“I wish I could wear shoes”. Get A Plot. This has been published to generally positive reviews and, in my opinion, that is because some readers either don’t read much science fiction or are giving a newbie a soft ride. This novel (it’s episodic and smacks of being a “fix-up”) would be a great start for some young twenty-something but as it is, it’s the kind of thing that makes this reader go “Aw, bless…” but bear in mind I’m still reeling from Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Aurora”. Kudos for churning out the 100k words but there needs to be some sort of futurological perspective on character if you’re going to focus on the people within a science-fiction novel, eitherwise it just looks like you want to play sci-fi Barbie and Ken. Iain M Banks’ “Consider Phlebus” has oodles of character stuff but also insane action with dramatic consequences. Funded via Kickstarter (which strikes me as dubious), self-published (which is kinda where it should have stayed) then acquired by Hodder what we end up with is fifty pages of “meh” introductions before we actually punch a wormhole through space-time and that incredible event is all over in two pages. The whole raison d’etre of the crew of the Wayfarer consists of some loud noise, a bit of buffeting and, er, that’s it – despite the fact that one character requests to sleep through it – and then they’re all off partying on some recreation deck. This is basically all the bantery stuff from your favourite sci-fi show minus the plot. The bit rubbish pilot before the season catches fire. Becky Chambers should do exactly what she’s doing now but make stuff happen. More jeopardy. Up the stakes. Bah!
