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    A Closed and Common Orbit
    A Closed and Common Orbit
    A Closed and Common Orbit
    Audiobook11 hours

    A Closed and Common Orbit

    Written by Becky Chambers

    Narrated by Rachel Dulude

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Series!

    A Publishers Weekly ""Best Books of 2017"" pick!

    Nominated for the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novel!

    Shortlisted for the 2017 Arthur C. Clarke Award!

    Winner of the Prix Julia-Verlanger!

    Embark on an exciting, adventurous, and dangerous journey through the galaxy with the motley crew of the spaceship Wayfarer in this fun and heart-warming space opera—the sequel to the acclaimed The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.

    Lovelace was once merely a ship’s artificial intelligence. When she wakes up in a new body, following a total system shut-down and reboot, she has no memory of what came before. As Lovelace learns to negotiate the universe and discover who she is, she makes friends with Pepper, an excitable engineer, who’s determined to help her learn and grow.

    Together, Pepper and Lovey will discover that no matter how vast space is, two people can fill it together.

    The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet introduced listeners to the incredible world of Rosemary Harper, a young woman with a restless soul and secrets to keep. When she joined the crew of the Wayfarer, an intergalactic ship, she got more than she bargained for—and learned to live with, and love, her rag-tag collection of crewmates.

    A Closed and Common Orbit is the stand-alone sequel to that beloved debut novel, and is perfect for fans of Firefly, Joss Whedon, Mass Effect, and Star Wars.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateMay 21, 2019
    ISBN9780062969569
    A Closed and Common Orbit
    Author

    Becky Chambers

    Becky Chambers is a science fiction author based in Northern California. She is best known for her Hugo Award-winning Wayfarers series, which currently includes The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, A Closed and Common Orbit, and Record of a Spaceborn Few. Her books have also been nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Locus Award, and the Women's Prize for Fiction, among others. Her most recent work is To Be Taught, If Fortunate, a standalone novella. Becky has a background in performing arts, and grew up in a family heavily involved in space science. She spends her free time playing video and tabletop games, keeping bees, and looking through her telescope. Having hopped around the world a bit, she’s now back in her home state, where she lives with her wife. She hopes to see Earth from orbit one day.  

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    Reviews for A Closed and Common Orbit

    4.5/5

    1,352 ratings72 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A 2016 novel, book 2 in the Wayfarers series.An AI adapts to life as a robot, and a girl escapes from a dystopian planet.A (Great).I liked it a lot more than I thought I would when I learned that it would be a quasi-dystopian novel (not a genre I usually like). It doesn't have the emotional impact of the first book, but it does have some effective big Feelings moments. And like the first book, it's a novel story of the sort that only sci-fi can do.(Apr. 2023)
    • 3/5
      A very philosophical and verbose story that has almost none of the charm, adventure, or humor of Chamber's first novel.
    • 5/5
      I liked this book even better than the first in the series. The author explores issues of what makes a person, the longing for purpose and companionship, and problems of bureaucracy vs freedom - all within a universe of her own creation. The characters were complex enough and the narrator was perfect for this story.
    • 5/5
      Beautiful. At first I was disappointed to find this book wasn't a direct sequel. But I quickly stopped caring. The twin storylines are incredible tales of finding yourself. My only qualm so far about what I've read in this world is that there isn't more.
    • 2/5
      If you really enjoyed the first book, you'll be disappointed....
    • 5/5
      I loved this one too! I was worried when I realized that it only had minor characters from the first book taking on the main roles, because I wanted more of the characters I'd already come to love. However, I found both characters so compelling in this one as we saw their early lives unfold. We see Pepper as a young child, before her name was Pepper, and we see Lovelace come into herself as Sidra, an AI in a human body for the first time. This book was as gentle as the first one, and I just overall enjoyed the reading experience.
    • 5/5
      The Long Way... is probably my favourite science fiction novel, so I had high hopes for this sort-of sequel - and it didn't disappoint.It's definitely a different sort of book to the first one, focusing on the history of one character and the present day for another. However, Becky Chambers' immersive style of writing and knack for getting into the heads of fascinating characters is still very much in existence. She has a real flair for exploring what makes us human from the point of view of characters of all kinds of species without being boring about it and through a compelling plot.I heard the day before I finished this that the third Wayfarers book is coming out in June 2018 - if it's anything like the first two then we'll all be in for a treat!
    • 5/5
      What an amazing story! Chambers tackles the core issues of life, both great and intimately personal.
    • 4/5
      This book follows directly after the first one but only 2 characters that had minor roles are now center stage. Pepper is a mechanic with a horrible background and the story of her childhood is told in flashbacks for the entire book. When you get to the end of the book you understand why you have heard all about her growing up with only an AI for company after escaping a factory using child labor. Lovey is an AI that was freshly booted up and is given the choice to move into an illegal host body. The body mimics a human, but she is having difficulty integrating use of it when she had so much more input previously. Lovey takes on a new name to fit in and become Sidra someone that was born in space. She learns about her kit and working on fixes to her software that doesn’t make sense as an independent AI. Pepper helps when she can, but her character growth is all told in flashbacks so not much new happens to her until the end of the story. I really liked this one as much as the previous one and I’m sure I’ll be reading the third book soonish.
    • 3/5
      Cozy sf. In this sequel, a ship AI illicitly in a humanoid body tries to adjust to the resulting dysphoria, while helping a friend on a quest to save the ship that once upon a time saved her.
    • 3/5
      Were I to rate books based on world-building and characters alone, this would be a five-star read. When I read fiction, though, I read above all else for the stories.

