User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
One of my newest favorite books.
Becky Chambers has a way with words that makes every book she writes feel like home. I was sucked into this story from the first sentence (
If you read nothing else we've sent home, please at least read this. Eum yes?!).
I've never read such a wholesome character driven sci-fi and I can't recommend this enough.
A must read!
Rating: really liked it
“We have found nothing you can sell. We have found nothing you can put to practical use. We have found no worlds that could be easily or ethically settled, were that end desired. We have satisfied nothing but curiosity, gained nothing but knowledge.”
You have to possess a specific mindset to like this novella. You need to be that person who, in the middle of an adventure story featuring a group of explorers would pause and think — wouldn’t it be nice that if instead of battles/ chases/ intrigue/ tension/ plot we just got a few hours of watching the explorers/ scientists/ astronauts just go about and do their day-to-day work, engage in whatever activities their mission was supposed to be about instead of being distracted by an adventure?¹ You need to be that person who can read a textbook before the course begins just because it’s fun learning new things².
Well, I am that person, ergo I loved this book.¹ I remember reading (and watching) The Martian and feeling vaguely annoyed that we did not get just a few extra minutes/chapters for seeing what the astronauts would be like just doing their normally scheduled mission instead of getting out of there and leaving Mark Watney to grow potatoes in all the loneliness.
² Every geography and biology textbook in my school life, ever. I was am a proud nerd.
To Be Taught, If Fortunate is that kind of story.
It’s not about adventures or plot. It is basically like reading field notes of a research team. It is full of contemplative musings on the humans role in space, in studying extraterrestrial life, and the moral obligations and ethical implications that arise — while showing us the everyday life of a future crew of four scientists sent on a purely observational ecological mission to four extraterrestrial planets where they for a few years at a time study (and not interfere with) the local lifeforms. It’s observing, cataloguing, marveling, and finding fulfillment and happiness in the observer role, while at the same time building close ties with the few people around you.
Discoveries are made, unsettling news encountered, a few challenges threaten to fray mind and sanity. Some planets are a fascinating paradise, others a damp screeching hell. And then it is time to pack up and move on.
What is this Hugo-nominated novella about? Well, to me it all boiled down to a few ethical questions and themes.
First, it’s the importance of humility for humans, the avoidance of acting as a dominant, superior, conquering species — and instead focusing on respect and learning and observing for no other reason than knowledge. Not for terraforming, not for profit, not for entertainment — but
for science. This is what’s owed to those who sent you on the mission, as this space mission is the result of the crowdfunding effort independent of governments and countries.
“I’m an observer, not a conqueror. I have no interest in changing other worlds to suit me. I choose the lighter touch: changing myself to suit them.”
Second, it’s the relationships and formation of bonds between the crewmates, the four people who are isolated from the rest of humanity for decades. Ariadne, Elena, Chikondi and Jack form their own family that transcends norms and conventions and definitions, where connections are important whether they are emotional or sexual or both.
Becky Chambers excels at writing about human connections and adopted, chosen families — and this ability shines here as well.
“Because sometimes we go, and we try, and we suffer, and despite it all, we learn nothing. Sometimes we are left with more questions than when we started. Sometimes we do harm, despite our best efforts. We are human. We are fragile.”
Third, it’s the
disconnection from the rest of humanity. While you and your crewmates are light years away from everyone else, while any news that reach you are decades out of date, while everyone you knew and loved will die as you are in space, while nothing that really matters to you due to the gap of time and distance is going on on the far-away Earth, do you strive to remain a part of humanity, do you continue to care, or do you focus on yourself and your new worlds leaving the troubles of the old Earth behind?
Do you still owe anything to the old planet? Do you still need their guidance?
“What we want you to ask yourselves is this: what is space, to you? Is it a playground? A quarry? A flagpole? A classroom? A temple? Who do you believe should go, and for what purpose? Or should we go at all? Is the realm above the clouds immaterial to you, so long as satellites send messages and rocks don’t fall? Is human spaceflight a fool’s errand, a rich man’s fantasy, an unacceptable waste of life and metal? Are our methods grotesque to you, our ethics untenable? Are our hopes outdated? When I tell you of our life out here, do you cheer for us, or do you scoff?”
It’s a quiet story, slow and measured and very unhurried. Told in a voice of one of the crew members, Ariadne, it is full of wonder at the things that she and her crewmates are incredibly lucky and grateful to see. It is quietly emotional and wondrous and touching and yet subdued. Reading it to me was akin to actually inhabiting Ariadne’s world of travel and discovery and wonder, and at time frustration and depression and despair. It was really like experiencing a slice of life on the Lawki mission, the good and bad, the wondrous and the heartbreaking, the exciting and the mundane.
