Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Oddly enough, I had to revise my original rating on book 2 down to accommodate my feelings for this one.

Whoa, right? Well, I found I liked this one more than the second, but that's just the thing. I didn't fall head over heels for this one.

So I had to deal with that dissonance.

This novel is about as bucolic as you can get aboard a spacecraft. Totally pastoral. The focus is on ordinary people doing ordinary things and backing off the whole action schtick to get introspective and a bit aimless. I like that on occasion, but sometimes I just have to be in the mood for it.

In this case, I was. These novels are all character driven. I can't expect huge happenings and anyway, they didn't happen. So what do we have left?

Details, themes, and asking the biggest question of all... why are we here? What does it mean to live in a place where you're scared, how do you know what to do with your life, and how to hold on to happiness. The big stuff.

I liked it.

Generational space ship, aliens, communication stuff, closed systems, the spirit of wonder... all this is still in the novel, of course, but the focus threw all that into the background. What we have left is a close to the cuff drama. :)

Pretty nice, actually. :)

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