Inkdeathinbloom’s Comments (group member since Sep 02, 2016)

Inkdeathinbloom’s comments from the The Long Way... To a Common Orbit flash group group.

I'm in- looking forward to it!

Mikhail- I like your matrix! The evaluation of how well it is expressing its moral message- the complexity of the message and if it's being told, rather than shown/felt/etc. is really good. By that evaluation, a lot more books could be defined as such, I think. As I said in my post, preachiness is usually more of an assault feeling for me, but I really like this system.

I didn't take the message of the book to be too anti-war, actually, but that was perhaps because I may have failed to pick up on a point or generalize (I do that). I took the point of the Grum as more of an interesting point of looking at the scope of civilizations, and kind of a meditation on fatalism- is there a point where maybe you should say "yeah, maybe it is time to roll up the circus on this one"? Ashby was a strong pacifist, but was one for specific cultural reasons ingrained in him from the Exodan fleet, which had particular historical/cultural roots. Kizzy was fine with getting a gun though, and there was never any moralizing at whatever war Pei was off shuttling supplies for. Finally, it seemed like the issue they had with the Toremi was that on the interior, the Toremi always required perfect agreement (and in general, couldn't ever reach it) and thus were highly volatile. It seemed like more of a reaction against how that would react with a largely established society rather than a spin against war. I definitely didn't think it was establishing war as something that was human in behavior (?).

p.s- I'm a historian by training too! Very fun, I don't meet many outside of academia, lol

I'm wondering if my meter for preachy is a little broken- I've seen this complaint listed by just about everyone so far, and I didn't find the book too preachy. Yeah, there were areas it wasn't subtle, but there's a point when any time then that an author tries to interject/show something of note/point/illustrate it'll be "preachy". I think there needs to be some space for them to do this. Chambers was sometimes clumsy with this, yes. I've seen it done better, totally. But preachy as a main complaint for me? No.

I've read some scifi that over does it on the issue-at-hand before- that has verged into preachy for sure. But this book really didn't have much of that for me. I'm legitimately curious what things you guys found preachy though, or how you define it in this context. Or maybe "preachy" is just a really, really filthy word in my book that I'm overthinking...

Then again though, I'm in a book club that read Cloud Atlas last month (I don't think we're letting the person who picked that book ever pick the book ever again), and that book is so overwrought with how bloody meaningful it is and absorbed in its own self importance that it has its own category of preachy. Preachy for me is pompous and "look how clever I am" and "clearly I'm brilliant and making meaning" and lecturing and making bloody sermons about whatever pulpit issue they've chosen to mount. That... may have been an anger rant about preachy books- I've had some really bad experiences with it.

Athena wrote: "I like Corbin evolving from Algae Guy Jackass to bad-with-people-but-trying, though it felt like a planned reveal rather than a character's evolution. Perhaps she didn't trust the readers enough? A bolder author might have fleshed him as an utterly unlikeable dickhead, but given us his flashes of feeling for the crew that he couldn't process. A touchpoint for his evolution would've made saving Ohan more powerful too."

Carol wrote: "There were a couple moments in the book where I thought she could have done more with his difficulty with people... maybe thrown in a little autism/Asperger research and tried to bring in the perspective more fully."

I agree with Athena here, but I would actually note in response to Carol, that Chambers did actually bring in a form of Autism/Asperger's a little bit, which I found really interesting- or at least that was how I recognized it. It was in a non-human context though, so I thought it was an interesting way to express a possible parallel? I wasn't sure, so I'd be interested to hear how you guys read it.

In the chapter when they were in Port Coriol, Sissix stops and spends time with the Aandrisk in the market- and she tells Rosemary that she has a particular type of syndrome that means she doesn't socialize well- it's hard for her, and so the other Aandrisk's just ignore her. It makes it difficult for her to get the kind of contact that she desires, but can't actually reach out/connect for. I saw this as a very clear alien parallel to ASD. Corbin, not so much. So I think she was in part thinking about it, but didn't think it applied to Corbin- Corbin may have just been an antisocial jerk. Or, quite interestingly, there's a thing called Schizoid Personality Disorder (not really related to Schizophrenia, but sometimes has some of the appearance ASD, without being so). Thoughts?