I enjoyed this calm and quiet field notes — or rather a letter in the firm of field notes — specifically for how contemplative it was. Because ultimately it’s hopeful, and chooses to see the best in us, and believes in our ability not only to choose the right thing but to want to choose it.
Collaboration, knowledge, responsibility and kindness - these can be our beacons, and I love it for making me believe in that.
(Even if, to be honest with you, I don’t agree with the ending — but that just likely says something unflattering about me.) “Where we go from there is up to you.”
4.5 stars.———————
My Hugo and Nebula Awards Reading Project 2020: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Rating: really liked it
WOW, this reminded me so much of why I love sci-fi and why I need to make it a priority to read more of it. Becky Chambers has such a knack for writing heartbreakingly human, character driven stories. I loved this a whole heck of a lot.
Rating: really liked it
A travelogue with frankly underdeveloped characters and a bonkers ending--and I don't mean in the Gideon the Ninth kind of way. No, I mean in the Tana French, authorial choice kind of way. A metaphor, in novella, for exploration, learning and weighing costs.
The set-up is that a team of four astronaut-scientists are on a long-term exploration mission from the Earth, with an agreed mission to explore four different targets and report back, engaging in a type of extended torpor between locations. The technology has advanced enough that there's some temporary genetic modifications they can do to adapt to the planet they are on; otherwise, it feels a little like standard advanced explore sci-fi, with habitats, labs, sampling, decontamination protocols and long-range communication. Early on, I had strong flashes of Children of Ruin, and We Are Legion (We Are Bob), and it is interesting that it unfolded so similarly. However, Chambers has a rough time with plots, and it went nowhere quite fast; despite all potential paths I looked for, it ignored all of them in favor of a philosophical point.
I'll be honest--I'm glad I got this on kindle sale, because it reads a little bit like a college writing assignment, and I mean that in the best possible way. Full of solid, imaginative writing about landing on other worlds and what it would take for an expedition team to make it work. Clever ideas about four different kind of planets and what each one of them would be like, although I'll note that they are all supposed to be Earth-analogue, so the exploration is mostly that of discovery.
Narrative consists mostly of telling, so your mileage will vary. The narrator is genuinely
nice, and is aware she is writing for a non-science audience, so is accessible and hopefully interesting. There's a lot of science asides, which, depending on your level of science, may or may not be interesting. There's one on chimerism that came from Chemistry 101, but has an interesting application to evolutionary theory that one new to me.
More significantly, the characters are cut-outs, not people, that don't develop much beyond the types: Solitary Botanist, the Jock Geologist, and the Driven Zoologist. It's narrated by the Gentle Engineer, a woman who tries to keep everyone/thing going and happy. There's literally no interpersonal conflict between them (view spoiler)
[despite different sexual combinations (hide spoiler)]. When they have issues, they turn inward. Like, clearly written by someone that hasn't lived through America in 2020, is what I'm saying. Or the author is appealing to some Greek ideal of a higher nature, but it's one that you let go of the second time someone betrays you in real life. Probably everything else should be put under spoilers.
(view spoiler)
[
There's one external conflict, when a scared being accidentally violates the decontamination protocol. I expected it to have lasting effects, and I think it was supposed to be resonating with the Botanist, but it never explicitly comes up again. The major plot device is when our devoted scientists (of which the Engineer notes she isn't really one, but she's everyone's helper) forget to notice that messages from Earth have stopped arriving regularly, and when they get one, the decide not to open it for four years.
(hide spoiler)]Yeah, not buying the character actions. Chambers has given me exactly zero to hang my belief on for this one, and so I can't.
I ended up having two reactions to this story: one, "pretty!" You know, the same kind of reaction you get wandering past a cool aquarium. Two, derivative. I'm sorry, but everything she started to play with here was done better by Tchaikovsky. Existential dread? Better in Walking to Aldebaran. Team of explorers on a new planet? Better in Children of Ruin. End result: adequate but odd attempt at messaging, but too overt and too Schrödinger of an ending to be successful. Value rests on the one-trick pony ending. Definitely not buying any more Chambers until I read first.
It's a completely average 2.5 stars for me, rounding down to compensate for it's undeserved average. Next thing you know, it'll win a Goodreads Choice Award.
Rating: really liked it
I have a Booktube channel now! Subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/petrikleo3.5/5 stars
This may surprise you, but unlike The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, I actually enjoyed reading To Be Taught, If Fortunate.Becky Chambers is most often known for her work on
Wayfarers series, a space-opera series that many people have called the ultimate feel-good space opera or literary hugs. Admittedly, I haven’t finished reading
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, either I was in the wrong reading mood, or maybe it indeed just wasn’t for me; I ended up DNFing the book at 25-30% mark, twice. However, hearing that one of my favorite booktubers, Emily Fox, loved Becky Chambers’s works so much, I decided to give
To Be Taught, If Fortunate, a standalone space-opera novella separate from the
Wayfarers series, a try. Verdict? I liked it.
