Beth’s Comments (group member since Sep 01, 2016)

Beth’s comments from the The Long Way... To a Common Orbit flash group group.

MrsJ, I suspect you intended to spoiler pop part of your post but it ended up being italicized instead.

A parallel between this section and Sidra's immediately following is that both Jane and Sidra are uncomfortable with open spaces, for different reasons.

The early part of Sidra's story is very explain-y and might be hard to take all at once, so here's another thumbs up for the back-and-forth sections.

Saphana wrote: "They way you're doing it, is fine ... as long as there's a (searchable, thank you, e-reader) quote in the first post, we should be able to locate the thing. "

Hadn't thought of this. Great suggestion!

It's mentioned early on in the book that the fake blood was for in case Sidra sustained an "injury." It would "bleed" acting as a cover for the fact that she is a kit. Installing fake immune bots or something was part of that, too.

I like how the sections are weaved back and forth. Jane's are obviously moving toward change/chaos--how did she get from "there" to "here"? Did she escape (view spoiler)[death (hide spoiler)]? Where did she meet Blue? I'm intrigued!

Sidra's arc has the potential for an exposed secret and trouble, but so far it's been very cozy. The scene where they move the furniture in Pepper and Blue's place around so she could (view spoiler)[be a camera again (hide spoiler)] was cute and funny. It really did give me the impression that they were indulging a young person.

The AI FAQ before this chapter cracked me up. And also opened up questions like... Are there filthy, careless AI plague-bearers? Just what kind of material is the "skin" made of? It has to be soft but also near infinitely durable.

The Chunnel analogue reminded me of the train line in MMO World of Warcraft, that was an underground line between two major capitals. Part of the route took you under a lake where the tunnel was made of glass. You could see monsters in the lake, too!

Yeah, the TOC in the Kindle edition is a long string of very similar or identical names, so I can understand the difficulty! The page numbers you added do help, and now that I have a decent idea of how the sections are structured it shouldn't be hard to figure out how the posts correspond.

The reckoning of events in seconds reminded me a lot of Breq's point of view in the Ancillary novels. Breq, of course, was also an AI, now in a single human body.

I initially found the discussion subjects slightly confusing, since my e-book copy doesn't have pages. Using my handy-dandy phone calculator, one page is approx. 15 Kindle locations. Hope that helps other participants!

Becky Chambers, "The Case for Optimism":

http://thebooksmugglers.com/2017/03/s...

MrsJoseph, I thought I was the only one who took extra long toilet breaks at work to read a few pages. It's possible that my co-workers think I have chronic, catastrophic constipation. :D

Who's on first?

I'm in. ;)

What endeared Kizzy to me were the portions in the latter half of the book where we see things from her point of view. I think she gains some depth there from her earlier somewhat cute-and-shallow presentation. In the long run she was one of two favorites.

I've been doing all my thinking about the book while participating in the group, which has been cool, but has also meant I feel a little tired when I ponder creating a review that involves yet more thinking about it--my current review is a beyond-lazy couple of sentences and link to the group. So this tempting. Or to reform the posts into something that makes sense as a review and has fewer spoilers.

Such great comments, everyone. I've enjoyed the different perspectives and also seeing that there are a number of points that most agree on.

The Lovey thread ended in a way I hadn't expected, and the question of whether Jenks might--unconsciously or no--go Pygmalion on the new Lovelace was elided. Whether Lovey truly consented to the download proposed by Jenks was another issue that was sidestepped when the rebooted AI was downloaded into the mobile body and the Wayfarer got a new one.

Similar thing with Ohan. His self-determination about whether to die or live a long life was taken out of his hands rather abruptly by Corbin's action.

Between these and the "oh, it's over already" of the Hedra Ka arc, I think the book kind of sputtered out rather than ending with a boom or some kind of catharsis.

