The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

Wayfarers #1

eBook, 518 pages

English language

Published Aug. 6, 2015 by Hodder & Stoughton.

ISBN:
978-1-5004-5330-5
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Goodreads:
22733729

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4 stars (17 reviews)

Follow a motley crew on an exciting journey through space-and one adventurous young explorer who discovers the meaning of family in the far reaches of the universe-in this light-hearted debut space opera from a rising sci-fi star.

Rosemary Harper doesn’t expect much when she joins the crew of the aging Wayfarer. While the patched-up ship has seen better days, it offers her a bed, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy, and most importantly, some distance from her past. An introspective young woman who learned early to keep to herself, she’s never met anyone remotely like the ship’s diverse crew, including Sissix, the exotic reptilian pilot, chatty engineers Kizzy and Jenks who keep the ship running, and Ashby, their noble captain.

Life aboard the Wayfarer is chaotic and crazy—exactly what Rosemary wants. It’s also about to get extremely dangerous when the crew is offered the job of …

14 editions

Review of 'The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1)' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I really needed a fun little sci-fi road trip story, and this delivered quite well! The characters are all quite likable, and the world building with such a diverse array of alien species made for a lot of fun scenarios.

There is a romance later on that comes seemingly out of nowhere, and I wasn’t a big fan of how Ohan’s they/them pronouns are treated as a symptom of a disease. It kind of nearly crosses the border into demonizing plurality, but I know for sure that wasn’t the author’s intention.

Review of "L'espace d'un an" on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Bien heureuse de ne pas avoir lu la 4ème de couverture avant de terminer, elle raconte presque toute l’histoire !!

C’est assez rare les livres de SF et les spaces opera où l’on est agréablement confuse presque tout le long de l’histoire sur l’apparence, origine, us et coutumes des différentes espèces (au point que je me disais qu’il y avait un tome à lire avant celui-ci).

Wunderschöne, herzerwärmende und optimistische Space-Opera

5 stars

Sterne, wie habe ich dieses Buch geliebt. 🤩

Sympathische Charaktere, die alle auf ihre Art liebenswert sind, als Crew und Freund*innen aufeinander aufpassen und einen liebevollen Umgang miteinander pflegen. Gemeinsam erleben sie herzerwärmende und zugleich unterhaltsame Geschichten auf ihrer Reise zu diesem kleinen, zornigen Planeten.

Wer einen stringenten, zusammenhängenden und sich aufbauenden Plot erwartet, wird hier zwar nicht fündig (auch wenn ein Plot durchaus exisitert). Wer sich hingegen an herzlichen Charakteren, mitfühlendem und freundschaftlichem Zusammenhalt und optimistischen emotionalen Erzählungen erfreuen kann, wird dieses Buch lieben, denn davon enthält es eine Menge. Ich jedenfalls musste das Lesen mehrfach kurz pausieren, um vor Rührung und positiver Ergriffenheit zu seufzen. 😌

Kurzum eine wirklich wunderschöne, herzerwärmende und optimistische Space-Opera mit bewegendem, spannendem und emotionalem Finale. Absolute Leseempfehlung!

De la SF douce et heureuse

5 stars

On suit le quotidien d'un équipage multi-espèce d'un vaisseau spatial. Loin d'une SF où l'humanité guerroie et triomphe, l'univers de l'autrice nous présentent comme faibles, divisés, sous le patronage d'autres espèces plus avancées.

L'autrice décrit de manière très sensible cet équipage qui est un peu comme une famille, avec ses joies, ses amours et ses peines.

a story that thrives on its characters

5 stars

The basic storyline of this book is nothing entirely out of the ordinary: Space crew gets dangerous but lucrative job offer, travels to their destinations, stuff happens there and along the way. You can take the title literally: it's a long way but only a small planet (episode).

I liked the world building, but especially the way the protagonists interact with each other. It's a story that is, for once, not driven by toxic behavior and the inability to communicate, but instead based on empathy and mutual support. The characters belong to different alien and human races, they do sometimes face conflicts over their specific needs, but frequently try to find solutions that work for everyone. In some ways, it seemed like an enhanced and more diverse version of the "Firefly" crew to me (which I loved).

This is a read leaves you with more positive than negative emotions, while …

actual non-human aliens!!

5 stars

Someone recommended this to me when I was looking for good rich sff reading and it hit the spot. It's an episodic plot, which I don't always love, but it worked for me here, given the complexity of the world-building and the assortment of characters. I was not expecting so much depth to the characters nor the deep emotions. In any case, I looked forward to returning to it every night I was reading it and now I miss that world! on to the next, of course

Review of 'The long way to a small, angry planet' on 'LibraryThing'

5 stars

This was a lovely read. Although it's set in a rich fictional future which Chambers has clearly written a lot of history and sociology for, I enjoyed how that was background, not the point of the story. It's not a story about empires rising and falling, or historic heroes, just of a group of people getting through a series of challenges together. And while those people start out feeling like caricatures, they get progressively more believable as the book goes on, to the point that by the end I was very invested in their fates - not because The Fate Of The Galaxy Depends On Them, but just because they were interesting personalities I'd developed some affection for.

Review of 'The long way to a small, angry planet' on 'LibraryThing'

5 stars

This was a lovely read. Although it's set in a rich fictional future which Chambers has clearly written a lot of history and sociology for, I enjoyed how that was background, not the point of the story. It's not a story about empires rising and falling, or historic heroes, just of a group of people getting through a series of challenges together. And while those people start out feeling like caricatures, they get progressively more believable as the book goes on, to the point that by the end I was very invested in their fates - not because The Fate Of The Galaxy Depends On Them, but just because they were interesting personalities I'd developed some affection for.

Review of 'The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I can only recommend this to people who enjoy solid sci-fi paired with interesting, believable characters. The first book for ages that engulfed me so thoroughly and made me care so much about a fictional group of people. I also like that Chambers' aliens are not just humans with scales or antennaes and her take on artificial intelligence. After listening to the audiobook I immediately started with the sequel and hope there will be more to come.

Review of 'The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet' on 'Storygraph'

3 stars

This book really didn't work for me. I've read many good reviews and praises due to its fresh take on sci-fi showing the day-to-day lives of a mixed raced crew in a spaceship. It is a character driven story so there's no big epic plot going on. But that's not the problem. I enjoy character driven stories. The problem I had was that the personal stories were mostly uninteresting to me. I thought the character's backgrounds were loosely written and although there's a lot of world building, something was missing to make the story elements stand together cohesively.And maybe it had too much "feel-good" vibes for my taste. The world has its conflicts, there are some mean people, but overall everything had a good ending. And the pace, well, it's definitely not action-packed. I felt I was going through a sitcom with lots of mundane tasks going on.There were some …

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