A Closed and Common Orbit
By Becky Chambers (HarperCollins,)
I’ll orbit this volume any day
Review by Lawrence I. Charters, July 18, 2017
One of the best novels of 2016, A Closed and Common Orbit is in turns funny, horrifying, encouraging and depressing, sometimes all within a single chapter. It takes place in a future populated by humans and several other intelligent races, and combines a love story, a journey of personal discovery, and both a definition of will and a triumph of will. If you like spaceships, artificial intelligence, non-human intelligence, and books that profoundly challenge both what it means to be humane and what it means to be human, this is a novel for you.
The story revolves around Pepper, a self-taught engineer, who talks those close to her into making an interstellar voyage to rescue an artificial intelligence. The artificial intelligence once ran an interstellar craft, and for a variety of reasons, Pepper thinks of the AI as her friend, savior and parent.
What makes the novel remarkable is that it is personal, intimate, and still very solid classic science fiction. It was nominated for the 2017 Hugo award for best science fiction or fantasy novel, and the nomination was richly deserved.
In terms of sequence, it is a sequel to The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, but the story is entirely stand-alone.