The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

I saw a recommendation for this book go by on social media, and gave it a shot. Chamber’s worldbuilding reminds me a lot of Iain M. Banks’ Culture series, but there is a different perspective here that is fascinating: where Banks tends to gloss over the personal, Chambers puts it directly in focus. I think a lot of folks may bounce off how sparse the plot is here; most of the books in this series encompass at most one or two actual events, and do not dwell on the action. But the result is an intimate picture of lives intertwining within the aspirationally-utopian (but still flawed in many ways) culture of the Galactic Commmons.