The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

Ugh, okay, I'm going to be the asshole here and discuss how much I didn't like this book, even though its heart is clearly in the right place and it has Good Values (or, let's say, values I agree with and like to see in sf).

But! I had sorta seen other reviews that mentioned this is kinda like Firefly and the SJWness is too SJWey, but my responses were, “Well, I liked Firefly!” and “aw man, if it angers right-wing sf nerds it's goin STRAIGHT TO MY TO-READ PILE”. But, now that I've read it... yeah, this is basically just a pedestrian regurgitation of Firefly with REEEEALLY heavy-handed clunky SJWness.

To wit: The book centers around a literal motley crew of the starship Wayfarer. There's the studly rakish captain, Ashby (i.e. Mal Reynolds), his (platonic) reliable Strong Female first mate, Sissix (Zoe Washburne), the manic pixie dream girl mechanic, Kizzy (Kaylee), the wise and elderly Doctor Chef (Shepherd Book), the ethereal navigator Ohan (River) and SO ON and SO FORTH.

Like the good ship Serenity, the good ship Wayfarer lives from job to job, journeying across a quirky galaxy that has some darkness - but not too much darkness. Like the good ship Serenity, the Wayfarer eventually gets a job to go waaay out to the far reaches of the space civilization, and (LIKE THE SERENITY) there they confront some of the Core Values of that civilization, and - by the power of their everyday tolerance and multi-species diversity - impart galaxy-wide lessons that everyone can learn from.

I mean, like. Obviously everything is a remake of everything. That's fine. There's nothing original anymore, blah blah. But this was SUCH a copy as to be really dull, and I spent the entire book just pushing through, wanting it to be over so I could go read something more interesting. The dialogue was clunky and obvious, EVERYTHING was clunky and obvious. The few departures were also very sigh sigh. For example, one “new” character is Rosemary Harper, the secret corporate-princess with a heart of gold, freshly escaped from a greedy 1980s Martian dynasty. (Side note but I love how future colonial Mars always devolves into becoming a corporo-fascist 1980s nightmare state - see Floating Worlds, Arnold's arrghgrhgrh eyes popping out, and, of course, all the violence and corporate nightmares in Red Mars). Anyway, Rosemary is naive and new to this universe (hello, infodumping!), but also competent and (early on) described as pretty. In other words, a Mary Sue. I mean COME ON!!!

Again, I repeat the disclaimer: I feel like an asshole here, the book's HEART IS ALSO CLEARLY MADE OF GOLD. But!

But aaghhh, the sf was so frustratingly unimaginative: with the random-number-generator ID numbers or e-mail identifiers or EVERYTHING IDENTIFIERS that are pointless and meant to just lazily signify Future Technology. Or the 1990s-style chattering news reporters - like, most young people don't get their news from chattering news reporters TODAY, in 2017, so why in the Lord are far future people watching 1990s-style TV news reports?! Why do they have to wait for a “morning” and “evening” edition when we are talking about a multi-sun civilization!?!?! Why is the whole book about diversity and social progressivism, as understood by 21st century American standards, but the captain of the ship is still a dude and the first “comfort food” meal is still a meat and potatoes Anglo-American standard? (WHY NOT IDLY AND SAMBAR, EH?) Why would anyone choose to write a manic pixie dream girl!? Why are all the moral dilemmas so obvious and so... not dilemmas?!! Oh my Lord, and yes, okay, right now, we are living in a historical period where whiteness vs. people of color racism is a thing and it's bad and insidious and devastating to our social and economic potential and so forth. But shitty whiteness is a fairly recent phenomenon (let's say about ~500 years old) and so WHY OH WHY is there that clunky stuff in the beginning about how Ashby, like “most future humans” is a pastiche of “races”, while Corbin, the scientist and only intolerant asshole on the ship, has his whiteness remarked upon. Like, yes, okay, I was certainly reminded of some privileged white guy asshole scientists I know. But, from a meta level, can we be less obvious?! And, from the within-the-narrative level, why would race be remarked upon like this in ~500 years time?! Who KNOWS what people will find remarkable! (I'm reminded of the Gene Roddenberry response to journalists asking why Picard was bald - wouldn't they have “cured baldness” by the 24th century? No, they wouldn't care.)

And now, because I simply must, here are some socially progressive sf that I would recommend in this book's stead, stuff that covers the same issues but does it better:
- If you liked the far future discussion of bodies and existing outside a gender binary for humans: Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312
- If you liked the stuff about exploring non-gender binary and “weird” social relations among alien species: Ursula LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness
- If you liked the motley crew, the quirky universe, the human Exodus, the living job-to-job, the sexy captain, watch Serenity and enjoy Nathan Fillion's one-bloodshot-eye space cowboy; and then watch all of Firefly
- If you liked the discussion of “how are AIs different than humans?”, “can you fall in love with an AI?”, then read/watch anything you find in the sf shelf
- If you liked the primary documents, the quotidian worries of just trying to (economically) get by in a quirky, weird universe, and the snarky humor, Fred Pohl's Gateway