The front door
I am recently awash with fantastic memery, so here ya go:
Library
Books
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (2014) by Becky Chambers—This delightful book has been on my radar pretty much since it was published and it has taken me this long to actually read it. BUT NOW I HAVE READ IT and IT WAS AWESOME.
It’s about a misfit, hodge podge crew on a spaceship, rambollicking across the galaxy and punching holes in space. Literally.
Rosemary is a human escaping from something bad that has happened on her home planet of Mars, something related to her wealthy family, and she has been hired to work on the Wayfarer, a ship that punches holes in space to create wormholes for fast travel around the galaxy, sort of like four-dimensional highways. She is hired by Ashby, the human captain, and quickly makes friends with the mostly non-human crew, with all their quirks and differences and strangeness and kindness.
The plot of the story is very simple; they have been offered a very large government contract to punch a hole in space from a main intergalactic thoroughfare to a small planet inhabited by a very aggressive species who want to join the Galactic Commons (basically the UN-style government of sentient creatures across the galaxy). This is the small angry planet. So they have to go from where they are when they get this contract to the small, angry planet to do this punch-through in space thing, hence the ‘long way’ part.
I am as surprised as you that the small, angry planet was not earth.
So most of the book is just the journey the crew takes to get to this planet, which may sound a bit boring (and some other readers were definitely annoyed at the apparent lack of plot), but they’re an interspecies crew travelling across the galaxy! One of the crew is in love with the ship’s AI! They stop over at a bunch of strange market planets and recently colonised outposts and crew-members’ home plants! They learn to love and trust and fight for each other! One of them has a virus that lets them see into fourth dimensional space!!
This is one of the best found-family stories I have ever read. It is also one of the best interspecies sci-fi stories I’ve ever read; Chambers has an incredible imagination and ability to make you see things from another perspective. For example, Sissix, the ship’s pilot, is from a reptile-like race that has very complex and intricate social and family structures. In her society they also value older people over children, and it’s not uncommon for ‘hatchlings’ to die young, which is sad, but not that big of a deal. Sissix often struggles with this cultural difference:
She let out a congenial sigh. ‘You and the rest of the galaxy,’ she said. Honestly, what was it about that concept that was so difficult for others to grasp? She would never, ever understand the idea that a child, especially an infant, was of more value than an adult who had already gained all the skills needed to benefit the community. The death of a new hatchling was so common as to be expected. The death of a child about to feather, yes, that was sad. But a real tragedy was the loss of an adult with friends and lovers and family. The idea that a loss of potential was somehow worse than a loss of achievement and knowledge was something she had never been able to wrap her brain around.
page 148
On the surface, taking the death of babies and children so lightly sounds awful and callous. But when Sissix puts it like that, and when we reflect on how often older people are under-valued and de-valued (in Western societies at least), over even the potential of children *cough * Roe vs Wade *cough *, suddenly it throws some things into focus. What does it even mean when someone says ‘Will someone please think of the children!’? How about someone think of the people who are already here!
Anyway, before I properly start on that rant, this is just one example of the incredible imagination and world-building of this book. There are three more in the Wayfarer series, and when I work through my mountain of review books I WILL be burying myself back in this series, so brace yourself for more reviews.
Notes
My review of Margaret Hickey’s rural Australian thriller Stone Town is now up on AU Review.
I was on the radio! Twice! For a collective probably 1 minute and 14 and a half seconds (I wasn’t actually timing it). After StoryFest a few weeks ago I was contacted by someone who hosts a morning radio show on ABC Gippsland to be a sort of in-between caller when they need content. So far I’ve been called in to talk about what kind of bird I am (lyre, bower) and what my pet peeves are (sponges left in the sink, shoes around the front door). So I’m basically a DJ now. Keep an ear out for my Triple j debut.
Lounge
TV
Heartstopper (2022)—I’ve been so looking forward to watching this show and it did not disappoint!
It’s about fifteen year old Charlie, who goes to an all-boys school in the UK. He has a good group of friends and is recovering from being badly bullied the year before for being gay. He’s been sat next a boy a year above him, Nick, in his form room, and they soon become good friends, and potentially more. Except that Nick is straight and his friends are sporty and mean, and he hasn’t figured out where he’s at with his sexuality yet, even though he really likes Charlie back.
Some drama ensues, lots of normal teenage activities are engaged in, friendships are tested and broken and mended, and everything turns out all right in the end. It is cosy, heart-warming, hopeful, and positive – the perfect antidote to being alive at the moment.
What I found most interesting about it is that the dialogue is so realistic, as are most of the interactions between Charlie and Nick and their friends. They’re all young teenagers, figuring things out, intensely vulnerable and curious and raw and new and brave. Cultural conditioning had me waiting for the horrible trauma that was bound to befall Nick, or Elle, or Charlie, or Taya, or any of the other queer characters, despite the good work of queer-topia shows that combat that narrative so well, like Schitt’s Creek and Sex Education.
This show absolutely deserves a re-watch, now that I know for sure nothing horrible happens to the characters!
Music
PratChat podcast—Have I mentioned Terry Pratchett in this newsletter before?
Hmmmmmmmmmm……
NAHHHH
PratChat is a monthly podcast book club hosted by comedian Ben McKenzie and writer Elizabeth Flux, each episode talking about one of Terry Pratchett’s books. Each episode they have a guest who joins in with the book they’re discussing, and as the series first started several years ago there are many episodes to choose from if you only like certain TP books.
One of the things I especially appreciate about this podcast is that the hosts are Australian rather than British and American, so they say things like ‘Ankh-Morpork is like the Albury-Wodonga of the Discworld’, and that’s a phrase no amount of money can buy. I can also attest that this podcast is good for listening to in a cold emergency department at 3am, even if the audio footnotes are punctuated by people coughing and throwing up. Probably makes the Ankh-Morpork discussion more authentic tbh.
And another thing…
Some reading things:
Thor: Love and Thunder Isn’t Really the Romance We Were Promised—and That’s a Good Thing
Faith, Worthiness, and God Butchery in Thor: Love and Thunder
Why “Partners in Crime” Is the Perfect Episode of Doctor Who
Find more of my stuff on my website: Oddfeather Creative
The Brew is created and sent from the lands of the Gunaikurnai people and I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which I live and work, and pay my respects to the Elders, past and present.