They want knowledge for knowledge’s sake, their mission is financially backed by citizens and not greedy corporations. They’re ready to modify their own bodies rather than risk destroying fragile and unknown ecosystems. Her characters want to understand, first and foremost: they show an infinite gentleness towards the new worlds they get to see and the new species they get to interact with. In typical Chambers fashion, her vision is what I would qualify as bittersweet optimism. In the space (hah) of a novella, the author explores the put-aside, forgotten wonders of space exploration, through the (wide) eyes of a team of scientists and engineers. But the moods of Earth have little bearing on their mission: to explore, to study, and to send their learnings home.Ī new Becky Chambers is always a reason to rejoice. Back on Earth, society changes dramatically from decade to decade, as it always does.Īriadne may awaken to find that support for space exploration back home has waned, or that her country of birth no longer exists, or that a cult has arisen around their cosmic findings, only to dissolve once more by the next waking.

Her experience is one of fluid body and stable mind and of a unique perspective on the passage of time.

As an astronaut on an extrasolar research vessel, she and her fellow crewmates sleep between worlds and wake up each time with different features. In her new novella, Sunday Times best-selling author Becky Chambers imagines a future in which, instead of terraforming planets to sustain human life, explorers of the solar system instead transform themselves.Īdriane is one such explorer.

To be taught if fortunate review