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

[james_davis_nicoll]

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

Comments

[anne]

Isn't Pepper a clone? That's why she was allowed to be a citizen--because she's organic. If she'd been a bot they'd probably have scrapped her.

[james_davis_nicoll]

It seems likely she's a clone but she only got legal personhood when she got to the GC. On her homeworld, she was disposable equipment.

[anne]

But "bot" to me means inorganic, and "organic people vs inorganic people" is the story's point.

[james_davis_nicoll]

Ah. I see the issue. Fixed.

[james_davis_nicoll]

Poor communication on my part combined with my tendency to see in my texts what I expect to see -- the reason I cannot edit myself -- to produce this error.

[anne]

I have the same problem. *I* know what I meant!

[naomikritzer]

I really enjoyed both the first book and this one. Pepper's attachment to the children's TV show (that was not Dora the Explorer but had a distinct Dora vibe) that was one of her first glimpses of normal society reminds me of some of the things I've read from bloggers who grew up in repressive religious cults and escaped to normal society.

[emgrasso]

It was established in the first book that cloning is illegal and clones have legal problems in some (many?) jurisdictions. On e character found out he was a clone and had to re-establish citizenship while his parent went to prison for 10 years.

Even if bot production uses techniques that we would consider cloning, it is probably legally defined as something else.

[autopope]

The first book finally tripped my suspension of disbelief circuit beyond repair about 40% of the way in, when the author managed to conflate geosynchronous and sun-synchronous orbits, or something similarly egregious. Book suffered really badly from "teching-the-tech" in Star Trek fashion, of which the starships-running-on-algae was about the least offensive example.

I'm not asking for plausibility in my space opera; just for not getting everything trivially wrong three times in a paragraph. I know that's not the point of this kind of fiction, but if the errors are too glaring it makes it hard to switch off and pay attention to the character development.

[scott_sanford]

I'm left wondering about the preposterously silly algae drive. It seems unlikely the readers will ever get an explanation.

[(Anonymous)]

I think the algae is non-parasitic midichlorians.

--
NPH

[scott_sanford]

Specially bred, possibly trained, telekinetic algae? We have read sillier things.

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, but it's ALIEN algae.

[thewayne]

I really enjoyed the first book and am looking forward to reading the second, but right now I'm re-reading Elizabeth Moon's Vatta series as she has a new one out today, I think.

[eub]

Do you think it would work to start reading this book without the prior one?

[james_davis_nicoll]

Yup!