A Closed and Common Orbit

Audiobook

English language

Published May 21, 2019 by HarperAudio.

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (10 reviews)

Once, Lovelace had eyes and ears everywhere. She was a ship's artificial intelligence system - possessing a personality and very human emotions. But when her ship was badly damaged, Lovelace was forced to reboot and reset. Now housed in an illegal synthetic body, she's never felt so isolated. But Lovelace is not alone. Pepper, an engineer who risked her life to reinstall Lovelace's program, has remained by her side and is determined to help her.

13 editions

The two main characters just weren't for me

3 stars

Thoroughly enjoyed the worldbuilding and the story, but I felt like I had to do the work to relate to the characters. They both start off at points in their lives that are unique, interesting - and hard to wrap my head around. The author does a great job giving them distinct voices and letting them grow over time, but I just found them too far removed to really get into the book.

The secondary characters, however! I really loved reading about them from the perspectives of the protagonists, and as always, the interactions are wonderfully crafted.

Wunderschöne Story und liebenswerte Charaktere

5 stars

Hach, was fĂŒr ein wunderbares Buch. đŸ„°

Der Fokus liegt hier auf den zwei Hauptprotagonistinnen, deren Charakterentwicklung und einen konsistenten Handlungsstrang mit merklich steigendem Spannungsbogen. Somit ist der ErzÀhlstil anders, als in Teil eins, dennoch ist das Buch mindestens genauso gut, wenn nicht sogar besser!

Die Story fand ich wunderschön und die Protagonistinnen und die drei Nebencharaktere durch und durch sympathisch und liebenswert. Auch dieses Mal habe ich wĂ€hrend des Lesens mehrfach in Emotionen geschwelgt. Wie sehr habe ich mit ihnen mitgefiebert, wie sehr mitgefĂŒhlt, wenn sie es schwer hatten, wie sehr ging mir das Herz auf, wenn sie schöne Dinge erlebt hatten. Und letztere sind zum GlĂŒck auch in diesem Teil wieder in der Mehrzahl, auch wenn diesmal ein bisschen hĂ€ufiger auch etwas bedrĂŒckendere Momente stattfinden, was die Bindung an die Charaktere aber umso mehr verstĂ€rkt.

Besonders angetan hat es mir Protagonistin Sidra. Nicht nur, weil ich es interessant 


feel good but real scifi too

4 stars

i enjoyed A Closed and Common Orbit even more than the prequel one. (which has not enough story to keep up--for my taste at least) i think of it as a kind of double bildungsroman, with two developing characters between which the novel is split.

Chambers connects her scifi(-world) convincingly and smoothly with the problems most of us are facing and can relate to. it's how scifi should comment the present. and although the focus is always on the personalities, there are also a lot of social themes and thoughts.

a lot of readers mention the caring characters throughout the story, which make it so satisfactional to follow. I can support that! but it would be sad to think, it's just another form of escapism, a tweak to the genre. this is a shortcoming of understanding the themes Chambers is working on.

the real impact makes Chambers skill in building 


gentle and fierce

4 stars

I found this much more emotional of a read than I expected. The questions about what makes a person a person, and a home a home, and a family a family, not to mention what is the relationship between ourselves and our physical bodies— it’s a lot to handle! And the book does is so gently even as it’s really fierce on valuing lives and loves. Anyway. She’s so good, Becky Chambers.

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