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Engineering a Mindset
Jan 2021
Record of a Spaceborn Few - Becky Chambers – Hodder, 2018
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I enjoyed the two previous books in the Wayfarers series for their settings and characters but not so much for their plots. This one is much the same - there are only two events of significance, one of which happens offstage between the first two chapters - but I thought the social worldbuilding was particularly good.
Well, "worldbuilding" isn't quite the apposite term, because this story is set on a collection of spaceships. The Exodan Fleet left a trashed Earth several generations ago, looking for a new world. But while they were en route, first contact happened. When the fleet eventually arrived in the Galactic Commons, it elected to preserve its unique spacer culture by going into orbit in an uninhabited solar system generously given to them by their galactic neighbours. To the human and alien inhabitants of the Galactic Commons worlds, the Exodans are perceived as eccentric throwbacks, preserving a human-centric way of life in a cosmopolitan galaxy. But their culture was built on a strong idealistic vision of how people could live together for centuries in a contained environment, making it of interest to academics and immigrants tired of planet-side life. And to us, the readers, as we explore it through the viewpoints of five characters.
The one that will probably be of most interest to readers of the previous books is Tessa Santoso, the older sister of Captain Ashby from A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. Unfortunately she is also probably the least compelling, a working mother whose cargo handling job is threatened by AI introduced from the Commons. Isabel is an archivist who is hosting an enthusiastic visiting Harmagian academic, while Eyas is a caretaker, a funeral director tasked with respectfully composting the bodies of the dead (because everything has to be recycled). The two remaining characters present diametrically opposed views of Exodan culture - Kip is an energetic teenager who finds it stultifying and can't wait to get away, while Sawyer is a naïve immigrant from a dead-loss planet who is trying to reconnect with his ancestors.
What I really liked about the worldbuilding was the attention given to the psychological effects of living in an enclosed environment. The society must be egalitarian because disaffected elements could cause horribly dangerous accidents, and there is a heavy emphasis on using only the minimum resources needed to live. Eyas' job is particularly interesting as she has to promote the idea of giving back to the common good to overcome the natural discomfort that most humans would feel about the bodies of their loved ones being recycled for resources.
Unfortunately, the impressive psychological worldbuilding is undermined by Chambers' apparent lack of interest in the engineering nuts and bolts. The horrendous space accident that kicks the book off is ascribed in a throw-away line to a technical failure that even the most cursory of safety reviews ought to have picked up on as a risk, let alone a space-faring culture with hundreds of years of collective experience. The response of the Exodan authorities also makes no sense - their chief (weird) concern is about how to deal with the bodies, rather than identifying the chain of events that led to the accident and ensuring that it never happens again. For a culture that relies on engineering to survive, this absence of a rational, safety-first mindset just doesn't ring true. I appreciate that Chambers was probably deliberately avoiding the conspiracy thriller plot that most SF writers would have used to develop this premise, but it is such a pity because a no-blame, what-went-wrong engineering detective story could have given this engaging but aimless book the compelling through-line that it needs.
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