Shortly after finishing The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, I decided to see if Becky Chambers had any other books – A Closed and Common Orbit is the sequel (and there’s a third! coming out sometime next year! I’m excited!).
A Closed and Common Orbit has strong themes around parenthood, specifically motherhood, and about what it means to be human. There are two parallel storylines. First, in the past Pepper is one of many human girls who clean up trash for reuse and recycling, at least until she escapes; how she makes it off the world she lives on, who takes care of her, all of that. Second, in the present day, Pepper is doing something highly illegal: taking an AI who’s meant to be running a ship and put it into a human (robot) body. Her name is Sidra; how Sidra perceives the world and interacts with it and adjusts, that’s this story.
The chapters interweave, letting you see how both are forming who they are and how they react to their very different worlds. This is different form than the essentially short-story collection of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, and it works.
This is a universe I love, and you so rarely get good science fiction that focuses on women. It’s all the more precious for that.
Recommended.