Tag: A Closed and Common Orbit

Book Review – A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

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A Closed and Common Orbit is the second novel in the Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers. During the events of the first book, the spaceship the Wayfarer suffered damage after an attack, compromising the ship’s AI. The crew failed to reboot her with her memories intact, so “Lovey” effectively died, leaving only Lovelace, the AI operating at factory settings. Lovey’s crew, alongside her human lover Jenks, were too grief-stricken to keep Lovelace with them, so they uploaded her into the android kit they had illegally intended for Lovey to use, and she left under the care of a close friend of the crew. Lovelace, giving herself the new moniker of Sidra, must now navigate living incognito as a human being, an existence far outside of the remits of her programming (and comfort) and one actively dangerous for herself and her new friends, should her true nature be uncovered.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – September 10, 2025

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www_wednesdays

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

This week I started reading The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, and despite its short length, I’m definitely in for a challenge. It’s not often that I read philosophy as it is, and so far I have found this a little difficult to digest, with me currently at about 30 pages in. After finishing one of the early chapters, in fact, I looked up something explaining it more plainly and then reread the entire thing; if I’m really going to do this, I ought to be as steadfast about understanding it as I can. Despite my issues, I am finding it legitimately fascinating, and I’m hoping that I will have to seek secondary sources for clarity on meaning less and less as I get further into it. I’m especially intrigued by the notion, as I understand it, that the absurdity in absurdism is not the inherent nature of the universe but an experience human beings have when their need for unified meaning from the universe clashes with its uncaring inhumanity.

Recently Finished

Last week I finally finished reading A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers. I really liked this book, but I feel like Pepper’s upbringing kind of stole the spotlight away from Sidra and her experiences coming to terms with living in a humanoid body. It still made for a really interesting book, and the two plot lines ended up coming together really well, but the more interesting aspect was Sidra figuring out how to be a person with bodily autonomy, not the story of a discarded waif living in a junkyard being raised by a ship’s AI and wanting to get off-world. Despite this, I have a much greater impression of the latter situation and all that she went through than the former, which is a shame. They never cleared the air on holding the crew from the first book accountable in some way either, which is a pity. There’s just so much untapped potential over what to explore with Sidra as a character.

Reading Next

I’m not sure what I’m going to read next, as The Myth of Sisyphus is commanding all of my attention.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday – September 3, 2025

RyanLeave a comment
www_wednesdays

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

I’m still in the middle of reading A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers, though I’m within the final 100 pages, so I’m hoping I can get it done this week. It’s a solid novel so far, I am really liking it, though it’s still hard not to compare it to the first one and how much I liked it. However, this novel has given me a bone to pick with the crew of the first novel, though I’m inclined to hold back a little because the totality of their rationale is not fresh in my mind. Nevertheless, I really think the crew of the Wayfarer did Sidra dirty by sending her off in the kit. I get that they were grieving the loss of Lovey, but couldn’t they have modded Lovelace (Sidra) to have a difference voice? She’s ostensibly a new person and the ship is going to need a new AI anyway, surely, so why did they send this poor being off in a body she didn’t want, that she struggles to feel comfortable in on a daily basis? I’m really hoping this novel addresses this problem eventually, because it’s honestly an elephant in the room and they need to be held accountable at least a little.

Recently Finished

Nothing this week. Work has been rather busy and I’ve been singularly focused on what I’m still currently reading.

Reading Next

No new plans this week, and I’m still planning to start The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus next. This is normally a week I would perhaps skip, but I had a lot to say about what I’m currently reading.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday – August 27, 2025

RyanLeave a comment
www_wednesdays

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Finally, after half a decade and goodness knows how many to-read lists including this book, I have finally started reading A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers, the second novel in the Wayfarers series. I actually could’ve posted about this last week, but I had so much going on that I entirely forgot about posting that Wednesday. Whoops! I’m about 150 pages or so in and I’m enjoying it quite a lot. I don’t find myself quite as endeared to the characters as I did the crew in the first book, but it is making for fascinating science fiction to witness an AI meant to be housed in a ship, with all the sensors and viewpoints at its disposal there, try to exist limited to a humanoid body. An especially interesting consideration is how memory would actually work, as there’s only so much space for data storage that is limited to technology rather than a brain when it doesn’t have network access. So far it’s a going concern for Sidra, our protagonist, and I’m curious to see if and how it is resolved. Also, I’m convinced Blue wants to get freaky with Sidra but I can’t prove it.

Recently Finished

The very week I started it I finished reading Strange Houses by Uketsu, and I must say I was kind of let down by it by the end. The integration of floor plans was certainly interesting, especially as it has you follow the characters’ back and forth speculation about what such design choices could indicate and why, but in the end I just found it to be too bland. I thought the author and his friend’s predictions were entirely too accurate to what was really happening, and the revelatory breakdown of what was truly going on was such a formal and straightforward explanation that it was hard to really feel swept up by any of it. It’s just a bunch of names and being told who, what, and where outside any traditional narrative style; it was almost like reading a report of events. I will say, I like that certain things remained obscure and don’t quite add up if you tally it all together, but my intrigue isn’t strong enough to keep me thinking about it either. I hope I enjoy Strange Pictures more.

Reading Next

I’ve been meaning to get to some nonfiction books for a while now, so tentatively I think I will read The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus next, especially since the Halloween season is right around the corner, at which point it will be all about the spooky.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.