In early April I made the choice to put my limited free time (so, so limited in late March and early April) into a complete rewatch of Game of Thrones before the series came back for its final series. I also picked up and put down two different books earlier this month, just not feeling any of them. When it was time to travel for Easter, with a total of four flights, I reached for a sure-fire winner: A Closed and Common Orbit.
I loved The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet last summer and was excited to see what else Becky Chambers had waiting in her universe. I wasn’t disappointed, but I did have a bit of a struggle settling in to this new story. The first book was set within one ship with one small but diverse crew. A Closed and Common Orbit is an even smaller story, structurally. We are primarily with just two characters, and they hand the narrative back and forth. I had a tough time sinking into one character’s half of the story for the first third or so.
From Goodreads:
Lovelace was once merely a ship’s artificial intelligence. When she wakes up in an new body, following a total system shut-down and reboot, she has no memory of what came before. As Lovelace learns to negotiate the universe and discover who she is, she makes friends with Pepper, an excitable engineer, who’s determined to help her learn and grow.
Together, Pepper and Lovey will discover that no matter how vast space is, two people can fill it together.”
As Lovelace learns to navigate the body she is in following the events of the previous book (which you do not have to have read to read this one, but I suggest it anyway) she forms a new identity to go with it, and renames herself Sidra with Pepper’s blessing. I struggled with early story Sidra because she is struggling so much with the limitations of her body. As the story continues and we get more of Pepper’s background and personal history, and the story of Jane 23 unravels I found my footing in the overall story – Chambers is using hard sci-fi to have a discussion about identity, sure, but also personhood writ large.
Emmalita sold this series to me (and everyone else) as “cozy sci-fi” and that is such an accurate description. There is plot happening, and the world of Port Coriol is explored, but we are really digging into Sidra, Pepper, Blue, Owl, and Tak. Once it got going it did the thing that all really great books can do, it made me cry on public transport (I startled my seatmate on the plane).
I’m so looking forward to the next book in the series.
(I also wish my library carried the pretty covers, but the less pretty covers are winning me over.)