To Be Taught, If Fortunate

Yes! This is how you do a near future sci-fi!

The story follows the tale of an early set of space explorers conducting one of the first manned extra-solar missions to planets where life can be found. The sense of wonder and the possible is palpable throughout the story, with a constant challenge of what forms life could take, recognizing the nature of common ancestors has perhaps limited the variety on earth. The imagination is wild and the scenes produced believable.

The technology used by the astronauts has a root very much in current technology lending it an air of believability. The communication with earth takes years because with electromagnetic based communication like we currently have that is what it would take. The sense of detachment this generates is ultimately central to the plot.

I loved this book, it was extremely well written, offering just the right amount of hope whilst recognizing the frequent failings of our current civilization

Shorter novella unlike her other books that were each very good. Read 33% and this wasn't giving much focus to a plot or the characters.

To Be Taught, If Fortunate – Did Not Finish:

I was very curious about this author, given the great following she has—but it turns out she’s not for me.

What others might call contemplative, I found simply boring. The writing is fine, and the world-building is fairly light, but the real issue is that nothing happens. The entire story feels like scaffolding for an almost uninterrupted stream of consciousness, which for me was thoroughly uninteresting.

Just when it seems like something might finally start to happen, the dreaded internal monologue kicks in again. I couldn’t get through it.

Smaller and sadder than I thought it was going to be, but amazing nonetheless.

3.5 stars.

This is the third book I've read from Becky Chambers and I'll just say that it was kind of disappointing. I didn't really care that much about the characters and their actions, but I enjoyed the writing and liked where the story ended.

About a group of scientists that hop between planets on multiyear research missions, looking for signs of life, before finally returning back home to earth at their end of their expedition. It's a novella so it kind of felt like the climax/plot twist came near the end and then was just sort of resolved but not quite as satisfyingly as you would get from a proper novel.

This was a mesmerizing, beautiful read. Reminded me of Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary in a lot of ways, but with less action and jokes. 

This didn't really grab me in the way I thought it would. The first third is quite slow, though it picks up a lot on the second and third planets explored. I love stories about space travel and found the time dilation interesting, though executed in a way I didn't expect.

Chambers explores the ethics of space travel, particularly a sort of reverse-Alien consideration - what do we bring to planets, and how may that impact them? (Of course, thinking about the examples throughout our history of colonization and infectious disease...) I liked that. I have some qualms with the closing pages that I'm going to write out in the following spoilered section...

There is a passage in the final third that made me sit the book down and go through some memories though. I write about that over on my SubStack here: https://tbindc.substack.com/p/home-space-travel-and-updates.

Okay - so there is a big focus on not impacting the local environment throughout the book. For most of the story, this as one of the prime directives of the crew makes sense. They seem quite happy to ignore it to escape from Opera as they fry up a few hundred leaching rats on the side of their ship in blasting off the planet's surface (in fact, our main character directly discusses it). They do this to carry on their mission and to survive.Yet, when they are faced with the potential of Earth's (or, humanity's) destruction and wonder what to do, they make some really weird decisions. Ariadne suggests they go to another planet, out of reach but likely to sustain life. Yet, the crew says if they do this - they will have to live on the ship, in orbit. This really baffled me - that's a high fidelity to their value of not impacting the environment!I hesitate to say it's not "realistic" because I don't exactly look for total fidelity to realism in science fiction. I do, however, find it a bit arrogant, and inconsistent with what they said previously in the book, where Ariadne mentioned that if just their presence impacted an evolutionary line, it wasn't that stable to begin with.Sure, their mere presence and their living a life on a planet are not the same thing. That said, 4 people living in an isolated camp is not exactly the stuff of tectonic evolutionary changes. Or, maybe it is. I'll noodle on it a bit more.That aside, I can say pretty firmly that I wouldn't surrender my agency to a distant and potentially destroyed planet. Sorry, folks!

