This. THIS is what I want out of a sci-fi. This was a saga of exploration and discovery condensed and bundled up to be presented to me in the form of a love letter. Reading it was like having a big dinner and finishing full, happy, comfortable, and sleepy. I couldn’t ask for more.
Continue reading “To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers”
Hmmm… well, this one didn’t turn out to be a favourite.
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell is about a recently-returned Jesuit priest, Emilio Sandoz, the only survivor of a first-contact mission to meet sentient alien life. There is a lot of controversy about the mission, which was apparently launched in secret and funded by the church. Communications between Earth and the alien planet Rakhat have been spotty: each transmission from Rakhat takes around 17 years to get back to Earth. So after a rescue mission picks up Emilio and sends him back, the infamous story of his becoming a prostitute and murdering a child has already preceded him.
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Where do I even begin? It’s been a long time since I read a book that I loved as much as I love Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon. The protagonist, Ofelia, is an elderly woman who has lived the majority of her adult life on an alien world as a colonial worker for Sims Bancorp, or “The Company”. She buried her husband and all but one child there. Said child, now adult son Barto, and his wife Rosara are the only family she has left. But she doesn’t get along with them; Barto is controlling and overdramatic Rosara frequently nags at her. All Ofelia wants is to be left alone to do the things she enjoys, such as tending her garden. And so, when news arrives that Sims Bancorp is uprooting the 40 year old colony to transfer them somewhere else, Ofelia hatches the plan to sneak into the surrounding native forest and get “mistakenly ” left behind.
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