That said, the characters are really charming and I enjoyed hanging out with them. Kizzy and Corbin were my favorites, for different reasons. I wouldn't mind seeing more of the Wayfarer crew but a novel focusing on Lovelace, planet-bound life in a wacky workshop and/or the role of AIs sounds cool, too.

Ketty Jay has been mentioned a number of times in this thread. I'll have to check that series out while I'm waiting for the next one of these.

I also think the Toremi could have stood for some more time in the spotlight before the Big Event: whether some insight into their culture, the particular tribe, or both, and I agree that the bounced e-mail and the "Toremi Ka" chapter aren't among the stronger parts of the book. They do show that the Wayfarer's crew isn't the center of political events in the larger universe, or even close to it. But that idea could have been handled more elegantly.

I didn't get a solid sense of an entire galactic-standard year having passed from the beginning of their voyage. It felt more like a few weeks.

"Seven Hours," on the other hand, was nice and suspenseful and, again, shows the crew working well together under duress, setting their differences aside.

Oh dear, what's going on with Lovey? What will happen with Ohan?

I have at least one family member who has some Corbin-like personality quirks. I do, too, though not to the same degree... or so I'd like to think. So maybe that's why I am invested in him out of proportion to his word count.:)

That's true, she was hired as an intermediary between the ship and trading posts, etc. Stands to reason she'd know more than just Klip.

"October 25": Corbin's return to the crew brought on an emotional response that kind of surprised me. I was genuinely relieved and moved that they saved him. That said, I wasn't super pleased that his semi-reconciliation with Sissix resulted from a sequence where he was beaten up, imprisoned, and potentially enslaved. Rather than... say... his unique skills saving the ship/crew, as has happened with at least two other characters.

The idea of humans as the undergrown adolescents of space is interesting and I'm curious about where that thread might be going.

"Heresy": now this chapter ended in a way that I wasn't expecting. I had thought Ohan was going to roll with the consensus of those around him. I appreciate that the other crew members took Ohan's religious beliefs and agency seriously, even if there was a lot of resistance to the result.

The syringe might be "the gun on the mantelpiece," though. We'll see. :)

"The Last War": I like how the crew has been working things out with each other through rap sessions, with the bonus of getting to know the various members better. Dr. Chef's background, like how he discovered his dual career, is very cool.

Unfortunately, otherwise I found this chapter rather weak. I agree with Mikhail that Dr. Chef's lecture is 101 level at best. War causes suffering. You never know what life will hand to you. No, really?

"Kedrium": Kizzy's point of view! Her interior life is at least somewhat less manic than her exterior, and I liked seeing the mild contrast. The whole thing with the mines, again, relies on the character's skills/background coincidentally matching the emergency.

The scene starring Kizzy and Pei, where Kizzy defuses the mines, is charming.

Corbin Defense Squad Assemble!: Corbin comes over to ask a business-related question and the second he gets out of earshot, Sissix is sniping on him. It's perfectly fine if it's about the unpopular guy! What is this, junior high? At least they didn't immediately tell him to shut up when he made a suggestion during this chapter's crisis.

"Hatch, Feather, House": it may come across as unkind when I say that early on, an image of Sissix as a touchy-feely human in a lizard suit popped into mind and just would not leave. The closer look at the Aandrisk mores and culture in this chapter lessened the unfortunate malingering image somewhat.

I got a minor spoiler from a review somewhere that a relationship started between these two characters. It reads more like an agreement over a negotiating table than a romance, but they both seem fine with that, so it's all good.

Nataliya wrote: "Not any ties or loyalty to the old planet, just annoyance at those still thinking of it as something special."

There are some people later on in the first half of the book that express loyalty to the old planet, but they aren't presented in a positive light.

One thing that struck me about the Humans is that there's been a flattening and un-diversifying of culture as we've gone out to space. There's the Sol people, and the Exodans, but any other difference or conflict associated with a specific locality, religious faith, race, etc., is absent. Utopian? Maybe, maybe not.