Approx length: Four medium-length novels and one short story
Where to find it: The author's web site has links to places to buy all the books physically or digitally. May also be available from your local bookstores or libraries.
What is it, in summary?: The Wayfarers series is a quartet of mostly-independent novels (with some minor character crossovers -- a background character in one book might be the lead of the next) set in the Galactic Commons, a loose confederation of spacefaring races come together to promote understanding and avoid violence. Humans are a relatively new arrival on the galactic scene, having made their homeworld uninhabitable hundreds of years ago and survived in the wealthy Mars colonies and the wandering Exodus fleet, but since their first meeting with the GC a century or so ago, they've been welcomed with open arms (and other appendages).
Each book explores the GC from the close point of view of a different group of people -- the crew of a ship punching new transit tunnels through subspace, a rogue AI trying to make a life for herself on a trading port, a cross-section of humans on the Exodus fleet trying to adjust to the changes GC membership has brought, a trio of travelers from very different backgrounds stranded together on a planet as a cascading satellite failure makes it impossible for their ships to take off.
The GC isn't a utopia -- far from it. AIs have limited rights and significant restrictions, and are in some ways considered more property than people. One race has a legitimate grudge against the GC for not granting them any kind of restitution for one of the founding species enslaving them and destroying their homeworld's ecosystem. Other races, including some GC members, have unpleasant customs or are pretty authoritarian. Wars still happen with non-GC civilizations, and other fringe societies have some pretty awful practices (one of the viewpoint characters was a cloned child labor slave on a fringe world -- cheaper than automation!).
But if there's one consistent thing to all the stories, it's that good faith and attempts to understand can bridge a lot of gaps. Someone's society may be odd, and their biology may be odder, but if you sit down to talk with them and are willing to let go of some of your prejudices, you might learn a lot.
What do you love about it?: I've always loved explorations of alien psychology, culture, and biology, and these books have that to no end -- sometimes from the point of view of the humans, sometimes from the aliens. What's it like to be from a race that's symbiotically paired with a viral infection that lets you visualize five-dimensional spacetime but will kill you young? What's it like to be a touch-starved member of a casually intimate reptilian race in a galaxy of people who like much more personal space? Can the slow-moving galactic bureaucracy ever accommodate the only methane-breathing race known, whose needs are unique and whose lives are so short that multiple generations of leaders will live and die while their requests are stuck in committee? (And one of the few things that nearly every race can agree on is that the human food known as 'cheese' is conceptually horrifying.)
It's also a very LGBTQ+ friendly setting. Humans are casually established as gay or bi or trans with no trouble -- one viewpoint character has been married to another woman for over forty years, and the heroine of the first book ends up in a lesbian cross-species relationship. The various alien races have their own approaches to gender and sexuality, often informed by their own biology -- Aeluons have four biological sexes (male, female, neuter, and shon, who change between male and female); all Grum are born female, eventually transition to male, and then finally enter an 'in-between' state; Laru youths have no gender and only choose one when reaching maturity. There's a common set of gender-neutral pronouns used across the galaxy for non-binary or otherwise unspecified people.
And in general, it's just the overall vibe of the important things being the bonds between people. There's no grand evil empire to defeat or cosmic horror to defy, just people coming together to fumble their way towards a better future, getting to understand their own biases and faults and those of their society.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: This year I'm primarily looking for stories about Speaker and her people, the Akarak. Her people have been without a homeworld for countless generations, unable to exist on the surface of a planet without protective suits, and now they've just gotten access to sims letting them genuinely feel what it's like to live unshielded out in the elements. That's sure to cause major reactions in their culture. Worldbuilding is also a prime interest of mine -- I love the exploration of the various races and worlds, and seeing more imagination along those lines would be great, either expanding on existing races or inventing new ones.
Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: Each of the novels is fairly self-contained, though there are threads tying them together. Speaker's story appears only in The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, and reading it on its own would give enough information to work with. Worldbuilding could take from any of the books, though the more you've seen the more you'd be able to build on.
Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence): The galaxy can be a rough place in some ways. Some things described in moderate detail in the books include child slavery, political exile, permanent injury, major and minor character death, unproblematic sex work, children with life-threatening injuries, homelessness, semi-graphic results of malnutrition.