      Becky Chamber's creates great societies, cultures, and characters with a lot of organic diversity, and I really appreciate what she has to say on themes such as purpose, agency, and personhood. However, (to me) this book read a lot more like a codex in a video game than an actual novel. I think that's probably why I prefer Chambers' shorter books to these longer ones; she excells at telling little stories with big messages, and those are much better suited to books around the 200 page mark rather than books in the 300-400 page range.

      For some reason, this also didn't have much emotional impact on me, either (unlike A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet), which is something that could have saved the book for me. As it stands, though, this lacked both of the things I most value in fiction (story and connection), so it's going to go down as an okay book. I'll probably continue on with the series, though, so this was by no means a bad reading experience. Just a mediocre one.
    • 5/5
      Series Info/Source: This is the second book in the Wayfarers series. There are four books in this series. I bought a copy of this ebook from my Kindle.Thoughts: This was another wonderful installment in this series. I was a bit sad to leave the Wayfarer crew behind and be stuck planet-side for this book, but it was still an excellent story. This story follows Lovey (Lovelace, the Wayfarer's AI) as she adjusts to her new (illegal) human-like body. Pepper is helping Lovey navigate her new situation.The story alternates between present-day with Pepper/Lovey/Blue and the past where we follow a character named Jane, who we quickly find out is actually Pepper as a kid. There are heavy themes about artificial intelligence again, which is a theme Chambers really likes to explore (I also just finished reading the most recent Monk & Robot book, that whole series is very focused on AI). This is very much more a space opera type of book than a sci-fi adventure one. I missed the Wayfarer crew and their adventures through space. This story is about what it means to be human; it is thought-provoking and heart-breaking at times. The characters are incredibly well done and I loved all the different alien cultures. We spend a lot of time watching Pepper get some closure and watching Lovey figure out what it means to have a body and will of her own. The writing here is incredibly easy to read and well done. I love Chambers' writing style; it's very engaging and personable. I did miss the broader more action-packed plot that was present in the first book. This story is isolated to one location and is a very personal story for Lovey and Pepper; there really aren't politics, adventure, or any action scenes involved. So, while I adored this story, it was much different from what I was expecting going in. My Summary (4.5/5): Overall this story ended up being a lot different from what I was expecting but I still really loved it. Chambers is an amazing writer and creates such believable characters. I enjoyed the alien races and discussion about what makes a race sentient. There is a lot of discussion about AI as well, which is always interesting. I would recommend this series to those who enjoy the more intelligent and softer side of sci-fi; there is a lot of food for thought here and the characters are incredibly engaging. I am eager to read the third book in the series, "Record of a Spaceborn Few".
    • 4/5
      My previous experience with Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers series had led me to expect, from this second installment, another easygoing journey into this multi-hued universe where everyone seems to coexist in peace with everyone else, and book 2 was that, indeed, but there were also other narrative elements that “spiced up” the mix and made my experience even more intriguing.At the end of the first book, the ship’s AI Lovelace had to undergo a hard reset, which restored its functions but also erased the personality built over time by the interactions with the crew, causing them no little grief - particularly where tech Jenks was concerned. A friend of Jenks, Pepper, offered Lovelace a different chance by installing the AI into an artificial body, shaped like a human female: the process being a very illegal one, Lovelace’s only option was to move in with Pepper and her mate Blue to their home on the outpost of Port Coriol, where the new being - now renamed Sidra - could learn how to act like an organic human and avoid any kind of suspicion. A Closed and Common Orbit is the chronicle of Lovelace/Sidra’s journey as she adapts to her new situation, whose unforeseen limitations