#SciFiSessions with Becky Chambers

Last night a friend and I attended an evening with the lovely Becky Chambers, author of the Wayfarers series (that's Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, A Closed and Common Orbit and Record of a Spaceborn Few) at Waterstones Gower Street, as part of their semi-regular #SciFiSessions. Having only read the first book in the series, I was curious to meet the author of what I thought was an unusual piece of sci-fi.

The weird thing about Long Way... for me was the fact it was narrated from several points of view. As you start reading you think you're about to sink into the story of an obviously main character-material girl, but abruptly you're shifted away from her and observe other characters just as closely. It's not something I've come across before and it shouldn't work. It kind of does though. And as I found out last night, that's probably because of just how much Becky loves her characters.

The audience was let in on the inner workings of her writing process, such as her locally hosted Wiki that helps her keep track of the universe she's created, including all characters and species. As it turns out, many of Becky's characters have in fact been inspired by the quirky ways of mother nature - having an astrobiologist mother certainly helped her here. Once her characters have been created, her partner - who happens to be a linguist - then helped her create the languages in her universe. You could say she's got good company.

But another thing that is different about Long Way... and the rest of the series too is how the sadness in them is balanced with a sort of warm humanity. She didn't set out to write the dark, looming dystopia that sci-fi so often tends towards nowadays (although who can blame it). She is against the "if it's a grown-up story, it has to be dark" notion. Her stories often deal with heavy topics, but she manages to do so without losing the charm and good-humoured nature of her writing.

My impression was that this is an author who doesn't care too much about the expectations of the sci-fi community - and the community loves her for it. She started her Wayfarers project on Kickstarter and built a solid fan base. She doesn't follow the same storyline in each book; they're just connected in one way or another. She doesn't dictate the order you should read her books in. Basically, she's pretty cool.

It was great to see an author in person who I'm counting on to keep building her name globally and I'm sure we'll be seeing more exciting things from her in the future - definitely one to keep an eye on.

Look at that queue!

PS. If you've never been to Waterstones Gower Street - like me - then do make a point of visiting. It's the most amazing shop with plenty of hidden reading corners, Hogwarts-like staircases and so, so, so, so, so many books. Plus the exterior is beautiful too.