Wayfarers Series - Becky Chambers
Wayfarers Series - Becky Chambers
Media:
Book series
Approx length:
Four medium-length novels and one short story
Where to find it:
The author's web site has links to places to buy all the books physically or digitally. May also be available from your local bookstores or libraries.
What is it, in summary?:
The Wayfarers series is a quartet of mostly-independent novels (with some minor character crossovers -- a background character in one book might be the lead of the next) set in the Galactic Commons, a loose confederation of spacefaring races come together to promote understanding and avoid violence. Humans are a relatively new arrival on the galactic scene, having made their homeworld uninhabitable hundreds of years ago and survived in the wealthy Mars colonies and the wandering Exodus fleet, but since their first meeting with the GC a century or so ago, they've been welcomed with open arms (and other appendages).
Each book explores the GC from the close point of view of a different group of people -- the crew of a ship punching new transit tunnels through subspace, a rogue AI trying to make a life for herself on a trading port, a cross-section of humans on the Exodus fleet trying to adjust to the changes GC membership has brought, a trio of travelers from very different backgrounds stranded together on a planet as a cascading satellite failure makes it impossible for their ships to take off.
The GC isn't a utopia -- far from it. AIs have limited rights and significant restrictions, and are in some ways considered more property than people. One race has a legitimate grudge against the GC for not granting them any kind of restitution for one of the founding species enslaving them and destroying their homeworld's ecosystem. Other races, including some GC members, have unpleasant customs or are pretty authoritarian. Wars still happen with non-GC civilizations, and other fringe societies have some pretty awful practices (one of the viewpoint characters was a cloned child labor slave on a fringe world -- cheaper than automation!).
But if there's one consistent thing to all the stories, it's that good faith and attempts to understand can bridge a lot of gaps. Someone's society may be odd, and their biology may be odder, but if you sit down to talk with them and are willing to let go of some of your prejudices, you might learn a lot.
What do you love about it?:
I've always loved explorations of alien psychology, culture, and biology, and these books have that to no end -- sometimes from the point of view of the humans, sometimes from the aliens. What's it like to be from a race that's symbiotically paired with a viral infection that lets you visualize five-dimensional spacetime but will kill you young? What's it like to be a touch-starved member of a casually intimate reptilian race in a galaxy of people who like much more personal space? Can the slow-moving galactic bureaucracy ever accommodate the only methane-breathing race known, whose needs are unique and whose lives are so short that multiple generations of leaders will live and die while their requests are stuck in committee? (And one of the few things that nearly every race can agree on is that the human food known as 'cheese' is conceptually horrifying.)
It's also a very LGBTQ+ friendly setting. Humans are casually established as gay or bi or trans with no trouble -- one viewpoint character has been married to another woman for over forty years, and the heroine of the first book ends up in a lesbian cross-species relationship. The various alien races have their own approaches to gender and sexuality, often informed by their own biology -- Aeluons have four biological sexes (male, female, neuter, and shon, who change between male and female); all Grum are born female, eventually transition to male, and then finally enter an 'in-between' state; Laru youths have no gender and only choose one when reaching maturity. There's a common set of gender-neutral pronouns used across the galaxy for non-binary or otherwise unspecified people.
And in general, it's just the overall vibe of the important things being the bonds between people. There's no grand evil empire to defeat or cosmic horror to defy, just people coming together to fumble their way towards a better future, getting to understand their own biases and faults and those of their society.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it?:
This year I'm primarily looking for stories about Speaker and her people, the Akarak. Her people have been without a homeworld for countless generations, unable to exist on the surface of a planet without protective suits, and now they've just gotten access to sims letting them genuinely feel what it's like to live unshielded out in the elements. That's sure to cause major reactions in their culture. Worldbuilding is also a prime interest of mine -- I love the exploration of the various races and worlds, and seeing more imagination along those lines would be great, either expanding on existing races or inventing new ones.
Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?:
Each of the novels is fairly self-contained, though there are threads tying them together. Speaker's story appears only in The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, and reading it on its own would give enough information to work with. Worldbuilding could take from any of the books, though the more you've seen the more you'd be able to build on.
Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence):
The galaxy can be a rough place in some ways. Some things described in moderate detail in the books include child slavery, political exile, permanent injury, major and minor character death, unproblematic sex work, children with life-threatening injuries, homelessness, semi-graphic results of malnutrition.