Becky Chambers, A Closed & Common Orbit

Becky Chambers’ new book is a stand-alone sequel. Her first book, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet was frequently likened to the Joss Whedon’s cult TV series Firefly — and with good reason. There were none of the trappings of space western that made Firefly so visually appealing, nor was it packed with sly sarcasm-flirting-with-cynicism humour. Instead, it had elements that readers/viewers like me crave — intelligent writing that knows where it’s going; characters who genuinely like and respect each others’ gifts and are learning to like other people and are embarking on something just a bit audacious and counter-cultural; an understated but undergirding sense of justice and optimism.

The new book is called A Closed and Common Orbit and it has these things in spades. I read it alongside watching the first season of TV’s The Expanse based on Daniel Abraham & Ty Franck’s series of books, published under the pen name James Corey, starting with Leviathan Wakes. What a contrast! Expanse has just enough of the above elements to keep me from giving up, but the universe of Expanse is filled with strife and unspeakable terror. It has the feeling of tragedy — there are good people and they will go down fighting. But they will go down. Good can stave off evil. For a while.

The universe Chambers’ characters occupy knows of evil and repressive economic systems, for sure. But it is good that is irrepressible, even against the odds. Where Corey is a space opera version of Edgar Allen Poe, Chambers is a modern, street-wise Isaac Asimov.

The novel tells the intertwined stories of two sentient beings: one is an artificial intelligence who, against the rules, has been given a body that looks just like a human, and has to learn to cope with what it means to be a person rather than a thing. Oddly, that’s the same thing that the other character has to learn — except that she is a human, though a clone, created and raised as a thing — a slave in a huge waste-reclamation factory. Her escape from that facility kicks off a fight for survival and identity.

Perhaps what’s best and most telling about the difference between Chambers and Corey is that A Closed and Common Orbit is not the story of a struggle against something terrible, but a struggle towards something good. How refreshing and encouraging a book it is. Highly recommended.

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