Go read the Wayfarers series, they are awesome!

I have a warm spot in my heart for science fiction and fantasy books. Not universally, but a lot of my favorite books fall into those categories. Perhaps because I fell into those types of books as a kid, and so kept coming back to the genre. Perhaps also because the way "literature" was taught in school was so incredibly analytical and boring that it sucked much of the joy out of reading what could have been really engaging books. Perhaps it also has something to do with the fact that for the last ten years, I haven't had the mental space, mental capacity, or inclination to dive into less accessible (a less charitable description would perhaps be "less entertaining") books. Now that our older daughter is ten and our younger daughter is almost seven, my mental capacity seems to be coming back. And yet, I still find the greatest pleasure from science fiction and fantasy. But that isn't quite right. Several books I've found a lot of pleasure in may have elements of those genres but aren't an easy fit for either genre.

What bugs me is that a stigma still hangs around those genres. People still look down their noses at books in those genres. Becky Chambers (her Amazon page is here) and her Wayfarers series of books are awesome. They are science fiction, and yet they are at heart stories of people looking to create a sense of belonging, a sense of family. I'll pause here and say, don't bother trying to find her on social media. She isn't ON social media! Anywhere! No Twitter, no Facebook, no Instagram! No nothing! (I'll wait for your head to stop exploding...). You can find her on her website - www.otherscribbles.com - , you can find interviews with her if you Google them, and you can find her Amazon author page and her books on Amazon. That's it! Crazy to think that a writer might just want to, I don't know, focus on writing!

If what you are looking for is space battles and killer robots, this is not that. However, if you liked Joss Whedon's Serenity or Firefly, you will feel right at home in Becky Chamber's books. There's action, there's aliens, there's spaceships, but it's about the people. 

If you like cool stories of how books came to be, you will also love Becky Chamber's work. Her first book, The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet first came onto the internet scene as a Kickstarter project in 2012 and she self published the book in 2014. To say it blew up after that would not be an exaggeration. It was longlisted for awards, it was shortlisted for awards, it won awards, and it was picked up Harper Voyager in the United States and by Hodder and Stoughton in the UK!

What sucks me into a book is the characters. If I come to care about the characters, then I'm completely a fanboy. Becky's characters give me all the feels. They are funny and frustrating and trying to figure their stuff out, not in angsty, tiring sort of way, but in the same way we can all relate to. You connect with them. They make you laugh. You want to get to know them better. They end up in situations that make you worry about them.

The third book has just been released, so you can binge read the trilogy straight through. If you have recommendations of other books that you think I might get a kick out of, let me know! I'm always looking for new books to read!