and newfound freedoms make her adjustments far from easy; but the book is not focused only on Sidra, as she shares narrative space with another character, Jane 23, who is one of the many clones employed in a scrap recycling factory on a distant planet, where the girls are cruelly used as cheap labor by a totally amoral system. The two stories interweave in alternating chapters, and present two different sides of a quest for identity and self-determination, for the means to survive in a world so different from the one where one’s awareness had set its roots: two very fascinating journeys, indeed, which run parallel for a while, until they intersect in a poignant way which then makes room for the kind of “happy ending” that seems to be Becky Chambers’ narrative trademark.Sidra (formerly Lovelace) must now deal with the curtailing of her cognitive abilities and the limitations of the human form she now inhabits, which sometimes give way to a sort of agoraphobia, compounded by the need to keep her differences under control lest she reveal what she truly is, and endanger the friends who are helping her. Science fiction often presented us with instances of A.I.s trying to be more human, to transcend their programming and become more similar to their organic creators, but Sidra’s path is somewhat hindered by the longing for those abilities that are now precluded her, so that her story is focused on this seemingly irresolvable dichotomy. I liked how her friends Pepper and Blue go out of their way to ease Sidra’s transition, offering her the sense of friendship and family that her previous iteration had enjoyed aboard the Wayfarer, but what I truly loved were her interaction with the alien Tak and their almost-philosophical discussions about the meaning of life, sentience, love. Tak is an Aeluon, a creature whose language comes from the changing hues of its skin rather than actual words (even though it uses implants that allow it to communicate verbally), and I saw a sort of parallel between Tak and Sidra, both “strangers in a strange land” reaching out to each other with a depth of growing friendship that in my eyes overshadowed even the selfless one offered by Pepper and Blue.Much as Sidra’s journey proved fascinating, I was drawn more intensely by the chapters focusing on Jane 23, on her discovery of an outside world beyond the confines of the factory where she was effectively enslaved, and her meeting with Owl, the A.I. of a derelict shuttle that offers Jane a safe place in the outside wasteland where packs of ferocious dogs roam among the piles of abandoned scraps. The theme of family is once again explored in these sections of the novel, a family of two where Owl is nothing more than a voice from the walls and a sketched face on the monitors, and yet the A.I. is able to give Jane the means to learn, grow and move beyond the limitations imposed by her earlier life: it’s fascinating to observe how much the relationship between Owl and Jane parallels that of a mother and daughter, with Jane going from the total trust of childhood to the rebellion of teenager years and finally to the understanding and affection that comes later. And Owl is indeed at the center of a desperate search from a grown-up Jane (in her new identity), so that she can reconnect with her A.I. “mother” and fill the gaping void in her little family.These two apparently distant storylines have more points of contact that one could imagine, and they do converge in a quite poignant fashion toward the latter part of the novel, where the various pieces of the puzzle begin to connect in a quite emotional way and solidify into a final picture where once again the ties of family, friendship and love are reaffirmed in the kind of rosy, but certainly not saccharine-sweet, picture that I have by now come to expect from Becky Chambers’ stories, which might look somewhat unrealistic from a jaded point of view, but which are quite comforting in their hopeful and optimistic outlook.And that’s what we so deeply need now and again…
    • 5/5
      Another excellently crafted tale in this series. Not quite as much action as the first, but has some excellent world-building. 
    • 5/5
      I keep not wanting to leave this world -- it's fascinating, and I find the characters to be ridiculously seductive, in a friend sort of way. I totally want to hang out with these people. This book is all about Artificial Intelligence and thinking a lot about what the experience of an AI in a body shape would be. It's, yep, fascinating. I also love that Sidra's story is intertwined with Pepper's -- so much to hear about, so much reflecting and adding to each other.

