Becky Chambers Books In Order

Publication Order of Monk & Robot Books

Publication Order of Wayfarers Books

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Anthologies

Becky Chambers is an American author that writes Science fiction novels. The author first rose to fame in 2014 when ‘The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet’ was published.

The book was very well received, eliciting interest in the author’s future works.

Becky took a while to find her stride as an author. Born and raised in California, Becky did a lot of freelance writing and editorial work before finally coming to fame as a novelist.

The author has always loved science fiction. The fact that her mother is an astrobiologist probably had something to do with the curiosity that was sparked in her for the cosmos. It helped that Becky watched a lot of Star Trek when she was a child.

Becky has been known to reminisce about all the roleplaying she did as a child, positioning herself as a First Officer in Star Trek’s Starfleet and envisioning all the adventures she might have undertaken if the Star Trek universe was a real thing.

There was no doubt in her mind that she would pursue science fiction in one fashion or another. Of course, success did not come easy. Becky spent a lot of time working freelance. However, work eventually begun to dry up.

At that point, Becky had a choice to make. Most people would have thrown everything they had into finding more work and, hopefully, securing some sort of regular and reliable income source.

However, Becky isn’t everyone. She had been toying with the idea of writing her book for a while and had even begun experimenting with a couple of chapters. To push forward with her freelancing would have required that she give up on her book, especially if she intended to earn a living as a result.

But Becky’s passion wouldn’t let her quit. Rather than give in, an option for which no one would have faulted her, Becky decided to push forward with her book. To do this, she started a Kickstarter campaign, asking people to donate money that she could use to get by for the next few months while she not only finished writing her book but got it published.

To Becky’s surprise, there were plenty of people willing to throw their weight behind her work. She raised the money she needed, finished her book, and then acquired an agent. As often happens with most aspiring authors, Becky hit a brick wall here.

Not only was her agent unable to deliver any successful submissions but he eventually quit, moving on to a new job. Rather than look for a new agent, Becky Chambers went ahead and self published her book.

That was in 2014, and the decision paid off because Becky attracted the attention of Hodder and Stoughton. Someone from the company, who she had met at WorldCon in London months earlier, eventually called her and informed her that Hodder and Stoughton wanted to pick up her first book.

Not only was Becky Chambers’ first book well received, but her second one garnered just as much interest, paving the way for her highly popular Wayfarers series.

Becky Chambers never fails to mention the impact her mother had on her beginnings, specifically the fact that she contributed so much scientific knowledge to the concepts in the Wayfarers series, helping Becky dumb things down into a format that readers can better understand.

Becky has been commended for writing books of a grand scope, not only exploring the different aspects of humanity but treating fans to innumerable alien races and cultures.

Becky has also been commended for experimenting with more POVs than most, but without allowing her stories to get too complicated or cluttered.

+The Long way to a Small, Angry Planet

To most of the galaxy, human beings are a mere speck on the map, hardly worth consideration. However, the crew of a wormhole construction vessel is definitely leaving a mark as they hop from planet to planet, injecting all their dreams into what they hope will be the job of a lifetime.

For the men and women on this voyage, there is so much more on the line than just a little adventure, especially for one Martian woman who is hoping to leave everything behind.

This is feel-good science fiction. While those kinds of novels are not exactly rare, Becky Chambers chose to push this novel out at a point in time where every science fiction story was going the dark and grimy route.

The galaxy that Becky describes in her first novel is a nice place. Certainly, her characters encounter injustices as they travel through space. But most of the people they meet are nice.

The galaxy that Becky writes is also quite vast. She isn’t content with introducing one or two curious alien races. Rather, Becky Chambers allows her readers to feast on a vast offering of alien cultures and tribes, giving her imagination free reign to impress readers with all the creatures she can conjure.

The book is hardly the action-packed page-turner that readers will remember for years to come. Its primary strengths are the characters and their interactions.

+A Closed and Common Orbit

When Lovelace wakes up, she has no memory of what came before. That isn’t surprising because Lovelace now has a completely new body. Before a total system reboot changed everything, Lovelace was just an artificial intelligence running a ship.

Once she awakens, essentially reborn, Lovelace finds that the universe is a far grander place than she imagined. Luckily, she isn’t alone, not now that she has an excitable engineer named Pepper to help her navigate things.

This book is a sequel to ‘The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet’. However, it was written as a standalone novel and can be read as such.

The book kicks things off with Lovelace and Pepper leaving the wayfarer. The book explores Pepper’s childhood, revealing that she was raised by an AI. Her relationship with Lovelace drives the story.

Lovelace isn’t particularly happy about her new situation. She neither understands nor wants her new body, and she would rather return to what she was before.

As with the first book, this novel avoids all the adventure and action associated with the science fiction genre, instead working to explore the social issues that people across the universe, even those people from different planets and galaxies face.