Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers, 3) Paperback – July 24, 2018

Series Info/Source: This is the third book in the Wayfarers series. I bought a copy of this as an ebook for my Kindle.Thoughts: This book was fairly wandering plot-wise compared to the previous two books. However, I ended up completely drawn into this world and loved learning about these characters.This book alternates between a number of different POVs. All of the characters we read about are somehow tied into the Exodus Fleet, the original human fleet that left Earth. Humans still live in the spacefaring Exodus Fleet and there has been a horrible tragedy that is affecting them all. We join the story after the tragedy and get to see how it affects these different characters and their lives.This is a very character driven book. The plot here is thin; there is a slight mystery about the death of one character but aside from that this is a more day to day life type of story. This book looks at these individual characters' lives and we get to watch as they weave in and out of each other. This is a fascinating world and a fascinating way of life. All of the characters we spend time with are completely engaging and utterly intriguing.As you can tell this is more of a space opera than some action-packed sci-fi thriller. There are heavy themes around the importance of tradition but also around the acceptance of growth and change. Throughout we see the very traditional Exodans being forced to (and willing to) accept alien technology and changes in life. There are ebbs and flows in people's lives that people need to learn to accept and move forward with. We watch young people embrace both new ways of life and learn the importance of history. We watch older Exodans decide it's time to embrace a new way of life and leave the fleet. It is all very thought-provoking and at times emotional, but still contains a lot of humor and wit and stays intriguing.My Summary (5/5): Overall I loved this. It was completely not what I was expecting it to be but I was completely drawn into this world and loved being a part of these characters' lives. Chambers continues to surprise me with her creativity, thoughtfulness, and great insight into what it means to be sentient and human (or not human). I am eager to read the final book in this series and incredibly eager to see what Chambers comes up with next.

Chambers' Wayfarers stories are set in the Galactic Commons, a galactic federation of intelligent species, most of them significantly older than the newcomer humans. Each has looked at a different part of life in the Galactic Commons. This one is set in the Exodus Fleet, the fleet carrying the descendants of the last humans to leave Earth, fleeing its environmental collapse.They're a distinctly different culture from the humans who settled Mars and the outer planets prior to that final collapse. Originally, they were looking for an Earthlike planet to start over on, and they wanted their descendants to be prepared for planetary life. In addition to their quite functional food- and oxygen-producing farms, they have decorative oxygen gardens, theaters that show nature videos of Earth, murals on the walls that, functionally, don't need to be anything but bare metal.They also guard against the development of the competition and divisions that helped destroy Earth. Everyone has windows onto space in their living quarters. Everyone is guaranteed "if we have food they will eat, if we have air they will breathe, if we have fuel they will fly." Their economic system is barter.And membership in the Galactic Commons has brought changes, changes that can disrupt this system.Tessa is a supervisor in salvage operations--managing and sorting what comes in, sending it on to where those materials are most useful, making sure nothing goes to waste. She has two children, a husband with his own ship and work that takes him and that ship out of the fleet for extended periods, and an aging father. Her husband, George, is earning the Galactic credits the Exodan fleet didn't need before joining the Galactic Commons. Her father has failing eyesight and needs an eye replacement that is Galactic tech, not fleet tech--and which will need those credits George is earning.Those credits, in larger context, may also be about to buy AI technology that will eliminate the job Tessa has been doing for twenty years, and which she loves. If it happens, she'll find other work, and the security of her family won't be threatened, because this is the Fleet, but...it's making her uneasy, and restless.Isabel is an archivist. This means the obvious keeping and preserving of records, but it also mean being the officiant at weddings, births, and funerals. She has a love of history and knowledge; she corresponds with scholars outside the fleet. One, a Harmargian, a member of a species that was distinctly divided on whether humans should be admitted to the Commons, has come to visit and observe.Eyas is a caretaker; she prepares the bodies of the deceased for composting and return to the soil that helps the fleet live, and counsels the families of the deceased. It's work she loves, finds meaningful, and always wanted to do. Yet she fells there's a piece missing, something more she could be doing as well.Sawyer is a young man descended from a family that left the Fleet, to settle on a planet. They moved around, never really staying on one planet, and then an epidemic struck for which Galactic medicine didn't yet have proper treatment for humans. They developed it quickly, but Sawyer was the only survivor. At 24, he's decided to go check out his family's original home, try something new to him. He meets Eyas, who impatiently gives him a little advice about how to start fitting in with the Exodans. And he meets a man who connects with with job salvaging materials from a wrecked ship.Kip is a teenager feeling restless and dissatisfied. He has no idea what he wants to do, he's not sure he wants to stay in the fleet, and he has a friend with perhaps more intellectual firepower (not that Kip isn't smart), but perhaps not as good judgment or concern for others.They're all trying to find their way, all being affected by the changes that are coming to the fleet, now that they're part of the Galactic Commons and have been settled, not on planet, but around an otherwise unused star. Their culture is surviving, but also growing and changing. This is a story about how they cope, how they adapt, what they feel and think and do. It's about decent people trying to make the right decisions, for themselves and those they care about, in changing circumstances.For me, that makes it the best kind of story. Chambers makes these people you can care about, and want good outcomes for.Highly recommended.I bought this book.

