Becky Chambers

LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEY'S WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 'A quietly profound, humane tour de force' Guardian The beloved debut novel that will restore your faith in humanity #SmallAngryPlanet When Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer, she isn't expecting much. The ship, which has seen better days, offers her everything she could possibly want: a small, quiet spot to call home for a while, adventure in far-off corners of the galaxy, and distance from her troubled past. But Rosemary gets more than she bargained for with the Wayfarer. The crew is a mishmash of species and personalities, from Sissix, the friendly reptillian pilot, to Kizzy and Jenks, the constantly sparring engineers who keep the ship running. Life on board is chaotic, but more or less peaceful - exactly what Rosemary wants. Until the crew are offered the job of a lifetime: the chance to build a hyperspace tunnel to a distant planet. They'll earn enough money to live comfortably for years... if they survive the long trip through war-torn interstellar space without endangering any of the fragile alliances that keep the galaxy peaceful. But Rosemary isn't the only person on board with secrets to hide, and the crew will soon discover that space may be vast, but spaceships are very small indeed. PRAISE FOR THE WAYFARERS 'Never less than deeply involving' DAILY MAIL 'Explores the quieter side of sci-fi while still wowing us with daring leaps of imagination' iBOOKS 'So much fun to read' HEAT 'Chambers is simply an exceptional talent, quietly and beautifully redefining the space opera' TOR.COM 'The most fun that I've had with a novel in a long, long time' iO9

Wayfarers 1

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

Joana

How is it possible that when meeting our galactic neighbours for the first time, we are all instantly reminded of creatures back home or in some cases, of ourselves?

He was not a prisoner of those memories. He was their warden.

I cannot pretend that the war never happened, but I stopped fighting it long ago. I did not start that war. It should never have been mine to fight. 

betty

She knew what feeds he’d be checking and it made her want to hug him. Not a quick, stiff Human hug — a long hug, the kind you give to friends when you know something's bothering them. But she'd learned long ago that those kind of embraces just didn't happen platonically among Humans. It was one of the many social instincts she'd learned to temper.

You ask good questions. Like a good heretic. 

She took inventory of her body. She felt her breath, her blood, the ties binding all together. Every piece, down to the last atom, had been made out there flung through the open in a moment of violence, until they had swirled round and round, churning and coalescing, becoming heavy, weighing each other down. But not any more, The pieces were floating free now. They had returned home. 

Annabelle Gauthier

There was nothing in the universe that could last forever. Not stars. Not matter. Nothing.

The razor cut. Their wrist ached. The sky roiled, unseen.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet quotes

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