punchline, but heckin’ FEELS.TGatGW is the first Chambers novel where none of the main characters are human, but I didn’t even pick up on this until after I’d put the book down; there’s more humanity to be found in this story about strange, sentient species than in most books about humanity. The author does what she does best, and deep dives into the cultures and social structure of disparate sentient species; from gender to politics, life expectancy to eating habits (including a particularly hilarious section where the protagonists are horrified by the concept of humans eating cheese).That’s a pretty quick summary, but it effectively sums up this book which is relatively light on plot. But, learning about each species and seeing them overcome their differences is the point of the story, and it’s cathartic AF.I’d recommend this book if you want to spend more time making some alien friends and less time shooting at them. TGatGW is a rare opportunity to explore the mundane yet fascinating details that are often overlooked in sci-fi. And, you’ll finish the book reassured that while the universe is oh so big and scary, it’s also a beautiful thing.
    • 4/5
      An exploration rather than an adventure as 3 space faring people of different species are trapped on planetary way station with a hostess of a forth species and her adolescent offspring. The exploration is both among the species alien to each other and internal to each the individual though not at all evenly spread. In fact it is Pei on whom the stop over will have the most effect though others of the 5 face some trauma. Family and society are what it's about and what's common and unique across barriers.
    • 5/5
       The last book in the series... sigh. I will read this series again, definitely. And I can't wait for the next project Chambers promises is in the works. There's something about how Becky Chambers uses sci-fi to show us ways to think about how we could live now. This book got into colonialism, how to be truly welcoming, and how to have hard conversations across differences. The plot is a "group of disparate people stuck together form bonds" but done in true Chambers fashion, and this time we get to really meet the Laru! Can't go into more details (too many spoilers). Do read this series in order though.