Cannonball Read 9

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

Not Firefly

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

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This seems to be a divisive book and I can see why. I had two problems with it: one was a matter of taste, the other was a tension and storytelling problem. The book features a motley crew manning a spaceship. This is where the Firefly comparisons come in, and people that enjoy it seem to see the connection beyond that. And this is where the taste issue comes up, I love Firefly and its brand of humor and quirk. I did not think this book was funny and the characters that were obviously meant as comic relief just annoyed […]

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5/23/2017 | 's CBR9 Review No:14 |

Am I the only species in creation that doesn’t thrive on conflict?

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

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I’m still not quite sure if I enjoyed this book or not. It’s fine, but for the large majority of the book I just thought it was OK. I feel almost guilty for saying that, because the book is just so nice, but that’s kind of all that it is. Ironically, I’ve been saying that I want light and fluffy fiction, nothing too deep or heavy, and yet when presented with one of the lightest and fluffiest books I’ve come across in a long while I’m left picking through the cotton candy and complaining about the lack of substance. In […]

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5/22/2017 | 's CBR9 Review No:45 |

Yet another glowing review for this gem of a book.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1) by Becky Chambers

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I was going to give this four stars because I really enjoyed myself while reading it, but I didn’t get THAT FEELING, you know? But then I had this one thought afterwards that completely reshaped my perspective about the whole book and now I have to give it five stars. But first some context. This has been an absurdly well-reviewed book here at CBR (and everywhere else), and it pretty much came out of nowhere. It has been compared frequently to both Star Trek (because of its optimistic vision of humanity’s future) and Firefly (because of the ragtag, underdog nature of […]

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5/6/2017 | 's CBR9 Review No:34 |

Hey, look, we’re all different. Isn’t that swell?

The Long Way to A Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

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The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is the somewhat unwieldy title to an absolutely delightful story of a tightly-knit group of space-farers tasked with tunneling through space, setting up wormholes that allow for interplanetary travel. It’s set in the distant future (obviously), where humanity has made Earth uninhabitable and are scattered across the cosmos. They’ve joined a collective of alien races called the Galactic Commons. That’s pretty much it, in a nutshell. The broad elements here will be familiar to anyone who’s been in contact with the genre before, whether that contact be through Star Trek, Firefly, or […]

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4/21/2017 | 's CBR9 Review No:28 |

Wildly different from the first book and yet still so good

A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2) by Becky Chambers

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Oh my God you guys this book was so good. Like many of y’all mentioned, it’s very different from the first book, which seemed like really well-written Firefly fanfiction (not a bad thing at all!). This book is much more tightly written, focusing on just a couple of characters rather than the large crew from the first book. I think someone else mentioned Margaret Atwood in their review of it and I absolutely agree. And that’s a huge compliment coming from me! At the end of the first book, the ship’s artificial intelligence, Lovelace, has figured out how to implant […]

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4/5/2017 | 's CBR9 Review No:92 |

A Fun Read Not Heavy on the Sci-Fi

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

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Sometimes, a bookclub pick ends up really working well.  This book was described to us as being like Firefly but I’m not really sure if I totally buy the comparison.  But it was still enjoyable. The story begins with a young woman who is fleeing Mars and signs up to be a sort of secretary/translator to a working ship.  The ship works by poking holes in space, creating wormholes, or something of that sort.  I think they explain it in the book, but not in a really science-y way.  What it’s more about than the mechanics of space travel is […]

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3/14/2017 | 's CBR9 Review No:6 |

It’s Not What You Think

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

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I was looking for something fun, or rollicking. I remembered that I had seen a book advertised as “Firefly meets The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” That sounded like what I was looking for. It was and it wasn’t. I enjoyed it very much and I don’t want to go into the plot or even the characters much. You should be unspoiled for this book as much as possible. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is a contemplative, character driven space opera. Earth has been destroyed by humanity. Humans have either settled on Mars, or dispersed through space […]

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1/3/2017 | 's CBR9 Review No:1 |

If Hitchhiker’s Guide & Firefly had a baby…

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet #1) by Becky Chambers

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Pictured: the two covers for the United States release of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. They’re quite obviously paying homage to two of my favorite series: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Firefly. Which basically sums up the book itself. If you like either of those series, you’ll like this. “That’s such an incredibly organic bias, the idea that your squishy physical existence is some sort of pinnacle that all programs aspire to.” So sometime in the far, far future, Earth has self-destructed and humans (the rich ones fled to Mars prior to the collapse, while the poorer ones became space travelers) have finally been accepted to an intergalactic […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Purchase The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet #1) by Becky Chambers or any item from amazon via our link.

Funds raised are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name.

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1/14/2016 | 's CBR8 Review No:10 |

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