Record of a Spaceborn Few: Robots and job displacement

Recommendation: Make some quiet time to read this Hugo nominee and pay attention to the subtle subtext of job displacement.

Record of a Spaceborn Few is the third installment of the Wayfarers series and a 2019 Hugo nominee for best novel. Becky Chambers has created the science fiction equivalent of Friends, Seinfeld, or Cheers; there’s not a lot of action but lots of people (and aliens and AIs) to savor getting to know and love. While her first book, A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, did have more overt action- bad aliens potentially threatening the multi-species denizens of a nice gate construction ship, A Closed and Common Orbit and her latest, Record of a Spaceborn Few, tug more on the heartstrings. Remember Lois McMaster Bujold’s Memory? And the surprise at realizing how much you cared about Simon Illyan, a minor character up to that point? Chambers is the new Bujold, where the action doesn’t matter so much as the people and how they cope with life.

- Robin