Recent reading

[luzula]

I'm behind on my book posts, so...

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers (2016, audiobook, #2 of the Wayfarers series)
This has a much more coherent plot than the first one, which felt more like an episodic sci-fi TV series. I enjoyed it a lot! The two alternating stories work well together, and the audiobook reader was good. It's a restful book to read, in the sense that all the main characters are fundamentally decent people. Like, you're just getting worried that someone is getting tattooed while they're on drugs at a party, when the tattoo artist reassures you that of course they would never tattoo anyone without proper consent, but this species sheds their skin often, so the tattoo won't be permanent. Not that there isn't tension in the story (especially Jane's part), but there's still a bedrock of decency and humanity (if you apply that last word to AI:s and aliens as well).

Renskötarkvinnor och livet i de sista rajderna by Lilian Ryd (2013, only in Swedish)
Title means "Reindeer-tending women and life in the last rajds". A "rajd" is not a raid, as you might think, but a train of tame raindeer that carry your things (in the summer) or pull them on sleds (in the winter) while the main reindeer herd migrates between forest and mountains over the year. This kind of Sami nomadic life doesn't exist anymore in Sweden, but ebbed out in the 60's and 70's. Nowadays reindeer are tended with trucks, snowmobiles and helicopters. The book is a series of in-depth interviews with (mostly) women who lived this kind of life. The focus is on the details of everyday life, and it's just a lovely book overall that makes you feel really close to these women. And kind of amazed at the condition that they are in now, in their eighties and nineties, after having lived a large part of their life on foot and on skis. Most of us sure won't age that well.

Comments

[auroracloud]

I'm so happy you loved A Closed and Common Orbit! I get the feeling it hasn't been as much a fan favourite as the first book, but I loved it. It dealt with weightier themes but still managed to do so in a comforting, feel-good way, and the main characters and their trials were fascinating, as was the insight into how the world might feel to a sentient AI in a body. And I loved fleshing out new sections of the world, especially everything we learned about the Aeluon culture, and all the sims and how they bought taught you things and were comfort in times pain and loneliness, much like books and TV shows are in our time to many people. I've been meaning to read this one again, and probably I will sometime soon-ish.

[luzula]

I liked it better than the first one, I think! But I've been hearing good things about the third book, too, so I'm looking forward to that.

[auroracloud]

I love both the first one and the second one about equally, for slightly different reasons. The first one is my ultimate comfort book and beloved book family, whereas the second one drives more deeply into some fascinating stuff. And I loved the third one, too, though in that one I didn't feel as emotionally connected to the characters as in the first two, so it's a little lower on my list. Still going to be one of my Hugo noms, though.

The third one is more about society and culture than it is about individual characters and their interactions, but the characters are engaging and we see how the society and culture affects each of them. On an idea level it's really fascinating, and I love how it explores the society and culture in myriad ways. I have a feeling it's going to be very much up your alley!

[luzula]

That sounds great! I have a habit of saving up books I think I will love, though, so the odds are I might not read it right away, then... : )

[scribe]

After finishing the third Wayfareres book recently I keep flailing around trying to put into words just what it is that I find so...affecting, I guess?...about Becky Chambers' writing. I think "a bedrock of decency and humanity" is definitely part of it, well put!

[luzula]

Thanks! Really looking forward to the third book, I'm hearing such good things about it.