Unlike the rest of the series thus far, this novel didn't revolve around Lovelace, or the crew of Wayfarer. It does, however, happen in the same timeframe as The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, which started my love for this author's writing.

And it has all of the same familiar mythology and aliens and world names that the other two books have. So it does work as part of a wider universe part of the series. Less like a conventional trilogy.

I wasn't fazed by that. In fact, I absolutely loved Tessa, Kip, Sawyer, Isabelle and Eyas, who we get the points of view from.

It's actually a very unified story, for all that it has so many different point of view characters, and additionally a narrating voice at the beginning of each section of the novel. Ultimately, it's differing points of view of the Exodus Fleet, which was the set of ships that left Earth when it had been destroyed beyond saving by stupid actions of privileged few.

What I really love about this book is that, even with the characters who aren't hugely comfortable with living on the Exodus anymore, they are still respectful of the lessons that have been learned from the past that led them here.

Tessa is more or less a single mum of two, with needs to deal a daughter who is terrified of where she lives because she doesn't want to get cast out of the ship and into space somehow.

Kip is a disgruntled teenager who can't wait to get off the Exodus, but he's not a good enough student that he can take planet-side university as a given when he finishes school.

Sawyer is a visitor from planet-side who wants to come to understand the way the Exodus runs and become a part of the way the community works on the ship.

And both Isabel and Eyas take care of life and death respectfully, and maintain tradition that is long standing and still important.

Honestly, this was a very clever and kind novel, fairly easy to read. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next in this series now that the fourth novel has been announced.

Oh, words can barely say how much I love Becky Chambers' writing. The way she uses words, the way she builds her characters, the way the interact and think about things - all of it is just wonderful and sometimes heartbreaking and just... joyful.

This is the third book in the Wayfarers series, and with the first book: Long Way to a Small Angry Planet being one of my favourite books of all time, I am perhaps a touch biased about this series. Granted, while I did enjoy the second book, A Closed and Common Orbit, I didn't fall in complete love with it. So I was a little nervous going into this one, even whilst still being excited to delve back into Chambers' words.

I needn't have worried. Becky Chambers has created some characters that I just adored, each one trading off chapters. Sometimes this style doesn't work so well for me and I find myself just wanting to get back to a favourite character, and suffering through the other chapters. This wasn't the case for Record of a Spaceborn Few. Each character was complex and wonderful to read, and, while I did have a favourite (Eyas), I still wanted to read from every point of view.

I cannot even describe how deep and affecting Chambers' can be with her words and the things her characters go through. I think some people reading this book may feel that things don't really happen, or, at least, they don't happen very quickly most of the time. But it is the exploration of what it is to be a person, and emotional relationships, and how different people relate to one another - this is what makes me adore her writing so much. This is what I will always come back to.

Spoiler Review

I ended up giving this book five stars! I have loved every single book in the series and would definitely consider it to be one of my favourites. I am really hoping that we get more books in this world because there is still so much of it left unexplored and I would love to read it.

I really enjoy how character driven all of the books in this series were, I haven’t read anything like it before and I really enjoyed just watching our main characters as they went about their lives and really grew into themselves throughout the book. They feel like so much more of a personal journey instead of focusing of the overall plot of getting from point A to point B.

Once again Becky Chamber’s writing kept me engaged the whole time. This book was a lot less science based than the others and we don’t actually go into a lot of detail with the technical aspects of the Fleet and we instead go into great detail with all of the history and ceremony of the Fleet which I enjoyed so much more.

I was really excited when I found out that this book would be set around the Fleet, it was something that always interested me since the ships were only meant to carry the survivors to another habitable world but instead became a world all of its own where people lived their entire lives even though they had the choice to leave. As we go through this book we really see how these ships are a community, every thing is given equally so that no one goes hungry or without a home, but there is also this great sense of unity, everyone within the Fleet follows the same traditions and customs and are tied together by their shared past and to me that is just beautiful.

