“Why do you love, Colibri?
It is necessary?
How so?
It is the only logical response.
To what?
To existence.“
The people of Fortune are only one of many colony ships sent off by OCTA with the tools and instructions to establish human civilizations throughout the galaxy, but Fortune is a particularly challenging planet
to live on, and even with OCTA technology many have lost hope of ever rejoining the Mothership. Cora is a pilot, steering alien organisms called rorquals that function as spacecrafts for gathering resources. Cora’s bond to her rorqual, Colibri, has caused her to develop a degenerative brain condition that she can’t seek treatment for without putting Colibri’s life at risk. Enter Signy, a plant shop owner who synthesizes medication under the table for people who are otherwise unable to get treatment. Despite their differences, Cora and Signy find a home in one another, even as problems start to pile up, threatening their future.
It’s genuinely such a breath of fresh air to be returning to a Becky Chambers book after so many years. The last book of her I read was To Be Taught If Fortunate in 2022, and honestly the Wayfarers series was one of the first things that really got me into sci-fi. I buddy-read Monk & Robot with one of my high school English teachers in junior year, and I’ve probably gifted A Psalm for the Wild-Built to half a dozen people. Now, I’m a junior in college and it’s a joy to be reading a Becky Chambers book again (especially knowing that I get to see her at Powell’s in a week)!
As with many of Chambers’ other books, As You Wake, Break the Shell is much more character-focused and reflective than a lot of other sci-fi books, and in particularly this one leans more into the romance. I also find that despite the pretty grim realities the characters often face, there’s a lot more hope for the future than in other far-future sci-fi books. Fortune poses immense challenges and dangers to the people inhabiting the planet, there is political and social turmoil, and there aren’t enough resources to go around—but there are also plant shops and coffee shops and musicians and artists and queer people and murals and hot chocolate and people falling in love. I don’t like when sci-fi acts like people will stop being people when faced with challenges. Humans will always do human things like make music and art and drink hot beverages even if they’re on another planet sheltering in place from a volcano eruption.
The duel timelines were really lovely and it makes me excited for where this duology is going, since we do get a pretty ambiguous ending. Living ships is one of my favorite niche tropes, as is humans having close relationships with really curious aliens, so I loved Cora and Colibri’s dynamic. Cora and Signy are really different people but they have good chemistry and feel like really fleshed out characters. I relate to Signy because I’m also a mildly obsessive work-horse prone to taking on more than I can reasonably handle. I relate to Cora because I am also often afraid of and frustrated by the failings of my own mind and body, and I also cope with it using humor. You’ve got a lovely cast of side characters, because it wouldn’t be a Becky Chambers book without found family. Otto is everything I want to be when I grow up, and Twig is a lot of what I hope to avoid growing into, mostly because I understand her anger and it makes me want to do crazy things too. I cried a lot reading this (to no one’s surprise).
This is an excellent return to form for Becky Chambers and I’m hopeful that we’ll see more from her soon because she’s one of my favorite authors and we need books like this that are heartbreaking but also brimming with hope.
Thank you to Becky Chambers and Harper Voyager for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!
Happy reading!
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