Beth's Reviews > Record of a Spaceborn Few

My favorite of the Wayfarers series so far! I love all the characters--the book has multiple narrators of various ages and social & career situations. Chambers does wonderfully with balancing who is narrating and when, and how the characters' lives touch on each other's. There's an archivist, a young drifter, a teen, a busy mom/device repairperson, and a caretaker-the culture's equivalent of a mortician but more of a grief counselor & composter (two tasks which are interwoven more than one might think). This is not entirely a character-driven novel though--we learn so much about the Exodans and their culture, and how both communities and individuals deal with two separate tragedies.

One of the marvelous things about Chambers' worldbuilding is that nothing is dystopian or utopian--the various ways humans and other sapients live are all good, but all have their drawbacks. Also, her characters lead such different lives from us but the humans still have the basics of humans of any time: the chaos of parenting young ones, frustrations of adolescence, and joys & challenges of being elderly.

A beautiful story of a beautiful, scrappy, frustrating, and compassionate way of life.