I have a theory. If Ann Leckie calls a book “Great Fun,” I’m not going to like it. I’m just going to assume someone like her won’t have an opportunity to expound on how fun she finds my own book. Anyway, I felt obligated to read A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. By the time I had gotten to this point, I had realized I had missed the entire emergence of this Cozy Sci-Fi concept, and that this book was a pinnacle of its own in queer literature. It was being referenced left and right, it was what A Pale Light in the Black was compared, and it came up on every list of queer sci-fi I ran across. It has a following, that’s certainly clear.
Right, so I’ll get the basics out of the way. I liked it better than A Pale Light In the Black. Marginally.
I read this book already in a fuming headspace after having read the NeoG novel, so its charming little episodic romp through space where it hardly spent time with any of its characters was just not going to spin itself in a good light for me.
That was going to be the first and foremost issue I had with this, and probably the reason I haven’t bothered reading any of the others in the series. It read like a “G” rated TGIF TV show. Every chapter was a different episode, with its own teeny tiny plot and conclusion. Overall every little episode-chapter fit into some neat little overarching story with a “big twist” in it that was telegraphed on, like, page two. I think it was the episode chapter where they suddenly just delve into the clone-guy’s backstory only to have him make up with his dad at the end of the chapter that really slammed the door shut for me.
The plot overall was just dull. It really was just, lets hang with these space dudes for a bit and see what escapades they can get up to. They go all that way, and then… nope. It’s not the journey, or the destination, but the interspecies love affairs we have along the way?
The relationships were hard to get on board with. Literally, two interspecies match-ups and a short guy in love with a computer program. Actually, his story line was probably the one I felt for the most, which left a weird feeling in my gut when he tried building her a body. I think, once again, the issue was less the nature of who was in love with who (or what), but more that the episodic nature of the story telling just did not let me as the reader gain any traction in caring about whether they were together or not. Even on TV shows there’s the chemistry between the actors, or entire seasons leading up to a developed relationship. So having it causally mentioned in passing doesn’t get me invested.
It’s hard disliking something that is clearly so popular. And I need to still salute Becky Chambers for her conquest here, she apparently got this first book published via kickstarter, so she really had people gunning for this to be made. I doubt I could have managed that.
So, here’s the stuff I did like. The aliens were fun. It’s always a good time delving into what someone else thinks lives in other parts of the universe, and these were pretty well thought out without being the defacto Star Trek aliens of: “generally humanoid with a weird face bump.” I like the alien that changes gender as it ages. That is creative as hell, and a concept I can get behind in queer sci-fi. And the lizard-based aliens are actually my favorite part. Sissix is actually a very decent character, and I’d have been more interested in this if it focused on her more. Of course once it got interesting she just sorta got shoved in the background. Anyone else in this mix wasn’t really given a lot of time of day but the snippets sounded like interesting creatures.
Maybe the follow on books are better. I see them every now and then in the store. Maybe they are less episodic and delve into the sidelines more than this initial effort. The thing is, I didn’t hate this as much as I hated the NeoG novels. I hated those enough to spend real money on the second book (why did I do that?). But these books? They just sorta left me not caring to go further. I worked damn sure to focus on giving my characters more depth and background throughout that might rival the disappointment I found in A Long Way to A Small Angry Planet. I’m glad it has fans. I’m not one of them.
AZ ROZKILLIS 