Becky Chambers was born in 1985 (that makes her 34 in 2019). She grew up outside LA in California, with scientist parents, “My dad worked in aerospace engineering, and my mom is an astrobiology educator." She was the outcast not being a scientist in her family. Her family is bookish and her mother read to her, and bought her books for her birthday.
She studied theater in SF and then managed a theater. She noticed those devoted to theater only did that, and she liked playing video games and watching science fiction. She met her wife Berglaug Asmundardottir in Iceland (I'm extrapolating). She worked as a bartender and then a freelance writer to pay the bills till her writing career took off.
This quote: "Boredom is so important. I still use boredom in my day-to-day if I’m stuck on something. The worst thing I can do is go online and start goofing around on websites or chatting with my friends, because then nothing else gets done."
She wrote short stories for a long time because the career of writers she admired started off that way. Thought she was into theater, she didn't write plays. She felt writing fanfic was important to her process of becoming a writer. She used kickstarter to fund the first publication of her book. Her book was picked up by a publisher, and then later by another publisher.
Initial plot, setting and characters: The book starts out with grousing about a new crew member, and then the introduction of Rosemary, the new Martian human who joins the ship Wayfarer. Ashby Santoso is the captain of the ship that has the projects of opening up wormholes. He is a Martian human. The ship is a hodgepodge of components and kludge. Lovey is the AI. Corbin is the negative personality who works on the algae. Sissix is the Aandrisk and has big claws. Kizzy works with Jenks who is genetweak, shorter, they are comp techs. Yoshi is an off ship supervisor. Standard time is different from solar time. The fishbowl is the hydroponics bay is pretty good for a long haul ship. There is a kitchen where we meet Dr. Chef, who is a male Grum, though gender is fluid, he is perhaps the most alien of aliens on the ship. You'll have to read the description in the book to get a picture of the alien. Ohan is a nocturnal Sianat navigator.
Conflict: Joining a group is always a challenge, especially in outer space. The team coming together. Doing a difficult mission in the face of danger. Can they get it done?! Can people find love, connect with a loved one?
Issues raised: Multiculturalism. It's hard not to imagine that when we're in some sort of Star Wars, Star Trek or Farscape world, that the races and differences of humans will fade away. Tolerance of others differences is needed to function as a team. They have an All Stories Festival. That sounds inclusive.
What is food? Spaceships rely on insect protein. Chambers connects meat eating with privilege.
How much should we use science with genetic engineering? Some refuse that, some don't in the future.
Can a human love an AI, and if AIs are forbidden to be embodied for the purpose of intimacy, what are the dangers of this illicit love?
Science: Robots powered by their own harvested kinetic motion, spacecraft powered by algae grown in on-board tanks.
Book Rating: 4 of 5 stars. The next book won a prize, so it has to be better, leaving room for higher rating for second book.
I read the second one and it was good. I'm in the queue to get the next one. I think there's a new novella she wrote as well that I want to read.
Sources and links
Article locusmag
YouTube Review
Reddit discussion with author
YouTube interview from France
Addendum:
I posted a picture of my daughter off in the distance, with the book up close, as a kind of joke. The picture got a lot of comments because the library's books were pretty chaotic where my daughter was sitting. I came to the realization that I could work harder to work on the chaos of the library, and improve things for everyone, through the discussion on Reddit. There were weird downvoted for the suggestion that I could clean it, and I got downvoted for pointing out that I live near a Jewish neighborhood, and the children are minded by Caribbean nannies. I notice culture and love culture, I believe in multiculturalism, I'm not against any culture. The weird signals of disapproval of Reddit are confusing, often wrong and superficial. I've written so many posts that I was proud of and nobody noticed. You can't be concerned about strangers approval.
Someone private messaged me spoilers for the book. The username was a spoiler. I'm not sure what the motivation for that would be. I'm not sure how to report such a thing and if I should. The person had a -49 karma, so they had been doing other nefarious things. Was it a personal attack at me, or something I said in Reddit, or was it something against Becky Chambers because she's a lesbian? I guess I'll never know for sure. Banning them feels impotent because they can keep on doing what they're doing. I'd protect others from such abuse if I could. I'm going to read her 3 books anyway, I'm more committed now. And less committed to Reddit.
I've read posts about people being stalked on Reddit, and I've read about trolls, and I've seen some negativity, but for the most part I've escaped it all. There is not an easy solution to the problem of anonymous communication that goes negative.
