A Closed and Common Orbit

Becky Chambers
A Closed and Common Orbit Cover

A Closed and Common Orbit

spectru
5/27/2017
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I had read The Long Way to a Small, Angry, Becky Chambers debut novel and was looking forward to reading this one, the next in the series. A Closed and Common Orbit isn't a sequel. There is only one character from the first book, Lovelace, the Wayfarer's ship AI, now in a humanoid body she calls 'the kit.' There are two parallel stories, and we guess that one is the backstory for the other, with the same main character with different names. As we near the end of the book, the segments of the stories intersperse more quickly, converging at the climax.

It's a good story, well written. There is one thing the Chambers does -I didn't notice it in the first novel - she drops the -ly from adverbs. "She spoke quiet." It was bothersom. I think she must have done it deliberately. Aside from a few cases, such as saying real instead of really, which Chambers does incessantly, most people just don't talk like that. By the end of the book, I was listening for adverbs with the -ly, and actually heard a couple. So, while the story certain was most real good, it was written annoying. Most for this reason, I didn't enjoy A Closed and Common Orbit as much as The Long Way to A Small Angry Planet.

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