The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet - A Review
It's an old trope: The brat kid of a robber-baron hitches off with a band of misfits hoping to find a more mundane life. But she ends up finding even more adventure instead. This is the basic premise behind Becky Chambers' book, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. The main character, Rosemary, wastes a bunch of her family's dirty money in order to buy herself a new identity. Then she joins the crew of a run-down spaceship called the Wayfarer. Her skills are immediately useful, and this allows her to work well with the crew, but they intrinsically know something's up with her. When she uses her linguistic skills to prevent a band of alien marauders from leaving them completely stranded, it becomes clear that there's more to Rosemary than meets the eye. The crew itself is exotic. Sissix is a reptilian-like pilot, an Aandrisk, and Rosemary has to correct her thinking regarding their fundamental differences: complicated family structures, no concept of personal space...