I really enjoyed reading Ghuh’loloan’s writings about the Fleet, it was a really great way for Becky Chamber’s to give us all of this information while making it really interesting to read. There was a lot of information to take in from the past, to the traditions and ceremonies, and the construction of the ship but it was all given to us in such a way that it never felt like an info dump of that information was just thrown in haphazardly. The way the ship was built was really creative and that was one of the most interesting things about the Fleet, so much effort went into the design of these ships to make them as comfortable as possible for its inhabitants.

Sawyer’s death was absolutely heart breaking, he had such a hard life and finally thought that things were going to turn around and it all turned out to be a lie that then ended with him dying alone in space with no friends of family to speak of.

I loved how we see five different perspectives and how they all showed such different views of the Fleet and the people within it. I also really enjoyed how they were all connected at the end by Sawyers death and that it was the turning point in their lives. Although Tessa wasn’t as involved with all of the others I did like seeing her perspective as she is Ashby’s sister, she was also pretty affected by Sawyers death too as it really lead her to the decision to leave the Fleet.

I really enjoyed watching Kip’s character growth throughout the book, he started off as this kid who would just get into trouble because he was bored and wanted nothing more than to leave the Fleet but after Sawyers death he really started to think about what he was doing. He stopped hanging out with the bad influences and went to university and really saw the universe before coming back to the Fleet and finding the meaning that he had been looking for all along.

Eyas was another one of my favourite characters. throughout this book she was really struggling with herself and what she wanted to do, she had already achieved everything that she had wanted and yet she felt incomplete. I loved watching her interactions with Sunny as he was the one who really led her through this time and asked all of the right questions that really made her think about what she wanted. Once again Sawyer’s death was the catalyst that led to her really finding something that she found meaning in, her guilt over not helping Sawyer enough made her create a program for others in the same position and to really welcome them in a way that they maybe wouldn’t have been otherwise. At the end of this book the moment when Anna said that she was in the Fleet to ‘try something new’ I was close to tears, everything had just kind of come full circle and Eyas had been given the conformation that she needed that what she was doing would help people.

This is definitely a series that I highly recommend to anyone wanting to get into the science fiction genre or just people who enjoy character based books in general. I will be continuing to read anything else that Becky Chamber’s writes and I cannot wait for her next book.

Record of a Spaceborn Few was even better than I had suspected it would be based on the publisher's blurb, and astonishingly it made absolutely no difference at all that I haven't read the preceding two books (yet). And it was also completely different a story than I had been expecting based on that same blurb. Unlike most titles these days, the one Becky Chambers chose for this book is the most precise description of a book I have yet seen an author offer: a record of a spaceborn few is exactly what this book is. It follows a cast of a limited number of characters during a short period of their lives on a homesteader (a city-sized spaceship) called Asteria, as they orbit a star granted them by the Galactic Commons.

Now, this is all sounding a bit Star-Trek, I know, but despite the occasional alien character this is one of the best examples of writing humans I have seen in a long, long time. The complex relationships and morals that this book manages to convey while still being simple enough for me to read in less than a week of one hour per day (because I have commitments, people!) is actually astonishing. I have no experience with Ms. Chambers' writing previous to this book, so I don't know if this is just the way that she writes or if it is an evolution of a previous writing style or something entirely new for her, but it was fantastic. The way themes such as life, death, love, and betrayal are casually and yet meaningfully treated in Record of a Spaceborn Few made the entire reading experience an absolute pleasure and I cannot recommend this book enough. I have little room on my bookshelves at the moment but as soon as that changes, I'm going to be acquiring hard copies of the Wayfarers series and starting the whole thing from the beginning. I may have found a new favourite author.

Five star read, people.

Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers is another standalone novel set in the Wayfarers universe, along with Long Way To A Small Angry Planet and A Closed And Common Orbit both of which I've previously reviewed and enjoyed. Although it continues the trend of gorgeous covers, I didn't quite enjoy this one as much as the other two Wayfarers books.

