Today is the start of a readalong of The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers.  The readalong has been organised by Lisa at Over The Effing Rainbow and is part of this year’s Sci-Fi Month.  The details for the readalong are here and the schedule looks like this:

Week 1 (Friday, November 6th): “Transit” to “Port Coriol” (95 pages)
Week 2 (Friday, November 13th): “Port Coriol” to “The Last War” (110 pages)
Week 3 (Friday, November 20th): “The Last War” to “Heresy” (107 pages)
Week 4 (Friday, November 27th): “Heresy” to end (90 pages)

All welcome.

So, to the questions, with a timely reminder before we start that the following may contain spoilers:

1. First things first, we get to meet the central cast – the crew of the Wayfarer. What are your first impressions of this crew? Which members, if any, stand out the most to you and why?

It’s a very interesting crew to read about so far with a lot of diversity and I’m feeling that this is a story that’s going to be strongly character based which I love.  We’re already getting a good feel for Rosemary and the crew and we’re only a quarter in.  This is only a small crew really aboard a big ship – I kept having mental images of Alien and Red Dwarf flitting through my brain, not to mention Star Trek (it’s a wonder I could even concentrate!)  Rosemary is interesting and I wonder what her secret is.  The Captain, Ashby, seems like a decent enough character, ambitious, Sissy is intriguing being from a different race and Corbin appears to be the onboard hypochondriac who we haven’t heard very much about yet so difficult to get a feel for him.  So far, for me, Dr Chef and Kizzy are stealing the show.  Early days I suppose.  I love Kizzy’s over the top, optimistic energy and the way Dr Chef seems to be the homely, take care of everyone sort – which I suppose he’s well equipped to do with six feet/hands.  Also we have Jenks and Lovey – Lovey is the AI – and it appears that her and Jenks are having a bit of a romance.  I look forward to seeking how that develops.  They’re a good bunch of characters to read about so far and Chambers has quite an easy and captivating style of developing them.

2. Rosemary gets a rather entertaining physics lesson regarding space tunnelling from Kizzy, upon her first full day as a crew member. What are your thoughts on the science part of the fiction?

This is the one things that I worry about when reading sci-fi.  Basically, I’m a bit like Rosemary in that I’m sort of a sci-fi newbie – or, more to the point if things get too complicated I zone out a bit or just become bored.  I want accessible sci-fi that I can understand and so far, I think I’ve got a pretty good handle of what’s going on – after all the explanation with the fruit punching through the porridge was easy to grasp even for me!

3. We go into the story aware that Rosemary is hiding something from the rest of the crew, and that she’s gone to great lengths to do so. Any ideas/suspicions/speculation you’d like to share on what her secret might be?

I really don’t have the faintest notion what she’s hiding although whatever it is she seems to think she was innocent (and these are her internal thoughts so perhaps she is – she’d be more likely to be expressing guilt internally otherwise?).  I can’t help thinking, reading between the lines so far that whatever it is she’s running from maybe isn’t as bad as she thinks – but then I think why would she go to all this trouble and be hiding her identity if it wasn’t such a big deal?  Maybe she’s just made a big mistake and was the talk of the town and is running away to hide her embarrassment more than anything else?  Basically the TL:DR is I don’t know but I have a feeling that she’s maybe made it into something bigger than it really is.  I’m usually wrong however so watch this space.

4. Ashby scores a huge job – and a huge potential payout – for the Wayfarer, but it means possibly having to get mixed up in a violent civil war. What do you make of what we know so far about the Toremi?

I have that feeling of ‘if something seems like it’s too good to be true, then maybe it is’ – but perhaps that’s too pessimistic and I have no real firm thoughts yet on the Toremi.  Plus I feel like the crew have to reach their destination before they can contemplate the pitfalls of becoming involved?  I can’t help feeling that something will go wrong along the way – after all, we’ve had the ‘punching a tunnel through space’ lesson – perhaps next we’re going to discover how it can all go wrong??  And, this is called ‘the long way’ etc, etc – so anything could happen couldn’t it?

Very intriguing story so far, compelling from virtually the get-go!

Relevant hashtags: #RRSciFiMonth or #SmallAngryPlanet

Goodreads group readalong link here.