Remy Sharp

Interesting, well written and some nice ideas, but for me, wow, a long read that seemingly never ended.

What if, instead of monekys evolving, another creature evolved to reach our levels of self awareness? What if that creature were spiders? Well, this book will give you a good run for your money.

Split, mostly, between a new civilization of sentient spiders and a space ark containing (what we presume) the last cargo of earthlings, the story tells itself over centuries, if not millennia (it's not really clear - just enough time for spiders to become astronauts!).

On one side the story looks at an evolving species and dips in and out of time to see how they're getting on, how science evolves, how society evolves and most interestingly, struggles to break free of their DNA wiring.

On the other side, floating away in space a space ark ship, run by “key crew” and carrying a cargo of the last dollop of humanity. Space sleep, stasis, what have you, is used to let the characters jump over centuries of time, and start to slip out of sync of eachother's ages.

The responsibility of carry the last of humanity and even the sheer amount of time on a ship that was perhaps designed for shipping and not generations of the living are examined, and this is certainly interesting.

The book, at 600 odd pages though, for me, took me a long, long time to get through. 2 months in fact. I found it really hard to feel any kind of connection with the spider society and evolution which probably dragged my reading along.

I loved Dogs of War by the same author, and I legally remember it being quite epic. But with this book, it was beyond epic and around the 60% mark I was just wanting it to end.

The end of the book does close off with some really nice and aspirational ideas, but for me, this just too long to get to and fell short of what felt like work to finish the book.

Recommended if you like your space operas. Possibly pass if you're unsure. I'm not sure I'll be quick to pick up another book that spans an epic time period for a while!

This is the first book, that I can remember, that has made me laugh (multiple times) out loud(!) and cry. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet has firmly earned itself a place in my top favourite books of all time.

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Having finished the book only a couple of days ago, I find myself missing the characters dearly. There's so much that this story had that I hold dearly to my heart and the story is woven with kindness, love and acceptance of others.

I also loved the writing style that Becky Chambers has. I was quickly introduced not only to the characters, but to their character and it was clear what was important to them and how the characters cared about each other.

Another detail in their writing that I noticed and appreciated, was that the mundane aspects of the story, which could easily pad out a book or potentially offer a few interesting scenes - they were entirely omitted. The crew have a successful “punch” (creating a wormhole), and so they decided to head plant-side for some drinks and celebration - it's not in the book. We pick up the next morning. Back with our characters and much more interesting exchanges happen. This happened a number of times and I personally found it refreshing that the story kept me connected to the characters.

The story is set in some distant future where space is explored, species have connected and human kind have spread themselves across the galaxies. But really it's about people (I think), our connections, what makes family, what matters.

I also really enjoyed that the bulk of the crew's journey was their story and that Chambers didn't throw in unnecessary suspense or tension. For me it make the characters and the world all that more real and believable.

It was hard not to fall in love with the crew too, especially the “core crew”, comprising of Kizzy and Jenks - the techheads, Sissex the super cool reptilian pilot, Dr Chef - a chef...and a doctor, and Ashby, the kind of captain and person that stands up for their crew and conducts and behaves in a way I wish I could all the time.

Then there was the fact that Chamber's characters don't adhere to (I hate to say) “normal”. The alien species approach family and sex differently. They approach gender and identity differently. They approach food and social situations differently. They read as believable and lovable because they're not just another carbon copy of the human archetype white male hero character.

This book is full of hope and love and it was exactly what I needed in my life in 2020. I cannot wait to read the next books set in this world.

I want these characters in my life and I miss them already.

Nice alternative to the super heroes I've read in the past. A very strong young woman (that I'd want to share with my kids), and surprisingly doesn't kick butts as often as she alludes to, but uses sensible discussion and compassion to bypass her foes.

I absolutely loved this collection of stories. Inspiring, beautiful, not-so-sci-fi that it was disconnected from our world.

What I also loved about these stories is that they made me think about my own world and and I wanted to share these conversations and thoughts with those around me.

I think my favourite story was ‘Story of Your Life' (made in to the film The Arrival) closely followed by ‘Tower of Babylon'. But even the short short, ‘The Evolution of Human Science' was superb, right down to the very first opening paragraph!

My first read-twice book. A love letter to humanity.

This is the first time I've read this was 2 years ago, directly after reading Matt Haig's ‘How to stay alive', and as such, it was easy to see the relationship between The Humans and Haig's own personal experiences.

On second reading I really enjoyed the characters perspective and fresh eyes on the world.

After my own personal tragedy, I remember walking through the woods and seeing the beauty of the late summer light shining through the plant life, as if seeing the beauty of everything that surrounds us.

Haig's writing and this story in particular, reminds me of this feeling. Seeing the wonder and amazing around us all the time.

The impossibly unique circumstances that bring us together, and for those lucky ones, share the love with others.

I could describe the story in this review, but instead I'd recommend reading this book and simply falling in love with all the wonder around you.

Read aloud to the 6 year old. A little scary for him at times, and frankly I'm amazed that he can follow the story whilst I read and he (sometimes) plays with Lego!

A wonderful journey into Rothfuss' world.

As part two of a three part series covering three days (one book per day), the tone and story continues brilliantly onwards from book one (which I read mid-2019).

The characters, their quirks and more importantly to me, the beautiful prose of the book came right back to life.

The book clocks in at a 1,000 pages, and though by my standard that's a (very) long book, quite often I found myself happy that I was still inside the tale and that I still had a long way to go before it would end (and I knew that the current decade wait for book three could well draw longer so I wasn't so eager to finish the book!).

For me, the enjoyment was in the storytelling and being whisked away into the world completely. I honestly did find the amount of sex in the book kind of over the top. I can buy that Kvothe is a legend character and one part of that is perhaps he has a reputation with women, but I'm not wholely sure I needed the many-month-long shagathon story when Kvothe is away with the faeries...

Still, even with this, I found myself wanting to stay in the world for as long as I could.

The very ending, like the last few pages of The Name of the Wind did surprise me a left me a little confused, but I like to think that one day The Doors of Stone will answer some of those questions...

Absolutely superb stuff. This book was recommended separately by three different friends, and it lived up to expectations.

It's the first fantasy book I've read (or certainly in the last decade) so initially I wasn't quite sure. As the chapters progressed though, the story fell into really beautiful story telling.

I'm was taken away by how good the writing and prose were. There were turns of phases that were fun and a pleasure to read. The book itself is also broken into small enough chapters that I could read for 15-20 minutes at night and complete a chapter (I like to stop reading at “natural” endings).

The story, or rather the trilogy of books (this being book 1), follows Kvothe and the telling of his life story. Kvothe agrees to tell his story over three days (at which point I realised that I was reading Day 1).

I'd to write more of thorough review, but the story is brilliantly dense that I can't do it justice. The second book in the trilogy is 1,000 pages - which is daunting to me, but it's definitely on my reading list now. There's also a number of novellas that have been written for the world the Rothfuss has written which I've also earmarked. As for the conclusion of the trilogy, I've been told that not only is there no publication date set, but that Rothfuss has been at it for 8 years 😱!!!