To Be Taught If Fortunate, by Becky Chambers

[sophia_sol]

I love Becky Chambers' writing, a lot. Every book of hers I've read so far has been eminently worth reading, and I love the way she approaches her books. She gives me this feeling that she sees truly how difficult and complex people are, but knows that people are nonetheless wonderful and worthwhile. As is the rest of the universe. It's just, like, goodhearted and hopeful without feeling like it's ignoring reality to feel that way.

This book is no exception.

It's about four astronauts on a mission out into space to visit four different far-away worlds to learn things, with the intention to come back to Earth 80 years later. It's a record written by one of those four astronauts, of their experiences, to act as the necessary prologue for a question they have to ask the Earth they left behind decades ago.

And it's like....a love letter to science, and to the wonders of the universe, and to the way people are so vastly capable of community and support on both macro and micro levels. It's so lovely and I love it a lot and I had a lot of feelings and I cried. GOOD JOB BOOK.

(Also it's casually queer and polyamorous with no big deal made of any of it and it's great. Their genders and sexualities and relationships just are what they are.)

Comments

[skygiants]

Somehow I didn't know she had a new one out so this is exciting news!!

[sophia_sol]

It's novella length rather than a full novel so I think it's been getting less attention as a result? I haven't seen nearly as much about it as I did when her previous books came out, which is a shame, because this one is so good! And it is exactly the length it needs to be to tell the story it's telling.

[chestnut_pod]

So incredibly evocative in her settings in this one. I still think of the image of that perfectly still canyon.

[sophia_sol]

Yesss, I forgot to mention this in my review, the evocative settings were INCREDIBLE and I still remember clear details of every single one of the four places they visit!