      The only thing that I am still trying to understand is the taboo on putting artificial intelligence into body kits -- that premise is just a little off, in this multi-species world -- likewise the distaste for clones and genetic manipulators -- not that I don't understand the distaste, just that I'm not sure how this alien colloquium defined their borders. It's also very interesting to me that there's this peaceful, working interior space league of sentients, and they don't hold with cloning or genetic manipulation or artificial intelligence in bodies, or weird unprovoked warfare within their borders, but they completely tolerate it in outside groups. How do those decisions get made? Eh, it's just odd to me. Still, fascinated.
    • 5/5
      A slow burn, but a wonderful ending. I especially like how the plot hints work. There are things that my I figured out early that my wife figured out at the end. But there were also things that I figured out the day after I finished the book. For example, Pepper got her nickname because she loved the spices so much.
    • 4/5
      A Closed and Common Orbit intertwines two stories. The first is a story of a girl born as a factory slave who escapes and is raised by a friendly ship AI. The second is the story of that same girl, now grown, rescuing a different ship AI and illegally installing her in humanoid body to try to integrate her into human society. While the book does reflect on at what point an AI should have the same legal rights as everyone else, the real focus is on both the girl and the AI learning what it is to be human in their respective stories. I found this to be a relaxing and enjoyable read.
    • 5/5
      Lovelace is an AI that has been loaded into a body kit, which is illegal in the section of the galaxy where she lives. It's not a choice she would have made for herself if the situation hadn't demanded it. As a result, she has gone to live with Pepper and Blue in Port Coriol as it's not safe for her aboard her former ship. As the AI works to figure out who she is when she's not in a ship and what she should do now, the narrative also follows the backstory of Pepper whose experiences as a child have a significant impact on her relationship with Lovelace in the present.Becky Chambers' brand of cozy sci fi is so very much my jam. While this book is a sequel to [The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet], the plot stands really well on its own (although it definitely would spoil the end of the first book so read in order if you want to avoid that). The book has the same quiet, character study set in a fascinating sci fi world vibe of the first novel but in some ways is even quieter as most of the action takes place on two planets (one in the present, one in the past) with a very small cast of characters but the novel is no less compelling for those reasons. It is enthralling to watch these characters grow and become themselves and there's plenty of suspense created by the two timelines bouncing off each other. I am glad that I took my time coming to this novel after reading the first one, as I loved the characters in Long Way so much that I would likely have resented this book for not being about the crew from Book 1 if I'd read them back to back. However, with plenty of breathing space between them, I loved this book and its characters for its own merits and I'm looking forward to exploring this universe with whichever characters Chambers decides to give us in the rest of the series. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      This is the best book, I've read this year, I thought the first book in the series was great, but this sequel went way beyond the first novel. The characters are not the same, as the main characters in this book were just minor characters in the original. Their stories are very much expanded and interesting. If you enjoyed the first book I highly recommend this one, if you haven't read the first this novel would still stand up well on its own.


      edit ** reread October 2019
      I liked it just as much this time as the last time I read it. Becky Chambers is an amazing author and I'm just about the start the 3rd book in the series.
    • 4/5
      I really loved the first book in the Wayfarer series, so I was super excited to read this book. I like that the series is all contained within the same time period and universe, and that the characters are all connected in some way. Pepper's story was so interesting and I enjoyed the juxtaposition of her story with Sidra's, two beings that did not ask to be "created" and are struggling to find their new purpose after being freed from the constraints within which they were designed. While I didn't connect as much with Sidra and her journey, I liked reading about a character and concept that I haven't read before.I've just started the third book and I'm really interested to see how the stories continue to intertwine throughout the series.
    • 4/5
      This is the second book in the Wayfarer series. Two of the supporting characters, Lovelace and Pepper, from book one are the main characters in this book. In this book the reader finds out the backstory of Pepper, aka Jane 23, and also learns about the fate of Lovelace, now known as Sidra, after receiving her avatar or "kit". The focus of the story is on what is family and how as we grow as we find our place in the world. In this book there was a lot more character development and we get to know both Sidra and Pepper intimately. I especially enjoyed seeing how they worked through their past experiences and ultimately were able to not let the past dictate their lives. Really well done. There is not much of a plot, it is all about the characters and their experiences. So for some readers the story might move a bit slow. However, for me, this is just the type of book I enjoy reading and I look forward to book three.
    • 4/5
      I am a dork! Take my poll! With which Galactic Commons resident do you most identify?

      ********

      HOW AM I EVEN GOING TO MAKE IT TIL OCTOBER

      ********

      Well, I ended up waiting a little bit longer than October because of circumstances. But I was happy to have Orbit fall perfectly in Sci-Fi July. I am glad this book is structured differently from The Long Way, which gave it its own feel while totally satisfying my deep commitment to everything Wayfarers.