From the ground, we stand. From our ship, we live. By the stars, we hope

Centuries after the last humans left Earth, the Exodus Fleet is a living relic, a place many are from but few outsiders have seen. Humanity has finally been accepted into the galactic community, but while this has opened doors for many, those who have not yet left for alien cities fear that their carefully cultivated way of life is under threat.

Tessa chose to stay home when her brother Ashby left for the stars, but has to question that decision when her position in the Fleet is threatened.

Kip, a reluctant young apprentice, itches for change but doesn't know where to find it.

Sawyer, a lost and lonely newcomer, is just looking for a place to belong.

When a disaster rocks this already fragile community, those Exodans who still call the Fleet their home can no longer avoid the inescapable question:

What is the purpose of a ship that has reached its destination?

The title of this novel pretty literally describes the story. The book is about a fleet of generation ships that left Earth in search of better worlds after it had been completely ruined. Some time after that, the Exodan fleet encountered the Galactic Commons which is a conglomeration of alien with much better technology than what the Exodans left home with. So the Exodan fleet, a few generations after first contact, find themselves in a position to merge with the rest of galactic civilisation (including the humans left behind on Mars and around the Solar System), and some use the opportunity of new technology to head for planets. But some are used to the way of life on the ships and, with a few technological improvements and the gift of a sun no one else was using, continue to live life their ancestors did. This is a story about some of those people.

It's quite a philosophical premise and makes for a fairly philosophical and very character-driven story. The characters are set up to show us different aspects of life among the Fleet and how Exodan values clash and mesh with the outside world. We get a very good idea of how life works for the Exodans — the foil of a visiting alien was very useful on that front — and the problems faced with integrating with the rest of the galaxy; down to the fact that Exodans don't have a currency but rather a barter system, and speak a different language to Martians.

The reason I didn't enjoy Record of a Spaceborn Few as much as the earlier stories is mainly because there were so many characters that I kept getting some of them confused for a pretty large chunk of the book. I'm not great with remembering character names, so even though each chapter was headed by the relevant PoV character's name, I was still getting a bit lost and losing track of things for a bit more than half the book. I had it sorted in my mind by the end but the frustration had already taken place by then. (I was tempted to go back and reread the prologue again to see if it had a bigger impact, but didn't.)

The issue, for me, was that the female characters, of which there were three, had quite distinct work lives but their home lives were not that obviously connected to their work. My brain just struggled to link character at home A with character at work A. I'm not even sure that it was because I was especially tired when I was reading... I had less trouble with the male characters because they were kind of less multifaceted; one was clearly distinguished as The Foreigner, while the other was The Teenager.

By the time I got to the end of this book I was properly enjoying it but I think it's a pity that it took me so long to get to that point. All of Chambers' work has been quite character-driven but this is the first time it didn't really work for me (there were parts of A Closed and Common Orbit that I found a bit dull, but they were interspersed with the parts I was more invested in, making up for it). While I didn't dislike any of the characters, I also wasn't solidly invested in any of them — probably thanks to getting them confused earlier on. This isn't the ideal situation for a character-driven story, alas.

Anyway, if you enjoyed the earlier Wayfarers books and you have a penchant for character-driven stories, then I definitely recommend Record of a Spaceborn Few. If the premise and the concepts I mentioned interest you, then I also suggest giving this book a go. I think it would be interesting to reread Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and then this one to get the full impact of the worldbuilding of different areas across both books... but it's definitely not necessary to have read any other Chambers books before starting this one.

