National Bestseller!Return to the sprawling, Hugo Award-winning universe of the Galactic Commons to explore another corner of the cosmos—one often mentioned, but not yet explored—in this absorbing entry in the Wayfarers series, which blends heart-warming characters and imaginative adventure.With no water, no air, and no native life, the planet Gora is unremarkable. The only thing it has going for … Gora is unremarkable. The only thing it has going for it is a chance proximity to more popular worlds, making it a decent stopover for ships traveling between the wormholes that keep the Galactic Commons connected. If deep space is a highway, Gora is just your average truck stop.
At the Five-Hop One-Stop, long-haul spacers can stretch their legs (if they have legs, that is), and get fuel, transit permits, and assorted supplies. The Five-Hop is run by an enterprising alien and her sometimes helpful child, who work hard to provide a little piece of home to everyone passing through.
When a freak technological failure halts all traffic to and from Gora, three strangers—all different species with different aims—are thrown together at the Five-Hop. Grounded, with nothing to do but wait, the trio—an exiled artist with an appointment to keep, a cargo runner at a personal crossroads, and a mysterious individual doing her best to help those on the fringes—are compelled to confront where they’ve been, where they might go, and what they are, or could be, to each other.
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The Galaxy, and the Ground Within is the fourth (and last?) book in Becky Chambers’ wonderful Wayfarers series. Each book has been set in a different location in her vast and imaginative galaxy, featuring different people, and has tackled different aspects of (human) experience from AIs right to a self, to finding a place to belong. The latest isn’t an exception.
The book is set on a small rock of a planet that has no life of its own, but—as Tupo, one of the characters says—even life that is introduced on a planet is life. Gora is a hub of space travel between several wormhole jump points, a place to rest and refuel for a day or two while waiting for a place in the jump queue. Life is contained under large domes, and the only thing connecting the domes is the power grid.
One of the domes is Five-Hop One-Stop, a rest-stop run by Ouloo and Tupo, her child. They are Laru, a species that resemble long-legged and necked dogs or maybe Alpacas; they’re furry and four-legged, with front paws acting as hands. It’s a matter of pride for Ouloo to make each and every traveller feel like home when they visit, whether it’s offering them particular food, accommodating different bathing habits, or finding a suddenly fertile Aeluon the closest place to procreate.
On this occasion, she’s visited by Pei, a female Aeluon, a mostly humanoid species who communicate with colours on their skin; Roveg, a Quelin male who are basically large insects with exoskeletons and multiple legs; and Speaker, a female Akarak, a small species who cannot use oxygen and therefore only exit their ship inside a mechanical armour. Accommodating such different guests isn’t easy, but Ouloo does her best. And then a disaster strikes, stranding them into her dome for days with no way of communicating outside.
Like all the books in the series, this is very much character driven. We follow each character as they try to adjust to a change in their plans, their worries for what they might miss or what awaits them once they reach their destination. Each character has their own story and reason to travel. And for the first time for most of them, it’s a chance to get to know species they find alien. They do this in a respectful manner and with minimal strife, which has become the hallmark of these books. While nothing much happens externally, each character changes through these interactions and by the time they are able to leave, they have made new friends. The epilogue sees everyone to their happy places, the private conflicts solved.
This was a wonderful, happy book that left me warm and fuzzy inside. If this truly is the last one, it’s a great ending, but I wish the series would continue. It’s been imaginative and positive, with great detail and thought put to the biological and cultural differences of the various species, and I’m sure there would be dozens of stories to tell. I for one could read many more Wayfarer books.
I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
There are several book series that I feel at home in. Slipping into a book in one of those series is like coming home after a long hard day.
The Wayfayers by Becky Chambers is one of those book series for me. I adore this series. I mean that..ADORE.
Chambers has such a fantastic way of slipping her readers into worlds that are whimsical and comfy. She makes outer space comfy. Chambers makes aliens cozy. Chambers takes science fiction and gives it a heart.
It’s science fiction with morals without being preachy.
Book 4 of this series is so much fun. I loved almost every second of it.
Here’s the hitch. Chambers Wayfayers series is soft sci-fi. It’s like a warm cup of herbal tea. It is not hard. It does not punch.
Maybe this is why Chambers felt the need to riddle the second half of the book with F bombs. The use of the word fuck in all tenses infected the book to distraction.
I can’t guess why Chambers did this. I’m thinking it was to give something smushy a texture and because of that fuck was misused and misplaced.
It was like hearing your kind hearted, pie baking grandma suddenly drop F bombs all day long. At first, it’s amusing, then it gets embarrassing.
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within
(Wayfarers #4)
by Becky Chambers
This is a brilliant and well thought out book! It’s a book I requested from the publisher and NetGalley and the review is my own opinion. Thanks so much for letting me read this wonderful book!
Chambers has a way of creating characters that are so extremely different from each other from their looks, physical traits, background, politics, worlds, upbringing, society norms, and well, everything about them. But at the same time Chambers makes them so similar and relatable.
