A Closed and Common Orbit: A Heartwarming Space Opera of Friendship, Discovery, and Unlikely Bonds Across the Galaxy (Wayfarers, 2)

Series Info/Source: This is the second book in the Wayfarers series. There are four books in this series. I bought a copy of this ebook from my Kindle. Thoughts: This was another wonderful installment in this series. I was a bit sad to leave the Wayfarer crew behind and be stuck planet-side for this book, but it was still an excellent story. This story follows Lovey (Lovelace, the Wayfarer's AI) as she adjusts to her new (illegal) human-like body. Pepper is helping Lovey navigate her new situation. The story alternates between present-day with Pepper/Lovey/Blue and the past where we follow a character named Jane, who we quickly find out is actually Pepper as a kid. There are heavy themes about artificial intelligence again, which is a theme Chambers really likes to explore (I also just finished reading the most recent Monk & Robot book, that whole series is very focused on AI). This is very much more a space opera type of book than a sci-fi adventure one. I missed the Wayfarer crew and their adventures through space. This story is about what it means to be human; it is thought-provoking and heart-breaking at times. The characters are incredibly well done and I loved all the different alien cultures. We spend a lot of time watching Pepper get some closure and watching Lovey figure out what it means to have a body and will of her own. The writing here is incredibly easy to read and well done. I love Chambers' writing style; it's very engaging and personable. I did miss the…

This book is less of a sequel to A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and more of a spin off, as Pepper is the only character from the original books in the series. Like many of Chambers' stories, it's definitely a slow burn and I found myself struggling to get through the first quarter of the book due to how slow the pacing was (this is the only problem I have with the book). However, like many of Chambers' stories, the rest of the story is fantastic and finding the themes and metaphors in the story is almost as fun as the world building that Chambers makes in her story. The themes in this book are autism and trauma. The chapters switch between the perspective of two of the characters, Pepper and Sidra. Sidra is the AI from the first book who had their memory wiped. The AI was put into a "kit", which is a machine resembling a human body. Reading the emotions that Sidra was experiencing and it was easy to tell that the AI was exhibiting autism symptoms. Pepper's story I found to be more entertaining. Her childhood story starts with her as an enslaved person in a factory who escapes and finds a ship with an AI named Owl. Pepper spends years fixing the ship to make her escape. The true beauty of Chambers' works is almost always in her ability to describe the world around the characters. It's often more fascinating than the plot itself.

Lovelace is learning to navigate to her body kit, something that she doesn’t consider part of her ‘self”, since she is really a program running inside of it. She is getting used to her new home with Pepper and Blue and they are getting used to having her, as they’ve had to make many changes to keep her comfortable. Lovelace doesn’t understand why Pepper is so adamant that she can survive in a kit; She feels like it’s not possible due to the way she was programmed specifically for a ship. She has no idea how Pepper grew up and what AI’s were in her life from a young age. Slowly, Lovelace learns to function in her new world and Pepper opens up about her dark upbringing. I’ve loved Becky Chambers since I got through the first 10 pages of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet last year. The way she creates and describes alien cultures is so real. Honestly, it makes you feel like these species have been around your whole life, not that you’re just learning about them now. In her last book, I loved the way Becky Chambers played around with gender. Some of the alien creatures she describes change genders throughout different periods of their lives. This also means that their pronouns change many times in the book. A Closed and Common Orbit was no different. Tak, one of Lovelace’s friends, changes from female to male. No one questions it or struggles with the pronoun change. Tak just is Tak and everyone adjusts to the way their identity changes. I think Chambers does an amazing…

I was hesitant about these space operas because I am a huge Alastair Reynold’s fan and I thought he is the true master of that IMO, but damn! These books are the most heart warming stories I’ve ever read. Great, fun adventure, but it’s the characters that shine in these. It’s a master class in love, compassion, and acceptance of those who are different than you, whether it’s by species, looks, by sex, by who and how they love. It’s a vision of what our world should be like, how humans should act towards each other. My wife is a pastor and we’d both love to meet the author someday. Becky, if you read these, you made this guy cry so many times and I’m absolutely hooked. Also, please forgive my bad grammar, lol. You are the master of the space opera now. Make more of these books please!

A Closed and Common Orbit is the sequel to Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. I read it right on the heels of its predecessor (Wayfarers #1), and am grateful that I did. Had I not, I don’t know that the transformation in the narrative would have been as stark to me. Where Long Way told the story of a group of characters (a team, a family, a what-have-you), Closed and Common is essentially two stories – each of one person. This allows the narrative to blossom, changing the shape of the story to better suit its purpose. Much as Orson Scott Card’s Speaker for the Dead evolved the narrative that Ender’s Game began, so too does Closed and Common stand as an evolution of the story Long Way started. Many of the things I praised Becky Chambers for in Long Way are not present in this book; here she doesn’t make space feel so wide open and dangerous and beautiful, but instead makes cities and planets feel small and special and homey. Similarly, she doesn’t spread her attention equally among a cast of characters as she so expertly did in her first book, but keeps us near to two women whose paired stories illuminate the universe held within Closed and Common. This isn’t to say that this sequel showcased none of the same qualities as the first. As in Long Way, Closed and Common features a diverse cast of alien characters and as before Chambers wastes little time in the clumsy or drawn-out introductions that so often plague science fiction stories. She makes them…