3.5 / 5 stars

First published: July 2018, Hachette Australia
Series: Wayfarers book 3 of 3 so far, but they can be read in any order
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

You can also find this review on <a href="https://duskangelreads.com/2018/07/26/record-of-a-spaceborn-few-by-becky-chambers-spoiler-free-review/">www.duskangelreads.com</a>

*Throughout this whole review I will refer to the previous books in this series as ‘Book 1’ & ‘Book 2’ as the titles are just so long!
Book 1 = A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet
Book2 = A Closed and Common Orbit

Okay, first off. I did receive an eARC of this book, however, I did not read the eARC, I waited for the audiobook to release and listened to that. I listened to the first two books in this series on audiobook & when I tried reading this book, it just didn’t feel right. So I waited 2 days and listened to the audiobook.

I highly recommend the audiobooks for this series! They are really well done and I enjoy them a lot. It also may make it easier to read via audiobook as this is a slower, very character driven series with not a tonne of huge plot points. So the audiobooks were awesome.

Next, I didn’t like this one as much as the first two books in the series. This series is made up of companion novels. So we follow different characters in each book. Book 1 followed the crew of a ship with the main character being a human woman. The next book follows an AI that we meet in book 1 and her adventures after the events of book 1. This book does not follow any of the characters we have met before and also takes place directly after book 1. So the events of Book 2 & Book 3 actually happened at the same time. Which I thought was interesting.

Writing:
As for why I didn’t like this one as much as the first two. I think the main thing is because this one follows multiple points of view. In Book 1 we follow 1 POV in Book 2 we follow 2 POV and in this one we follow 5 (well 6 actually but the 6th is actually a characters documentation of meeting with humans. It made it a little more difficult to connect with the characters. We still get to know them but I just didn’t have that same connection that I had with the MCs from Books 1 & 2.

I did enjoy that we got to meet another species up close in this book. We meet a Harmagian named Ghuh’loloan. So that was really interesting. In previous books, we met other species but hadn’t gotten to know a Harmagian before. I love how other species react to humans sometimes. It’s amusing as! In Book 2 another species (I can’t remember which it was) meets a human and the human cries and the other species freaks out. It was just hilarious.
All of the species in this book are so thought out and written so well that they feel real.

In this book we explore more of the human side of things and how they are living in space however many years after they had to leave earth. We also learn about some of the jobs and just how life runs there which was quite interesting.

Plot:
This one has very little plot to it. There is a rather big event that happens in the beginning and everything kind of stems from that. There are a couple other events that stem because of that event but the book is mostly about learning about the characters and their lives.

Because of the lack of plot, this book kinda stopped a little abruptly. I was just listening, looked down at my phone and realised I was on the last chapter. It still ended nicely but because there wasn’t a huge plot point and then a resolution and conclusion, it just didn’t feel like the end.

Characters:
I did enjoy all of our main characters. First, we have Isabel who works in the archives and lives with her Wife Tamsin. She is also the one that has the Harmagian, Ghug’loloan staying as a guest. I loved reading her interactions with Ghuh’loloan, there is a lot of sharing of info as the Ghuh’lolaon is very curious about the Exodans. I really enjoyed both Isabel & Ghuh’lolan & Tamsin too for that matter. Isabel is such a kind, intelligent person. Tamsin is a little more fun but also strong minded. I also just love Isabel & Tamsin together. They are an older couple but still go out and do ‘young people’ things together and have fun. Ghuh’lolan is really nice too and also amusing when it comes to interacting with other humans and things that humans see as normal.

Next is Tessa. Tessa is married to George & mum to Aya & Ky. Tessa is just living life, working and looking after her family, including her rather stubborn father. George is away for work so she is left to look after Ky & Aya. Ky is only 2, so he is very active and hilarious at excuses. Aya is I think around 6-8 I don’t remember and she is very strong-willed. Tessa is an interesting character but probably my least favourite out of the MCs. Just because I don’t feel like I got to know her as much as others.

Eyas is our next MC and she has quite an interesting job. I won’t go into details though. She is very passionate about what she does but it makes it difficult for her to make real connections. I love her friendship/thing with Sunny. It was very natural and he is just so nice. Eyas just wants to help wherever she can and do what she thinks is right.

