The Long Way... To a Common Orbit flash group discussion

Dr. Chef gets a chance to bond with Rosemary, and Kizzy gets to seek advice from Pei, and Rosemary gets to know Sissix's homeworld.

I will be honest, the end of Cricket and the Last War were my least favorite sections.

<> The entire sideplot of Rosemary's heritage feels at once overdone and underdeveloped. That is to say, on the one hand, "My Father is a Heinous Arms Dealer!" feels overdramatic, overly grand, more the kind of thing that you'd find in a fanfic than in a proper novel. It seemed to jar with the otherwise more subtle, low-key approach of having a group of working spacers. On the other hand, it also seems to have been dealt with too quickly and too easily. This is the kind of thing that ought to be the very center of the plot, but most of the crew is just "eh." About it.

Mind, I expect this to become more relevant once they get to Toremi space, so perhaps that will change my view.

<> Dr. Chef's monologue also felt rather heavy-handed. Yes, we get it, war is bad, pacifism is great, huzzah! I mean, who would disagree with this? (Okay, Terry Goodkind, I'll give you that). But overall it felt like the kind of philosophical musing you'd see from a freshman philosophy major.

<> Also, how sad is it that the single most suspension-of-disbelief shattering moment for me was the idea that a multi-billionaire would actually get arrested and sentenced to prison no matter [i]what[/i] he did. This says more about me than about the book, mind.

Mikhail... interesting thoughts. I thought of Rosemary's position perhaps as in parallel to Donald Trump's children, or Chelsea Clinton--not that anything was extremely life-ending, but the political and social ramifications/isolation were too much for her to deal with. And she is quite young. I can easily see it as being a big deal for a young person and not so big of a deal for people who are more worldly. I agree, Chambers could have made it a cornerstone of the plot. I'll be interested to see what you think later when they reach Toremi space.

Haha... well, you would know about freshman philosophy majors, right? ;)

Mikhail, re: rich guy going to jail
So, I found this to believable for two reasons 1) humans are super low in the GC higherarchy and 2) he was messing in the affairs of a species that the GC is currently trying to negotiate with. He was probably able to get away with it for so long because nobody really cared.

"The Last War": I like how the crew has been working things out with each other through rap sessions, with the bonus of getting to know the various members better. Dr. Chef's background, like how he discovered his dual career, is very cool.

Unfortunately, otherwise I found this chapter rather weak. I agree with Mikhail that Dr. Chef's lecture is 101 level at best. War causes suffering. You never know what life will hand to you. No, really?

"Kedrium": Kizzy's point of view! Her interior life is at least somewhat less manic than her exterior, and I liked seeing the mild contrast. The whole thing with the mines, again, relies on the character's skills/background coincidentally matching the emergency.

The scene starring Kizzy and Pei, where Kizzy defuses the mines, is charming.

Corbin Defense Squad Assemble!: Corbin comes over to ask a business-related question and the second he gets out of earshot, Sissix is sniping on him. It's perfectly fine if it's about the unpopular guy! What is this, junior high? At least they didn't immediately tell him to shut up when he made a suggestion during this chapter's crisis.

"Hatch, Feather, House": it may come across as unkind when I say that early on, an image of Sissix as a touchy-feely human in a lizard suit popped into mind and just would not leave. The closer look at the Aandrisk mores and culture in this chapter lessened the unfortunate malingering image somewhat.

I got a minor spoiler from a review somewhere that a relationship started between these two characters. It reads more like an agreement over a negotiating table than a romance, but they both seem fine with that, so it's all good.

You know, while I did get the "war is bad" take - it didn't seem to be the biggest point to me. I felt the bigger idea was what happens when you don't think about what you do or why you do it. And what happens when you put another person in the "other" category. You are more likely to commit atrocities if you feel you are better or "more human" than the "other."

This is where things really slowed down for me-long dialogue between characters that felt like it was being used to get some explanations out of the way.
I know I commented on world-building through dialogue earlier as something I liked about this book, so now I sound like a jerk, but it started annoying me at this point. I agree with the point about Rosemary's big reveal being something of a fizzle, although it did make that aspect of the book less predictable. Sounds like there might be some later excitement about it, though.
I did like the encounter with the hatchlings and I'm enjoying the vivid descriptions throughout the book. It's easy to visualize Chambers' imagined world.
I'm just a little bored with the pacing at this point.
You all are probably bored with my pacing in getting this read.