This book tells the story of the AI Lovelace and an engineer Pepper, who appeared in Becky Chambers' first book, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet.

Lovelace used to be the AI system of a spaceship The Wayfarer, but is now housed in an illegal synthetic body, which she tries to get used to with the help of Pepper, who knows a thing or two about starting over. She was born Jane 23, essentially a slave. An industrial accident gave her a change to escape and with a help of an AI, she was able to make her life her own. Therefore she is now determined to help Lovelace.

This book is not a direct sequel to The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, but it helps to have read that first.
I really like the characters and the relationships Becky Chambers has created. All in all an enjoyable book!

Paperback, bought at a second hand book store in Turku.

To Mecu via private courier.

Thanks a lot for this book Kemppu!

"Life is terrifying. None of us have a rule book. None of us know what we're doing here. So, the easiest way to stare reality in the face and not utterly lose your shit is to believe that you have control over it. Id you believe you have control, then you believe that you're at the top. And if you're at the top, then people who aren't like you . . . well, they've got to be somewhere lower, right? Every species does this. Does it again and again and again. Doesn't matter if they do it to themselves, or another species, or someone they created."

I'm glad I read the second Wayfarers book right after the first one. This volume doesn't take place on the same ship but on a planet with two characters we met in the first book. Where the first book was about journey, this is too, in a way. Above all, this is a story about identity. Who are you if you were made for special purpose and that purpose no longer exists? Are you what you were made for, or do you make yourself? Who has the right to live - or who can say who gets to live?

A bonus book. Happy reading!

Arrived Safely from Finland