This book was really great... right up until the end. It's beautifully written, and it's a good book, but my personal preference is for less... ambiguous endings. I don't need EVERYTHING tied up in a neat bow, but I really don't like “Lady and the Tiger” endings. That's simply personal preference though. Otherwise the book was so great, that the ending was proportionally disappointing to me.

Ugh, I loved this book so much! This is the kind of space scifi I love. The kind that gets into the minutiae of the science. Not necessarily large, complex concepts (which I do also enjoy), but the day-to-day details of what travelling among the stars would require and the author's imagination needed to make it make sense.

Also, Chambers has a way of writing characters and found families I can't even begin to put into words. They feel so real and you just care about them. The way she had Ari describe the group as a molecule instantly got me. I cared more about Ari and her crew in less than 200 pages than I have about other MCs over entire trilogies.

So good.

Pretty enjoyable if you ignore the upsettingly formulaic beginning and super corny ending.

“Life in isolation is a death sentance”

This book both filled me with joy and absolutely terrified me. The whole chapter with the space rats.... nope, never want to experience that ever. My favourite place as definitely Aecor, maybe because it was the longest chapter but I really enjoyed it

The characters were really cool and I wish we got to know them better. I loved each of their different personalities and they worked well to balance each other out. The whole space system/technology was really well thoughts out

Turns out I own “A long way to a small, angry, planet” so I will be reading that at some point as it seems (?) to be part of a series. Either way I love Becky's writing style in both this and her Monk and Robot series and while they are vasty different they are both enjoyable and a great read :)

Mmmm, I love it when you talk nerdy to me. Blend it with meaningful human connection and I'm all yours. This is the most scientifically literate work I've read by Chambers, and it's exquisite. Four beautiful, complex characters (one trans, one ace!) in a loving polycule, all of them committed to an achingly lonely mission of searching for extrasolar life... and no human yet has experienced this level of commitment, in which the Earth you return to—if you return—will be unrecognizable. The emotions of leaving your home and loved ones behind could merit a book in themselves, and are not the main focus here, but Chambers does a respectable job with them.

There are big plot holes: crowdfunding six deep-space missions, uh, not likely. Onboard fuel and energy. And, four planets, with only one landing site each? That goes into “inconceivable”[1] territory. But the story wouldn't work otherwise, and oh, how the story works. The bioadaptation gimmick is fascinating; the exotic life forms tantalizing, the moral dilemmas heartbreaking. And, finally, this is Chambers, so her characters are on the too-good-to-be-true side (virtuous, decent, flawed but self-aware and self-correcting) and I just love that. It gives me hope for what we can be.

[1] “You keep using that word.”

And Becky Chambers does it again! It's a comfort punk, gentle sci-fi full of soulful writing ✍️

Perfect book when you just want to curl up and feel a little bit cosy.

I wanted to read this book after listening to it. In part because I couldn't remember the ending, and in part because books with depth require more thought on my part, which audiobooks don't afford as well. 

I enjoyed the science in this fiction, but more so the human experience. It seems that each planet could correlate to a different stage of our lives and how we respond to them. Each in our own unique ways. This may not be the intent of Chambers, but it is what this book has sparked in me. Whether on this world or another, the question that faces us daily is how to navigate this life. What do we use it for? And is our life of value, even if it doesn't have a commercial value? Or become a person who is off global or national influence? Most importantly, how do we treat others? How do we show them respect and honor their lives? 

I love books that get me thinking about deeper things and this one does just that. 

Becky Chambers is my latest favorite author. I love her cozy brand of science fiction! And this book did not disappoint!

There is something so heartbreakingly human in Chambers' books. This is the second one I've read and I absolutely devoured it. I think to most it may seem boring, but the minutia is just so lovely. The details tear me to pieces in how close to home they feel. The ending of this was hard for me.

This was... beautiful. Everything about it was beautiful. From the writing, to the richness of Chambers's imagination, to the in-depth character work - this book was close to perfection. I pretty much finished this in one sitting over just 2-3 hours because I couldn't put it down.

