Hugos 2022: The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

The fourth and final* Galactic Commons novel is set on a space service station, where a group of different travelers find themselves trapped for several days during a disaster. Like most Becky Chambers novels, there's little conflict, and I found this dead boring; of her novels, only A Closed and Common Orbit has really worked for me.

Originally published: 2021
Acquired and read: April 2022

I think the issue, here at least, is that the characters are all the same. Despite being from different species and different societies, they're all well-intentioned people who are vaguely awkward and have some kind of minor secret that sets them apart from their own people. That's all we get out of three hundred pages!

Nothing ever feels like it's at stake. Not externally, but even internally. Am I worried about how these people are and how they might change? Not at all. Chambers has her devoted fans (including my own sister) but she and I are obviously just not on the same wavelength.

* It doesn't really make sense to me that there is a final Galactic Commons novel. There's no ongoing plot; there's no shared characters beyond small cameos. Like Le Guin's Hainish stories, it's a setting, not really a series. So it can't really end. Le Guin never had a "final" Hainish novel, but she did not publish any stories in that milieu between 1975 and 1990. I don't see why Chambers doesn't just write something else; there's no sense of finality here, and might she not return to the setting in 2036?