Reviewed by nannah on
Content warnings:
- ableism (including the disabled-character-is-cured trope)
- implied eugenics (fortunately this isn’t a major theme, and it’s easily avoidable)
Representation:
There are nine main characters …
- four of the five humans are a futuristic mixed human race that aren’t considered white
- one character has dwarfism
- two characters are sapphic and poly
- one character's species changes genders halfway through their lives (he's now male)
- Ohan is discussed in the review below (I believe he is autistic coded)
The Long Way … proves that the journey is indeed more important than the destination. A ragtag, multispecies crew on a spaceship that’s seen better days heads out on a year-long trip to build a wormhole tunnel between the rest of the Galactic Commons (GC) and a small, angry planet that holds much-desired resources. On the crew is
1. Rosemary, a human trying to escape her past;
2. Ashby, a pacifist human captain in an illegal multispecies relationship;
3. Kizzy, a quirky human tech;
4. Jenks, a human tech with dwarfism in love with the ship’s AI;
5. Corbin, a cranky human who works with the ship’s algae fuel;
6. Lovey, the ship’s AI who is considering getting an illegal “body kit”;
7. Sissix, the compassionate reptilian pilot;
8. Dr. Chef, a member of a dying species who serves as the crew’s doctor and … chef;
9. Ohan, the reclusive navigator, able to see the space-time continuum due to a virus called “The Whisperer”.
What plot this book has is very thin, which is okay because that’s not its priority. Instead, the conversations and interactions between the many characters during their long trip is what obviously keeps many people entertained. The story feels very episodic, broken down into sections where a small event happens and wraps up nicely, and then the characters move onto the next one. I do wish that there were more connection between these episodes, though, because it felt as though the slate was wiped clean between them and they could more or less be swapped around.
And I just wish I liked the book more! I do love character-driven stories, but I felt that the characters failed to actually drive anything here, besides the overly preachy and hammered-out point that “prejudice and oppression is bad.” It failed to add anything new to these discussions or add any nuance. Near the end there’s a glimmer of something promising, which I hope will be explored in the next books.
The characters are all overly sweet (save for the token grump), never saying anything wrong or doing anything bad or behaving like flawed, realistic people. The dialogue sounds like it could come from a Marvel movie, and every character’s lines could be switched around and I wouldn’t know who said what; they all speak too similarly for being so different from one another. The one time there’s an opportunity for tension (Rosemary’s secret past is revealed), the author skips over the confrontational scene to mention it in passing as having happened and so-and-so was mad but it’s all better now. I don’t believe conflict is necessary for all stories (see the 4-act structure), but these things feel like cop-outs.
eugenics mention below
But the worst offense here is the book’s ableism, and I’m livid that very few other reviewers have been talking about it. I can’t even tell you how disappointed I am that this book has eugenics disguised as “gene therapy”. Jenks only has dwarfism because his mother didn’t undergo prenatal therapy. It’s implied no one has dwarfism or bad eyesight, etc. because of this. And then the author has the gall to have her characters shake a fist at Jenk’s mother’s old people who actively believe that leaving behind and/or killing disabled people and children would strengthen the human race.
end of eugenics mention
Then there’s Ohan, who’s infected with The Whisperer, a virus that gives him wonderful abilities (he can see through space and time) but also a dramatically shortened lifespan. It’s revealed that his people, who all become infected as children, die when they’re around thirty years old, which makes Ohan about to die himself. In the last three-quarters of the book, the crew needs to stop planetside to get something for the ship, and the nearest planet is inhabited only by members of Ohan’s species who have “broken” from their virus--and therefore survived past thirty. These people give the crew a cure, and the crew offers the cure to Ohan, who refuses it. Ohan knows everything, that they could survive without The Whisperer, that they could still navigate, and they still refuse it. What happens? The cure is forced upon them without their consent, and the author spins the narrative to make this a good thing.
But the problem is that we’re not just observing this within the context of the story. I have autism. My autism gives me gifts in the form of hyperfixiation, which allows me to finish projects quickly, it allows me to focus on details, and autism can give others many gifts in the arts, in math, etc. It’s also possible autism will shorten my lifespan; you can look up why if you really want to, because I won’t link all the studies here. At one point, Ohan mentions that they don’t know what they would be like without The Whisperer, something many neurodivergent people can relate to. Ohan is a social recluse … they don’t like to be touched … do you see where I’m drawing this comparison from? To read Ohan have a cure forced upon them even though they refused it with all the knowledge given to them is a kick to the gut in a world that still has Autism Speaks scrambling to “cure” autism. But the worst is having Ohan, cured Ohan, happy to be social, happy to be touched, and having all the chapters surrounding the crew finding the cure, even to events after Ohan being cured in POVs of everyone besides Ohan. At no point do we ever see how Ohan actually feels about any of this.
I know there’s also a scene with a strongly autistic-coded character, where Sissix makes a point to say everyone deserves love, but it isn’t actually necessary to the story … it’s just there to make a moral point. As an autistic person, reading this scene where an autistic-coded character is homeless, without a family, being made fun of by passersby, etc. all because of being "different", when all sexualities and genders are accepted feels cruel.
Do I think that Becky Chambers did all this out of malice? Definitely not, she seems like a really cool person, honestly. And this series is obviously very well loved; it just wasn't for me. I only spent so long talking about the ableism because I didn't see others here do it yet. I probably won’t read on in this series, but I will check out what Becky Chambers writes next.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 2 February, 2022: Finished reading
- 2 February, 2022: Reviewed