I love this series, I've now read all the books in it. The first book was definitely great, but the rest of the series was good. It's hard to find a good space opera book, so I was happy I found this series. The books don't have to be read in order technically because they're all different stories but in the same setting. There are characters that appear in multiple books as well. Overall, I definitely recommend.

I read the trilogy, the first one is brilliant, the others less so but still quite entertaining and thought provoking

A complete 360o vision of life around the Wayfarer between the three books. I missed some beloved characters in this book but felt empathy for the main characters. The slowest of the three books I'd say, still in keeping with their familiarity.

In Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers #3), Becky Chambers gives us five views of the Exodan situation, so it helps to have read the first in the series (but not the second). The author invites us to discover the difficulties of being a relatively impoverished race that has joined up with the very much more sophisticated Galactic Council members. How does it feel to be studied by their academics? How do you reconcile your cultural treasures with the modern world you’ve entered? What relevance is the sum of humanity, the remnant of a single lonely planet that its native species destroyed in their greed? And how does a newcomer fit in?This is not a philosophical work, but these questions trouble our protagonists without them necessarily putting their worries into words. Well, Isabel does, but then Isabel is an archivist, and it’s part of her job to think of such things. But even she lets her hair down. I suppose, really that it was I who had these questions as I finished the book. Lingering thoughts on the nature of life, diversity, culture and environmental sufficiency.Lots of my favourite things get addressed in this book: recycling in the most fundamental of ways just for starters. Choice of careers in a culture where you work for the good of the community, and not for your own gain. The impact on the concept of gain on traditional ways. Societal change. All told by interlinked and interwoven stories of five (by my count) individuals, with further input from one slug-like alien who records her impressions during her cultural research visit.Becky Chambers is a master of this craft. Her universe is rich in detail. This is a great, gentle but occasionally painful, read. Interesting people reveal stories you can relate to, even if they do live in hexagonal homes where they go down to a cupola to look at the stars beneath their feet. They don’t know what wind and rain is. You do. Enjoy it while you can. I can’t wait to read the next Becky Chambers book.

I went into this book expecting to rejoin the Crew and tale I loved in the previous books of the series. No, I don't read descriptions, why?So this book could, maybe even should have been a disappointment. It wasn't. While I still long for a continuation, I completely fell for this dive into the depths of the intriguing universe that supported the story I loved. If you asked me what this book was about I'd find it difficult to answer without retelling the whole. Without mentioning everyone and all that transpired.And if that isn't the greatest thing one can say about a book, I wouldn't know what.