Sawyer is an outsider that moves to the Exodus Fleet. He just wanted change and is just trying to figure out how to live in the Fleet. It’s fun watching him trying to navigate this new life & he just wants to fit into life with the Fleet.

Lastly, we have Kip. Who is a teenager, still going to school, trying to figure out what to do with life. He is quite a sensible and kind kid and tries to do right. He sometimes gets led astray by his friend, but he sorts it out in the end. He is a nice guy and just wants to find his place in the world. Well not world, in the universe.

Overall:
Even if I didn’t love this one as much as Book 1 & 2 I still loved it. It has an amazing diverse change of characters. EXCELLENT world building & unique ‘alien’ species. What more could you want from a heavy Sci-Fi. Usually, I complain when there is little plot but it just works so well with this series. Highly recommend the whole series!
I seriously hope this series gets more books in this world! It’s just so interesting! I would love to read from the POV of one of the alien species. That would be super interesting too.
Also just a note, you could read this one as a Standalone as it’s a completely new set of characters in a different area of the universe. It could be a little confusing as they do mention other species that don’t get explained in this one as we have already learnt all about them in the other books. But it could be done. But I do recommend the others.

One of the things I find incredible about Becky Chambers' writing is how effortlessly her world building unfolds. You start off knowing nothing about the alien worlds and species in the novel, and there's a point while you're reading where you suddenly realise you have a very clear picture of the fictional universe and its inhabitants. I think one of the factors that helps this is that her writing has an accessibility which is often found lacking in science fiction novels.

Despite the many points of view, it's very easy to keep track of the characters and stories that eventually intertwine. I'm not sure I'd say any of them were particularly stand-out to me, I thought that they just weaved together very well and I enjoyed them all equally.

I would highly recommend reading all three novels in this series both if you're a scifi lover and if you're new to the genre and looking for somewhere to start.

Ratings
Overall: 8/10
Plot: 4/5
Writing: 4/5
World Building: 5/5
Characters: 4/5
Cover: 4/5

Wow.

Just wow.

Anyone who follows my blog or youtube channel will know how much I adore Becky Chambers’ books and writing, and Record of a Spaceborn Few was no different. Set in the same universe as her two previous novels, with characters tied loosely to characters from those books, Chambers explores so many different ideas in this story. Each and every ideas is poignant and draws on the themes of humanity, relationship and life and death.

I’ll admit, it took a minute to get used to all the different character perspectives, but it was well-worth it, and each character that we meet brings a different perspective and history to the story that, once they begin to weave together, creates a rich tapestry of the history of these spacefaring humans who’ve chosen to stay with their fleet, rather than leave and explore the rest of the universe.

The strength in Chambers’ writing, beside her style (which is just gorgeous), is that she develops character so well. Every character is well-defined and as a reader you feel like you know them. You can see the world through their eyes, understanding how their history and experiences shape the way they interact with others.

This is not fast-paced science-fiction; after the disaster at the start of the book, there’s not a lot of action, rather focusing on the impact the opening scenes have on the characters. And it’s just gorgeous.

If you haven’t picked up Becky Chambers’ books before, I highly recommend all of them.

“From the ground, we stand. From our ship, we live. By the stars, we hope”

I love this series! One of my most anticipated books of 2018 Chambers continues her comforting and optimistic space opera with Record of a Spaceborn Few. Each Wayfarers book stands alone within the universe, keeping the barest thread of a connection to the previous books. In this case we occupy the same time period as A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet but expand the world to look at humanity in the universe and, specifically, at the Exodus Fleet.

The Exodus Fleet was the last of humanity to leave dying Earth. They pulled down their cities and built generation ships to take them somewhere they might survive. They needed to design the Fleet to be not only completely self-sustaining for a long period of time, but they also needed to keep the people travelling in it safe, sane and prepared to return planetside when a suitable replacement arrived. When they found and were accepted by the wider universe they were “gifted” a stable star cluster to orbit by another species who didn’t think it would be useful to them. Some humans left. But some stayed, continuing the lifestyle and habits of their travelling ancestors and adhering to the same customs, traditions and attitudes that were developed during that period. Namely, a focus on self-sustainability and human-centric community and needs, despite these being continually interfered with and challenged by contact with the outside world, leaving them looking increasingly quaint and irrelevant.