“Don't believe the lie of individual trees, each a monument to its own self-made success. A forest is an interdependent community. Resources are shared, and life in isolation is a death sentence.”
The story in
To Be Taught, If Fortunate follow Ariadne and her three crewmates as they went on an expedition to survey four habitable worlds. I believe that this novella can be considered a hard sci-fi; there’s a lot of calculated discussion on science and biology. I think what I liked most about this novella was Chambers’s prose; it flows really well, and this short book was able to capture my attention thoroughly. Unlike
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet which bored me, I feel like there are moments of tension in the plot, and the dilemma that the four main characters faced in their pursuit of knowledge was efficient and effectively well-written.
“It is difficult to give thought to the stars when the ground is swallowing you up.”
As you can probably guess from Becky Chambers, though, despite some of the intensity, this is at its core, a thought-provoking and hopeful book. I don’t think Chambers will ever write a grim sci-fi; even from the interview she did with her mother at the end of the book, it’s quite clear that despite the bleak reality of our world, Chambers remains a hopeful person. What didn’t click for me, however, was the communication report storytelling format and the short length of the novella itself—it took me about one to two hours to finish—that didn’t allow enough characterizations for the characters for me to care for. I actually wished that this was a longer book. I did enjoy reading
To Be Taught, If Fortunate, I may not find myself completely enamored with this one like many of her fans did, but in the aspect of keeping hope, I will keep my fingers crossed that in the future, when the reading mood is right, maybe I’ll attempt and enjoy reading
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet more than my previous attempts.
“The amount a person can spare is relative; the value of generosity is not.”
You can order the book from: Book Depository (Free shipping) | Bookshop (Support Local Bookstores!) You can find this and the rest of my reviews at Novel NotionsSpecial thanks to my Patrons on Patreon for giving me extra support towards my passion for reading and reviewing!
My Patrons: Alfred, Alya, Annabeth, Blaise, Devin, Diana, Edward, Hamad, Helen, Jimmy Nutts, Joie, Lufi, Michelle, Mike, Miracle, Nicholas, Zoe.
Rating: really liked it
I’m sad I didn’t love this as much as I wanted to 😔
“We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship - to teach, if we are called upon; to be taught, if we are fortunate.” We know full well that our planet and all it’s inhabitants are but a small part of this immense universe that surrounds us, and it is with humility and hope that we take this step.” I love Becky Chambers. Her Wayfarers series had me utterly spellbound. But this one just didn’t do it for me.
It is written as a diary, from the perspective of an astronaut in our not so distant future. Ariadne and a team of 3 others travel to numerous different planets in order to study them and report back to Earth.
But as we’d expect, they encounter many problems. From an infestation of bug like sticky insects, to being trapped inside for four months, to losing contact with earth.
There were some parts that truly stood out. But for me, reading needs a story, and it just wasn’t there in this case. If you like more informative books that imagine what space travel would be like then this is for you!
I was happy. Content like I could never remember being. I was surrounded by people I loved, safe in a place free of noise and performance and the empty trappings of civilisation. Here, nobody cared about status or money, who was in power, who was kissing or killing whom. There was only water, and the wonders living within it.” *****************
I’ve been getting withdrawals from Becky Chambers’ wonderfully optimistic Sci Fi so thank God for this novella 💖😊
Rating: really liked it
“
Our mission is to catalogue, not to colonise.”
Beautiful and often startling musings on ethics, philosophy, and psychology, as a crew of four search for life on four worlds, light-years from home, over many decades. You feel the awe, the dislocation and discombobulation, the excitement, the struggle to describe the utterly unfamiliar, the camaraderie, and, sometimes, the fear.
It's built on a simple plot that nevertheless has dramatic moments. It could be horribly self-righteous or boring, but I found it profound, provocative, and moving. There’s enough science for sci-fi buffs, but it is primarily about ideas and relationships, and should be appreciated beyond the realm of genre.
Leave no trace?As 2021 passes into history and 2022 begins, it’s natural to think of new year resolutions: what mark we want to leave on the world in our personal and professional lives, perhaps on GoodReads too? But there is another way.
Image:
"Leave nothing but footprints. Take nothing but pictures. Kill nothing but time." Variously attributed to John Muir, Aliyyah Eniath, and others. (Source)
“
I have no interest in changing other worlds to suit me. I choose the lighter touch: changing myself to suit them.”
The crew use enzyme patches (somaforming) to temporarily change their bodies to suit each planet: glittery skin when there’s almost no light, and extra muscle bulk where gravity is high, for example.
Like all the best sci-fi, the underlying message is also a metaphor to our circumstances. It’s one we can all strive to apply in daily life here on Earth.
“
We have found nothing you can sell. We have found nothing you can put to practical use. We have found no worlds that could be easily or ethically settled, were that desired. We have satisfied nothing but curiosity, gained nothing but knowledge.”
