This book would probably have gotten one star if the writing hadn't been so beautiful.

This novella is about a generation ship and the social stratification that has come to pass with the centuries the ship has been operational. Someone from the lowest strata (these people don't even get clothes, they eat barely edible slop, and are permanently chained) is given an opportunity through a scholarship to mingle with and learn from the more privileged class. This program is meant to bring "new blood" into this part of the society within the ship. But even the privileged are constantly monitored and run the risk of being cast down into the mud if they transgress. It was an unpleasant read.

Our lower deck hero has a mystic quality about him. In his previous situation, spirituality was a vital part of how people stayed sane and productive ( which is what was important to their overseers). He realizes that he has a quest to undertake. His sponsor, who doesn't understand him but wants to help (to a certain extent) ends up getting in quite a bit of trouble.

This is very much a dystopia book with a look into just how bad things could get. I didn't enjoy the book's world at all.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Tor Publishing Group- Todotcom for an advance copy for this novel that looks at the life in a dark future where the lessons of the past are still ignored, and where people have only themselves and not technology to right what is wrong with them.

Science fiction is always thought as a genre that looks at the future, but the ideas that make up that future are rooted in the past. Alien encounters mirror the history of many encounters of two different groups on earth, say European and Indigenous, with many of the same problems. Communication, culture, and how people can be exploited. Most military science fiction started with writers of wars refighting the conflicts they had been a part of, or trying to avoid those same conflicts. The addition of new voices, women, and people who have generally been ignored and underserved by this genre and its many gatekeepers has added many new themes and ideas and ways of telling stories. And how the actions of the past still carry generational pain. The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar is a space opera story, a story of academia, a story of finding oneself, and a story of people, trying to make whole their lives and their souls.

A boy has spent his entire short life deep in the bowels of the Hold, knowing little but darkness the soapy water he is served, security people with truncheons, and the chain that is always around his ankle. And work. The boy though has a gift both for thinking and for art, and is noticed by others who decide to "help" and move the boy upstairs. And remove his chain. The boy is sick from losing his chain, and fear in that he has been conscripted to work for the security team that watches over them, the blue legs. What he does not know is that he is also sick from losing his chain. The boy meets a person he knows only as the professor, who tells him that he has been honoured to be educated among the elite of this space ship, a generational kind of ship that travels to asteroids and mines them, with those below doing the work. The professor understands what the boy is going through, being descended from someone who was also freed once. Together the boy and the professor try to help each other, in a society that does not value anything.

A small book that with a large emotional impact. This book is not only written wonderfully but looks at more themes, and has more difficult ideas than any fifteen book series. And characters that one grows to not only root and care for, but understand in ways that is rare in fiction. The world is well described, the use of old nautical terms mixed with science terms. The way the characters act, from being lost like the boy, to the professor's colleagues who have no idea what the boy is feeling, pontificating away. Enslavement, hierarchies, corporate disinterest, soul death. There really is a lot going on here. And I can't stress the writing enough. One never learns the boy's nor the professor names. One doesn't really have to. In another story that might make the reader feel removed from what is going on. Here the impact of what the characters are dealing with hits stronger, because we don't even have names to say to try and make them feel better in our minds.

There have been many great books coming recently with different voices and ways of looking at the world. Another golden age in writing as I have never been so interested in science fiction since I was a kid. I really enjoyed this, and can't wait to read more works by Sofia Samatar.

An interesting story about a civilization contained on a mining ship in space. The story highlights the inequities between those who live and work in the hold, "the chained", and those living above. I feel that I must have missed something deeper in this story because there were so many obvious parallels with enslaved people throughout history. I continued reading this because of how beautifully it was written.

To be honest I don't even know where to start with reviewing this novella.

To say that it's breathtaking is insufficient. I can say that it should be on every single award ballot for this year, but that only tells you how much I admired it.

I could try and explain how it explores ideas of slavery, and the experience of the enslaved; ideas of control, and social hierarchy; about human resilience and human evil. Draw connections with Ursula K Le Guin's "The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas," and probably a slew of stories that connect to the Atlantic slave trade and which I haven't read (mostly because I'm Australian).

There are odes to be written to the lyricism of Samatar's prose, but I don't myself have the words to express that. Entire creative writing classes would benefit from reading this, and sitting with it, and gently prying at why it works the way it does.

I could give you an outline? There's a fleet of space ships, and they're mining asteroids, and mining is dreadful work so you know who you get to do the dreadful work? People that you don't call enslaved but who are indeed enslaved. There's an entire hierarchy around who's doing the mining in the hold, and who's a guard and who's not a guard, and the people at the top have convinced themselves there's not REALLY a hierarchy it's just the way things need to be. Sometimes someone from the Hold is brought out of the Hold, and then has to learn how to be outside of the Hold... and then someone starts to see through the system, and maybe has a way to change things.

The outline doesn't convey how powerful the story is.

I should add: the main characters are never named.

Just... everyone should read this. It's not long, so there's no excuse! But it will stay in your head, and it will punch you in the guts. In the good way.

The formatting of the kindle version was broken. I couldn’t read it. Leaving five stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for the ARC.

This is a lyrical, beautifully written scifi/dark academia novella. There is so much happening in these short number of pages and I felt overwhelmed (in a good way) when I closed this book after finishing. An excellent story on the nature of humankind and overthrowing oppression. I would definitely read more by this author.

** As a note added here just for Netgalley users- the Kindle book has major formatting errors and there are combos of 5+ words that have no spaces in between and look like one giant word. If you download the EPUB/PDF book it does not have these formatting issues- hope this will help others.

I adore the premise of this one which plays with at a critique of dark academia. This world felt brutal and unflinching. However I failed to get immersed into the story. (As another reviewer mentioned, the formatting on this eARC is brutal which may have affected my ability to get lost in the story.

I requested this one because it might be an upcoming title I would like to review on my Youtube Channel. However, after reading the first several chapters I have determined that this book does not suit my tastes. So I decided to DNF this one.

However I really want to love this one so I may try it again if I can get a hold of a more readable format.

The boy has spent his entire life down in the Hold, as one of the Chained. The woman is a professor at the ship's university and has recently gotten a new scholarship program approved. She picks the boy and he is brought upstairs to receive an education.

This book is gorgeously written. Confusing at times, but lyrical without being overwritten. I think the choice to make this a novella was the correct one, as it allowed Samatar to focus entirely on the boy and the woman through the entire narrative.

My main critique is that my ARC copy had some major formatting issues. On nearly every page, many words were stuck together without spacing making it difficult to read the book. At first I thought it was just part of the boy's side of the narrative, but it continued throughout the entire book and did not seem to have a reason for being there. I know this is not the author's fault, but it greatly impacted my reading experience.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!