Besides reading, I'm also a bit of an astronomy nut but I've never been much into sci-fi for whatever reason. I first started getting into it after finally picking up The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet recently and thoroughly loving it, so I decided to give this one a go as well and it blew me away.

In her acknowledgements, Chambers disclaims that she's not a scientist which I was honestly pretty surprised by. She weaves in some pretty great science into this work, although granted I'm merely an amateur in astronomy so I wouldn't know if it's perfect science or up to date enough. Later she explains that her mom is an astrobiologist and then that all made sense.

What I particularly loved is how carefully Chambers avoids anthropomorphizing possible alien life or adopting any kind of human-centric view of the universe. I find that too many sci-fi works, especially those that deal with aliens and other worlds, assumes that human-like creatures (by that definition, I mean vertebrates with two eyes, one mouth, one nose) dwell on Earth-like planets most of the time which is pretty narrow and boring for the plethora of possibilities in the Universe. Chambers apparently feels the same way and she blasts these preconceived templates out of the water with this one.

Chambers's writing was also so smooth to read. The scientific bits of this book was delivered with just enough delicacy to be both instructive and enlightening, while also being easy to digest and entertaining. She manages to build these alien worlds (at least a glimpse of them from the relatively short time our Lawki 6 crew spend on these planets) in a way that each brought new things and experiences and lessons to the table. Chambers also manages to weave in some mystery into a story that is ultimately about stepwise exploration. We know Lawki 6's trajectory from the start - they are visiting 4 alien planets/moon that orbit around a faraway red dwarf star - but Chambers masterfully injects an element of mystery and uncertainty that kept me going and propelled me to finish this in one sitting.

As I already knew from Small, Angry Planet, Chambers really shines with her characters. This may be a short novella and there's only a grand total of four characters in the whole book, but we are inexplicably attached to each of them as the story goes on. Ariadne, in particular, is one of the rare protagonists that I can root for and feel so much empathy with, particularly the bit at the end of the chapter Ocean, where she almost succumbs to that astrophysical nihilism and let herself drift away to her death amongst the stars. That was an amazing moment to me and just oh so poignant.

What are you waiting for? Whatever your reading preferences, this book has something for everyone and I'd highly recommend it.

I needed this book more than I thought. Highly recommend. Beautifully homely space exploration story. Inspiring beyond reason, especially on reflection.

I found it hard when starting this book to read through all the full pages of text. There is very little dialogue and especially the beginning is very stream of consciousness / info dump. But when it kicked off a bit I could really get into the story. 

Somehow all Becky Chambers books end in this sort of open/closed ending. Where you could technically say it ended in a satisfactory way and yet you still don't know anything. Its brilliant and frustrating simultaneously. 

I loved the mix of science and story with the big emotional evolution of the characters. Excellent

Luin aikaisemmin paljon englanninkielistä scifiä, mutta se harrastus on sittemmin jäänyt muun lukemisen jalkoihin. Nyt tuli ystävältä sen verran vakuuttava suositus uudesta scifikirjailijasta, jota ei ole vielä suomennettu, ja kun kirjoja oli vielä kirjastosta saatavilla, niin täytyihän Becky Chambersiin tutustua.

Romaanit voi jaotella karkeasti päämotivaatioltaan ainakin juonivetoisiin, tunnelman vuoksi luettaviin ja kielellisesti uraauurtaviin. Scifin puolelta löytyy paljon myös ideavetoista kirjallisuutta: monissa kovempaa scifiä edustavissa kirjoissa on paperinohuet henkilöt ja juoni vähän sinne päin, ja pääosassa on joku mielenkiintoinen idea. To Be Taught, If Fortunate lukeutuu vankasti tähän ryhmään, olkoonkin, että sen pieni henkilögalleria on mielenkiintoinen ja kaikkea muuta kuin paperinohutta.

