★ 06/18/2018
The delightful third book set in Chambers’s Galactic Commons universe (after A Close and Common Orbit) takes place in and around the Exodan Fleet, the set of generation ships in which humankind left an ecologically destroyed Earth. Following humans’ entry into the Galactic Commons, the Exodan ships were granted a star to orbit and given a lot of new alien technology. The effects of these things on the Exodan culture, which prioritizes resource conservation and does not use money, are far-reaching. A mother tries to deal with her daughter’s new fears after a horrific disaster; a young man from a planetary colony tries to emigrate to the Fleet; an alien ethnologist comes to study the Exodan ways of life. The multiple narrators and seemingly unrelated plot lines converge thematically into an intensely powerful and multifaceted meditation on time, history, change, and memory, leavened with a welcome touch of humor. The characters are distinct and lovable, each shedding light on a different facet of the Fleet. Chambers uses the interconnections inevitable in such a small society to provide moments of both horrific pain and soaring grace, and to make it clear that those things are inextricably intermingled. This is a superb work from one of the genre’s rising stars. (July)
As the real world grows each day stranger by leaps and bounds, the skewed secondary worlds, fantastical lands, and alternate histories that are the realms of science fiction and fantasy have only grown more vital, not only as a means of escape from blaring headlines, political turmoil, and the crescendo of climate change, but as […]
For two decades, Jim Killen has served as the science fiction and fantasy book buyer for Barnes & Noble. Every month on Tor.com and the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog, Jim shares his curated list of the month’s best science fiction & fantasy books. What’s on your to-read list from this month’s new releases?
Many of the characters in this book feel really close to home, from the exhausted mother trying to get her kids to bed, to the teenagers getting busted using fake IDs. Bearing in mind that of course you don’t live on a flotilla of spaceships, are your characters based on real people? On personal experience? […]
What new books are you reading right now?
In fantasy and science fiction, we cherish long-form storytelling and thoughtful worldbuilding. Which is why the fact that most every book gets a sequel or two (or eight) is a feature rather than a bug. Whether it’s in book two or book 20, we’re more than happy to revisit our favorite lands and characters. Here […]