The Galaxy, and the Ground Within

This is a very 2020 book – about what happens when an external temporary disaster stops your daily routine, sets back your to-do list and forces you to reflect about your priorities. This is also a very Becky Chambers book – each main character belongs to a separate alien species and one that was not well-fleshed out in the previous books – each species is intricately developed in physiology, cultural norms around gender, living style, values, etc. And each character is carefully developed within that species.

Like Chambers' other works there isn't much plot there. Instead, the book really focuses on character development. Most of the book is spent on each character's own reflective practice and their pairwise relationship developments. Beyond that, the book is largely an exploration about family and parenting - why and how each character does or doesn't engage in different types of family relationships. Chambers wrote in interviews that she was strongly influenced by Le Guin and it shows here – very strong world building and a lot of contemplation about how speculative fiction to open a window into the choices we make in the real world without considering them.

Also, basically Come From Away, but with aliens and no music.

A few adorable snippets: a child's rock collection is all dressed up as a natural history museum; an entire conversation about how dumb humans are for eating cheese (there are no humans in this book, which I found a great choice that really allowed for larger cultural exploration), zillions of baked goods and a bath house so epic it needed foreshadowing