Athena- I think on a second read, I too would kind of "skip over" the parts that didn't gel. Did you see the part where Chambers mentioned that she was writing her book, and then basically lost her job 2/3 way through it? She went to kickstarter. I really, really loved aspects of this, although I too get some of that new author feel- things that could have been better, just a little more rigorous (I like your science. I like science in general. I wanted a lot more information on the algae, for instance. And waaaay more info on the Sianats and the work they did and the Whisperer and how the cure worked, and... like sooo much more science, because it was *right there*). Anyway though, a small, nagging part of me wonders if some of that- particularly what felt like a rushed end, was because she rushed through that last 1/3 via kickstarter trying to keep her head above water. Which hey, fair. But also...

There will be a second book within this "series" which I believe will follow Lovelace. I definitely want to keep my eye on the author and the world and see what happens with it.

A good argument was made to me (by me?) while I was ranting about the ending of the book to a friend though- given that these characters were "just spacers", could they have really engaged in the kind of political/involved sci-fi I really wanted them to as soon as the Toremi Ka were introduced? (see above post). Probably not. So *some* of that lack of engagement made sense by the nature of the crew, and the story being told, I guess... and I think maybe slightly better writing could have made that a whole lot less jarring and not leave me feeling jipped.

And Carol- I think episodic is a good way to put it, and it reminds me again a little bit of Firefly. The thing is though it hit as episodic in same places, but then didn't have the right components for episodic in others! I'm all for unusual narrative storytelling- I've read some really creative/odd ones- but this was one that seemed like it just wasn't sure which it was doing. At times it was episodic, microcosmic, and other times, it was macrocosmic and sweeping, showing you a much larger world and plot. It made the highs and lows of the narrative difficult to predict, and rather than that making it suspenseful, instead it was just asynchronous and jerky. Vonnegut's diagrams for storytelling kind of had a good point, you know?

Ok, so I've finished. And while I generally loved it- the worldbuilding, the meditation of themes, the characters, the relationships between them, even somewhat the lighter side of the story- I was pretty surprised at the way the end wrapped up.

I was expecting... more. Something. I guess they're just spacers. Maybe that's the point? But... I was expecting more from the Toremi Ka. Especially with the introduction of Toum! Instead we meet him, 20 pages at Hedra Ka, and then boom! Destruction, survival, consequence, wrap up, end.

What? This... I enjoyed everything else, but this was a serious storytelling let down for me. Maybe because it didn't follow classical narrative themes. It just... ended very quickly.

This was a bit jarring for me too. Or maybe not jarring- I was totally ready to go with the Toremi Ka perspective. I was prepared for the book to take that twist and give me 300 pages of Hedra Ka/Toremi Ka politics and interaction. I was ready for Toum and the New Mother and a brewing political shift from the other side to be a plot point. I could go with the first 300 pages being our crew getting there/establishing character and world.

So when they got there, flashed us some Toremi, and then boom, turned around, had it fall to pieces, and they were back in GC space in a span of about 20 pages and then wrap up, end of book was... kind of surprising. That was jarring. Was I the only one ready for it to go into this direction?

Carol- I really like the idea! Usually I only ever have time to read in spurts, and then I sit and cram read a few books in a weekend or something, so this version is a nice invention :)

I'm 140 pages in, and I can see some of this would echo the feeling of Firefly of the Ketty Jay, in the feel of the characters, the hint of swashbuckle. I really like that LWtaSAP is thoughtfully engaging with themes of science fiction and alien culture though; what it means for humans to be engaging in it, how that kind of cross-culture interaction can have tons of nuance, how it's not always pretty, but not nasty either, and a lot of worldbuilding for what that looks like and how humans got there.

Firefly and the Ketty Jay were adventure stories (that I love to death, so not knocking) that dealt with human and political themes. LWtaSAP is knocking at different doors, subtly (at least so far), while still keeping the camraderie and spirit of adventure that kept readers engaged with things like Firefly and Ketty Jay. It's thoughtful without being too overt or preachy so far, and it's full of nuance. So far it's off to a promising/intriguing start.

Not sure how a flash read works, but I'm looking forward to cramming this book this weekend. It's been on my list to read for a good while.