Record of a Spaceborn Few continues the themes of family, identity, gender and belonging brought out in the earlier books, but chooses to focus specifically focuses on culture and heritage and different people’s relationships with that, including and how that can change over time or through circumstance.

Chambers uses multiple main character perspectives to show us different relationships with a shared culture and heritage. We have people wanting to go back to their roots – to find out where they came from and hoping that connecting with their genetic past will help them contextualise their present. People who have lived their whole lives with the Fleet questioning whether it still fits them. People reluctant to leave the place they love but feeling like it’s time. We have people who have lived their whole lives in the Fleet desperate to leave at the first opportunity. We have people who are curious about the Fleet as outsiders – wondering why and how it exists. And we have people who are responsible for keeping the things that make the Fleet special alive – their customs and their history.

I liked this one a little less than the previous books in the series, mostly because of the separate storylines. While there was some overlap and each character had their own microcosm of people who they cared about and interacted with, it didn’t quite have that wonderful all-in found family feel of the previous books. I liked all of the characters, but I didn’t love any of them, which I’ve come to expect from a Wayfarers book. The characterisation remains excellent, however, everyone is well fleshed out with flaws and fears and internal conflicts they’re dealing with in their own ways and their world feels important and real to them.

What I did love, though, was the wider scope of ideas able to be explored by using the multiple characters. Any one of the character arcs would have been fascinating, but wouldn’t have brought out all of the conflicts that individuals sharing a long cultural tradition with one another can have with themselves and one another.

It’s a great choice of theme and Chambers has covered a lot of ground with it in one novel – an excellent addition to the series!

An advance copy of this book was kindly provided by Hachette Australia and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Publication Date: 31 July 2018

Record of a Spaceborn Few was lovely! Becky Chambers managed to write a book that is not at all like her other books, except that it also left me with a happy warm feeling and a knowledge that everything’s going to be ok. And that's not to be sneezed at at this time in history.

It shares a universe with her other books, with new characters and a new focus. This book is an exploration of life in the Exodus Fleet. Descended from Earthers who fled their dying (or rather, in-the-process-of-being-murdered) planet, the Exodans have a strict policy that their citizens will all have the essentials of life - "If we have food, she will eat. If we have air, she will breathe. If we have fuel, she will fly." For non-essentials, a barter system is in place, but it risks upset from its contact with Galactic creds.

The Fleet is no longer a group of generation ships seeking permanent planetary settlement, but instead they orbit a sun, with those in its community reacting different ways to the new, "static" state of affairs. The book has multiple points of view to explore these reactions, but after the initial settling-in it did not feel at all disjointed to me. We meet an elderly lesbian Archivist looking for someone else who appreciates the value of stories, a Harmagian observing the Exodan community from its alien perspective, a Caretaker who is venerated for her funeral role who is looking for human connection, a young man who is in trouble at home and who struggles to pass his school leaving exams but is desperate to leave the Fleet, a newcomer who falls in with the wrong crew when looking for work, a mother trying to do the best by her bullied daughter.

The book doesn't follow a traditional stakes-raising accelerating plot: it starts with an explosion, it doesn't end with one. Instead we spend time with characters living their lives and finding their direction. The book has a close-up domestic feeling that I love, but it also examines much larger questions about purpose, meaning, belonging, and treasuring all of our resources. I loved it unconditionally and will happily instabuy anything Becky Chambers writes. And as a side note, it's very sex work positive.

Content note: Only one episode in it did I find upsetting (and not at all ruin-the-book upsetting; it is important to the story) - a not-on-the-page terrifying bullying of a child by other children.