This is about a Way Station of sorts with a variety of species each on a different mission of their own. They stop for fuel and rest but are then forced to stay due to unforeseen circumstances. There is no “bad guys” in this story. It’s a group of characters stranded together with the hostess and her inquisitive son at the station.
During the time they are there, the strangers change. The firm beliefs they held and why they hold said beliefs emerge. Things aren’t as they always seem. We as the reader could learn from this. The complete strangers slowly change and it becomes a heartwarming story especially when one of them almost dies.
This is a feel good story with lots of heart, humor, and lessons for all, regardless of species, lol! Recommend this book highly!
I finished this book and sat for a while, just smiling and thinking about it. It made me happy, made me hope, and made me wish I could be stranded at the Five-Hop One-Stop, visit Tupo’s museum, and eat some of those cakes. What a marvelous book.
Gora is a rock that is strategically sited near a wormhole, which can transport ships light-years away in the blink of an eye. That makes Gora a good stopping place for spacers who want a break from their ship while they are waiting their turn for the wormhole. An unusual equipment failure results in the wormhole being closed to traffic, stranding ships and their occupants. All communications are shut down.
Several of these stranded travelers end up at the Five Hop One-Stop on Gora, which is run by Oolu and Tupo, her young child. The Five Hop One-Stop is like a small truck stop/motel/restaurant – it offers fuel, supplies, lodging, luxurious baths, and a variety of good food to its guests. Oolu (the proprietor) and her child Tupo are Laru, four-footed marsupials with very long necks, and curly fur.
Their stranded guests include Roveg (an exiled artist who resembles a centipede), Pei (a soldier whose people communicate in colors), and Speaker (a tiny sloth-like person whose home planet had a methane atmosphere). Pei and Roveg have places to be and are running out of time. Speaker is anxious about her sister, who is still marooned on their ship. These five people stranded together get to know themselves and each other better, which leads to some surprises.
It is the first book in the 5 book series I’d read, but I didn’t find myself lost. I recommend this book to everyone.
This is like a Sci Fi Breakfast Club with mostly adults. While being grounded due to technical difficulties with the wormholes a group of aliens are stranded at the Five-Hop One Stop. Specifically a hotel of sorts run by Ouloo and her offspring. As each work to learn about the other you can see the friendship or understanding develop. Tupo was one of my favorite characters. He was the only teenaged characte. When disaster strikes you see them put aside their differences and work together.
This is the fourth of the outstanding space opera series of the century so far, as far as I’m concerned. But, given that most of the space ships in this one are grounded, the term space opera is arguable. But it has all the wide-ranging emotion and vistas expected of an opera, so I reckon it counts.
Right from the start, the unemotional snippet of technical communication suggests something is going to go wrong. It does. The rest of the book belongs to the people marooned at one ‘bubble’ on the Gora surface. Each wants to be somewhere else in the galaxy, with someone else, without delay. What Chambers does is create a microscopic examination of aliens in duress, shoved together in an unwanted emergency situation, where their lives and motivations are examined.
I read this on consecutive evenings, swinging between desperation in finding out each person’s hidden secrets–or agendas–and admiring the depth of worldbuilding. Each species has a full, well-rounded history, not only that we’ve understood from the previous books, but how an ordinary citizen responds to their own history, the politics of their species in space, and their interactions with each other. Personal tragedies unfold. Inter-species arguments erupt. Unlooked-for friendships develop. It’s like a team-building exercise gone galactic. Indeed, I noticed the classic phases of team building over the arc of the book, which made it all the more real for me.
Becky Chambers’ writing is, as always, subtle, rich and fragrant. The device of language through colour, with no conceptual relationship to the sounds others make, is bewilderingly brilliant. Her ability to convey differences in entire physiology amaze me. The description of the double-layered language of the arthropod/crustacean provides a thing of beauty. What you find here is not up-and-at-em space battles. You get the reflections of people who have been in space battles and who are now grounded. You get the PTSD, if you like. It feels so real, much more so than the technology of space. And that’s what makes Becky Chambers’ books so very special. The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, is a marvellous conclusion to the series (if it really is the last…)
Loved this excellent story of unique travelers, stranded temporarily, getting to know one another. Think international airport waiting area, on a galactic scale. While I enjoyed everything about the book, the chapter headings were extra fun. Every one of them made me laugh. I’m sorry to see this wonderful series come to an end. It’s simply great entertainment.
I’d had this book pre-ordered for AGES. Literally, bought it the day they announced it, so I was super excited to also see it hit my kindle (thanks again, pre-orders!). This book was one of the slower books of the series, but no less engrossing. I love that we saw everything in this book from the viewpoint of several different alien species. You never once see things from a human POV. I loved it! What an interesting universe Ms. Chambers has built! My favorite character was definitely Roveg. He was not how I pictured a Quelin to act after seeing other Quelin in the other books of the series, so that was a nice stereotype bunked right off the bat. I blew through this book, and enjoyed every moment of it. Again, this is the kind of sci-fi that I love. Quiet, contemplative and introspective, with enough mystery and adventure to keep the pages turning.