I feel sorry for the mental state of someone who would send a spoiler to a book reader. What a weird kind of project to hurt someone that way. I'm enjoying the book anyway, and the spoilers are annoying but not fatal to the reading.
She studied theater in SF and then managed a theater. She noticed those devoted to theater only did that, and she liked playing video games and watching science fiction. She met her wife Berglaug Asmundardottir in Iceland (I'm extrapolating). She worked as a bartender and then a freelance writer to pay the bills till her writing career took off.
This quote: "Boredom is so important. I still use boredom in my day-to-day if I’m stuck on something. The worst thing I can do is go online and start goofing around on websites or chatting with my friends, because then nothing else gets done."
She wrote short stories for a long time because the career of writers she admired started off that way. Thought she was into theater, she didn't write plays. She felt writing fanfic was important to her process of becoming a writer. She used kickstarter to fund the first publication of her book. Her book was picked up by a publisher, and then later by another publisher.
Initial plot, setting and characters: The book starts out with grousing about a new crew member, and then the introduction of Rosemary, the new Martian human who joins the ship Wayfarer. Ashby Santoso is the captain of the ship that has the projects of opening up wormholes. He is a Martian human. The ship is a hodgepodge of components and kludge. Lovey is the AI. Corbin is the negative personality who works on the algae. Sissix is the Aandrisk and has big claws. Kizzy works with Jenks who is genetweak, shorter, they are comp techs. Yoshi is an off ship supervisor. Standard time is different from solar time. The fishbowl is the hydroponics bay is pretty good for a long haul ship. There is a kitchen where we meet Dr. Chef, who is a male Grum, though gender is fluid, he is perhaps the most alien of aliens on the ship. You'll have to read the description in the book to get a picture of the alien. Ohan is a nocturnal Sianat navigator.
Conflict: Joining a group is always a challenge, especially in outer space. The team coming together. Doing a difficult mission in the face of danger. Can they get it done?! Can people find love, connect with a loved one?
Issues raised: Multiculturalism. It's hard not to imagine that when we're in some sort of Star Wars, Star Trek or Farscape world, that the races and differences of humans will fade away. Tolerance of others differences is needed to function as a team. They have an All Stories Festival. That sounds inclusive.
What is food? Spaceships rely on insect protein. Chambers connects meat eating with privilege.
How much should we use science with genetic engineering? Some refuse that, some don't in the future.
Can a human love an AI, and if AIs are forbidden to be embodied for the purpose of intimacy, what are the dangers of this illicit love?
Science: Robots powered by their own harvested kinetic motion, spacecraft powered by algae grown in on-board tanks.
Book Rating: 4 of 5 stars. The next book won a prize, so it has to be better, leaving room for higher rating for second book.
I read the second one and it was good. I'm in the queue to get the next one. I think there's a new novella she wrote as well that I want to read.
Sources and links
Article locusmag
YouTube Review
Reddit discussion with author
YouTube interview from France
Addendum:
I posted a picture of my daughter off in the distance, with the book up close, as a kind of joke. The picture got a lot of comments because the library's books were pretty chaotic where my daughter was sitting. I came to the realization that I could work harder to work on the chaos of the library, and improve things for everyone, through the discussion on Reddit. There were weird downvoted for the suggestion that I could clean it, and I got downvoted for pointing out that I live near a Jewish neighborhood, and the children are minded by Caribbean nannies. I notice culture and love culture, I believe in multiculturalism, I'm not against any culture. The weird signals of disapproval of Reddit are confusing, often wrong and superficial. I've written so many posts that I was proud of and nobody noticed. You can't be concerned about strangers approval.
Someone private messaged me spoilers for the book. The username was a spoiler. I'm not sure what the motivation for that would be. I'm not sure how to report such a thing and if I should. The person had a -49 karma, so they had been doing other nefarious things. Was it a personal attack at me, or something I said in Reddit, or was it something against Becky Chambers because she's a lesbian? I guess I'll never know for sure. Banning them feels impotent because they can keep on doing what they're doing. I'd protect others from such abuse if I could. I'm going to read her 3 books anyway, I'm more committed now. And less committed to Reddit.
I've read posts about people being stalked on Reddit, and I've read about trolls, and I've seen some negativity, but for the most part I've escaped it all. There is not an easy solution to the problem of anonymous communication that goes negative.
I feel sorry for the mental state of someone who would send a spoiler to a book reader. What a weird kind of project to hurt someone that way. I'm enjoying the book anyway, and the spoilers are annoying but not fatal to the reading.
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