      It's been so interesting to hear all my friends' reactions to the book prior to being able to read it myself, and it gave me a lot to chew on during the reading. I've heard some people mention that it was easier to read than the first since there are fewer characters, but I never found that as a stumbling block. For me, that might have helped because there was so much going on with and between everyone in The Long Way, whereas here you only have the primary focus on Sidra and Pepper. I enjoyed the deeper character development Orbit's structure permits, though I didn't always feel the gnawing desire to jump back into the book as I did with the first because I had a good idea where it was going. But the over-arching quality that ties the two together--Chambers' rockstar forte--is the characterization, and wouldn't ya know it, I got all teary-eyed again by the end of Orbit. And I loved the extent to which this novel used the sci-fi context to address so many pressing issues...never in a pedantic way, but I kinda felt like an AI reading the text and simultaneously thinking of its analog today. :)

      Ah me. You KNOW I'll be buying every single Wayfarers that follows. Come on, Record of a Spaceborn Few!
    • 5/5
      A very interesting speculation about how a sentient AI would cope with being confined in a humanoid body, and also tells the backstory of Pepper and Blue, characters from the first book of the trilogy.
    • 5/5
      A wonderful standalone sequel to a great book. This was SciFi with a gentle, unique, slice-of-life style. There is a great deal of darkness and real-feeling situations throughout this two parallel stories of the book, but the overall tone is hopeful and focused on decency, I can't remember the last time I read a Sci-Fi story that felt so great.

      It even made me cry near the end, which was a big surprise.

      Highly highly recommend.
    • 5/5
      This is the second book in the Wayfarers Series (although it could be read as a stand alone). I am pleased to see that not only is there a third book but the fourth is going to come out imminently. This book was quite a bit different from The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet although two of the characters from that book carried over. I am interested to see where the others take us.In the final scenes of the first book Lovelace, the AI for the ship in that book, had to be put into a constructed body. This is a necessary but frustrating solution and the AI hates not being able to see everywhere and not being tapped into the Linkings knowledge system. Lovelace who changes her name to Sidra for use in the body goes with Pepper to the planet of Coriol where Pepper lives with her companion Blue. The plan is that Sidra will be Pepper's assistant in her tech repair shop. She is able to do that physically but emotionally and mentally she finds it challenging. Pepper wants to help her; after all, she herself reinvented herself and thinks she knows how to help Sidra. We learn Pepper's back story along with seeing how Sidra copes as the book goes along. Pepper, who was Jane 23 was a clone who worked in a scrap yard on another planet. When an explosion blew a hole in the building where Jane 23 and the other clones worked she saw the sky for the first time in her life. That night together with her bunkmate, Jane 64, she went to explore and she stepped outside. Jane 64 stayed within the confines of the building and was captured when one of the Mothers (the AIs that mind the girls) turned up. She yelled at Jane 23 to run and so she did. Jane 23 was saved from certain death by a pack of wild dogs when the AI of a junked commuter ship opened the ship's hatch and called her in. Owl, as the AI said she was named, could only be seen in the screens around the ship but with Jane 23 as a pair of hands they managed to survive. The story of how Jane 23 became Pepper was wonderfully told although I couldn't identify with Sidra's challenges as much. Perhaps that is because I am just an ordinary human living in a body with all the limitations that Sidra finds so frustrating. Nevertheless the book concludes satisfactorily and I hope to read installment 3 soon.
    • 5/5
      4.5 ish. It has its own charm.
    • 4/5
      was a good continuation of the universe. The story had an interesting style to how it was told. overall good
    • 4/5
      The first book seemed to wander a bit, but this one was on its plot like my dog on food(he's very much into food). I enjoyed the thoughtful way Lovelace coming into herself played out, and the tattooing bit made me really happy. I agree with Tack about tattoos. Pepper's backstory is an experience that nearly made me cry a few times. Please, give this sci-fi a try, even if you didn't like the meandering plot of the first book.
    • 5/5
      Again with nice characters. I like all these people and don't want bad stuff to happen to them.
    • 4/5
      Sidra, a sentient AI inhabiting an illegal body kit, tries to make a life for herself in diverse and dynamic Port Coriol. Her story is intertwined with that of Jane23, an expendable child worker who escapes from a factory into a massive junkyard, finds the remains of a ship, and (with the help of that ship's own AI), begins to plan a way off the planet.This second book in the Wayfarers series focuses on a new set of characters, so it could be read as a standalone. I enjoyed it slightly less than the first book, but that may just have been some lingering disappointment in the shift of focus, as I was really hoping to hear more about the Wayfarer and its crew. The tighter focus on the two main characters, each with their own distinct narrative taking place in separate places and times, made for a different reading experience from the first book, which had more voices but a unified story line. I found Jane's story more compelling than Sidra's, though I enjoyed both. Recommended to fans of the first book (just be aware you won't be spending time with the characters you've come to love), and to anyone who finds sentient AI and the ethical issues inherent in the concept intriguing.