On the negative side, the chill pace of the novel means the ending explodes almost out of nowhere, with the entire plot wrapped up in near-indecent haste. It's a more old-skool form of space opera in that sense, with people out-thinking their opponents rather than nuking them. There are moments of jeopardy and danger, but Captain Ashby is a pacifist who doesn't carry weapons on his person or his ship, so they have to think their way out of each situation rather than opening up with guns blazing. It's also a refreshingly non-violent space opera.
It's a successful structure, meaning we get to know the crew in great depth before they come together to confront a crisis at their destination. Through successive episodes, we learn more about each of the characters on the ship: new clerk Rosemary, reptilian navigator Sissix, the medical officer/cook Doc Chef, the navigator Ohan, fun-loving engineers Kizzy and Jenks, buttoned-up algaeist Corbin, ship's AI Lovelace and Captain Ashby.ĭespite it's moderate length (just over 400 pages), The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is therefore more of a themed anthology or mosaic novel, a collection of short stories focused on each character with their shared mission (to the titular angry planet) cohering the fragmented narratives into a whole.
There's relatively little in the way of space heroics or daring-do, with instead the focus being more on character exploration. What is slightly more unusual is the structure. From Blake's 7 to Farscape to Firefly to Colin Greenland's Tabitha Jute trilogy to Chris Wooding's Ketty Jay series, this remains a rich and engaging way of establishing character relationships and drama, and here is no different. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet opens in a highly familiar manner, with a cast of mistmatched characters living together on a spacecraft being established.
Clarke, British Fantasy Award and Kitschies, and its two sequels and the series overall have been nominated for Hugo Awards. The novel was crowdfunded on Kickstarter in 2012, a result of Chambers not being able to find a publisher for the book, and it has since been a huge success. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is the debut novel by Becky Chambers and the opening volume in the Wayfarers series.
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