Kirja kertoo Lawki 6 -tehtävästä, joka on avoimen avaruushankkeen Open Cluster Astronauticsin kansalaisrahoitettu, valtioista ja sotavoimista riippumaton tutkimusprojekti, jossa kartoitetaan maailmankaikkeutta kartoittamisen ilosta, ilman suunnitelmia siirtokunnista tai sotilasprojekteista. Lawki 6 on lähetetty tutkimaan neljää asumiskelpoista planeettaa punaisen kääpiötähti Zhenyin ympärillä: jäistä kuuta Aecoria ja maankaltaisia Mirabilis-, Opera- ja Votum-planeettoja.

Kirjan kertoja on Ariadne, tehtävän insinööri. Kaikkiaan matkalla on tiivis neljän hengen porukka, joka viettää lentomatkat keinotekoisessa horroksessa ja herää perillä tekemään tutkimustyötä. Yksi OCA-tehtävien oivalluksista on tehdä terraformauksen sijasta somaformausta, eli sen sijaan, että muutettaisiin ympäristöä ihmisille sopivaksi, muutetaankin ihmiset perillä odottaviin elinympäristöihin sopiviksi käyttäen entsyymejä, jotka esimerkiksi muuttavat tilapäisesti veren sisältämään jäänestoainetta, ihon kimaltamaan heikomman valaistuksen vuoksi ja elimistön kykeneväksi käyttämään kosmista säteilyä ravinnoksi.

Ariadne kertoo retkikunnan vaiheista neljällä planeetalla. Matkan varrella on paljon mielenkiintoisia näkökulmia. OCA:n tehtävät eivät ole yksisuuntaisia matkoja, niiltä palataan aina kotiin, mutta kun matka kestää vuosikymmeniä, on selvää, että perheenjäseniään tai kotiaan ei enää näe. Miltä se tuntuu? Miltä tuntuu kohdata maapallon ulkopuolista elämää? Millaista on nähdä jotain todella vierasta?

Tällaisessa kirjallisuudessa pakollinen osa on tiedon tarjoaminen, joka voi tapahtua joko informaation kaatamisena kurkusta alas väkisin, tai sitten tyylikkäämmin. Becky Chambers osaa tyylikkään infodumppaamisen taidon: huomasin moneen kertaan ilahtuvani siitä, kun Chambers kertoo jotain oivalluksia herättävää informaatiota. Tieteestä innostuvalle To Be Taught, If Fortunate on hyvää luettavaa. Juoni ei ole kirjan vahvuuksia, mutta napakan mittainen tarina sisältää sentään käänteitä, eikä ole vain tylsä matkakuvaus.

Henkilöt ovat perinteisissä scifikirjoissa monesti heikkoja. Tässä ei ole niin, vaan jokainen kirjan neljästä henkilöstä on omanlaisensa, ilmeikäs ja mielenkiintoinen hahmo, jolla on omat heikkoutensa ja voimavaransa, jotka tulevat kirjan aikana tyylikkäästi ilmi. Nykyaikaa on myös se, ettei henkilökaarti ole automaattisesti valkoinen miehistö. Suhtautuminen ulkoavaruuden elämään on samalla tavalla raikas: aluksen henkilökunnan avoimen utelias, kunnioittava ja nöyrä suhtautuminen on todella miellyttävää.

Toivottavasti Becky Chambers pääsisi jonkun kustantamon suomennoslistalle. Aion itse ehdottomasti seuraavaksi tarttua Chambersin arvostettuun Wayfarers-trilogiaan.

4.5 lovely little book

no talk me i'm in a whirlpool of emotions

This was a short but thought provoking story following some explorers investigating life on planets around another star. While there are some interesting technological innovations )such as altering the body to survive in different gravities etc.) this isn't really the point. This is more of a philosophical work that encourages us to think about our place and purpose in the universe.

Minor gripe: The cover is just wrong. The character repeatedly cuts her hair short and it is a plot point that the astronauts wear space suits when leaving the vehicle.

Lovely found family space exploration novella. Told from one POV as if addressing an audience ‘back home' on Earth. Chambers is excellent at bring heart into sci-fi and I love it.