Truly, the noblest goals.
Field trip diaryAriadne, born on Earth in 2081, recounts the four, very different, worlds she and her crewmates, Chikondi, Elena, and Jack, visit. Four years of study are planned on each, with years in “torpor” while travelling, and waking from it differs from waking from sleep in practical and psychological ways. It requires mental adjustment as much as physical, so “
the kindest object placement” of the cabin mirror is crucial: out of sight on waking, but visible as soon as the astronaut chooses to float forward.
The relationships between the crew are subtly drawn: they know each other so well, much is unsaid, but understood.
Chambers is also good at gently educating the reader where necessary. For example, the wings of a bat, a bird, and a bee serve the same purpose, but they’re structurally very different because they evolved separately.
Image:
Bat, bird, and insect wings, compared (Source)
On Earth, spines evolved only once, but on Mirabilis, there are at least three different types, so Earth-based taxonomy can’t be used.
“
The artist’s palette was robbed of green and blue, and every assumption of vertebrate evolution had been thrown out the window.”
Instead, the crew categorise by analogy, “mammal approximate”, for example. Just because something looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck doesn’t necessarily mean it
is a duck.
Quotes• “A forest is an interdependent community. Resources are shared, and life in isolation is a death sentence.”
• “When the world you know is out of reach, nothing is more welcome than a measurable reminder that it still exists.”
• “I was surrounded by people I loved, safe in a place free of noise and performance and the empty trappings of civilization.”
• “A home can only exist in a moment. Something both found and made. Always temporary.”
• “A face like the ghost of a greyhound, breathtaking in its oddness and shocking in its beauty.”
See alsoThis was my first Becky Chambers. I loved her lyricism, profundity, and poetic descriptions which reminded me of Ray Bradbury, especially some of
The Martian Chronicles (see my review HERE) and also
Fahrenheit 451 (see my review HERE).
Image:
The cover and inside of the Voyager Golden Record (Source)
The book’s title comes from the Voyager Golden Record, launched in 1977, and quoted at the end of the book:
“
I send greetings on behalf of the people of our planet. We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship, to teach if we are called upon, to be taught if we are fortunate. We know full well that our planet and all its inhabitants are but a small part of the immense universe that surrounds us and it is with humility and hope that we take this step.”
Rating: really liked it
This is a beauty. A novella which packs twice the punch of the average full length novel. A story of hope and a better future. An ending which makes you want to cry. Wonderful.
I love well written sci fi and To Be Taught, If Fortunate is exactly that. It follows the experiences of four scientists/astronauts who are basically crowd funded by a future Earth to explore several previously unvisited planets. Time passes and eventually they lose contact with Earth. What should they do next?
I must admit I did not like the author's choice of ending yet it was very appropriate to the context of the novella. The four scientists experienced so much, spent all their time with each other and yet maintained a well balanced relationship with each other. When things start to go wrong and their relationships falter they must find a solution of whatever kind.
I read it in one afternoon and loved it all. Becky Chambers must go on my list of favourite authors/
Rating: really liked it
Since I first read Joanna Russ' WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO... I've had a hole in my heart. This book healed it. This extraordinary novella proves that you don't have to write a long book to pack a big punch. Becky Chambers' writing gets better and better with everything she writes, and this is no exception. Every sentence is perfectly balanced without attracting unnecessary attention; characterization is subtle but effective; and the impact of the ending is everything I hoped it would be. A future sci-fi masterwork in a new and welcome tradition.
Rating: really liked it
Becky Chambers is a freaking genius. If you have any interest in speculative fiction about where we as a species could be headed then you really need to pick up any of her books.
'To Be Taught If Fortunate' is a short novella about longterm space mission to study four planets light years away from Earth. There are four members of the crew of the OCA spacecraft Merian; Ariadne O'Neill, Elena Quesada-Cruz, Jack Vo and Chikondi Daka. But instead of getting caught up in stereotypical space opera style events this book takes the form of a message sent back to Earth from the viewpoint of Ariadne who is the flight engineer onboard. And in this message are the details of their exploratory and investigatory mission so far... But also it reveals so much about what it means to be human. It poses probing questions asking about the importance of scientific research and whether a mission seeking knowledge is truly relevant to us as a species.
Ariadne's message is split into four parts as the crew of the Merian visit four different planets: Aecor, Mirabilis, Opera and Votum. And on each planet we are treated to both easy to understand and incredibly fascinating speculative science as the crew engage in their information gathering and laboratory research. But we also get to delve into the psyches of these four people and how the mission affects each of them in different ways.
This book is truly brilliant. Everything feels so authentic that I almost believed that I was reading a real space report... But it's the humanity of the piece that really captured me. So much so that I found myself crying at the end of the book because there was just so much heart and feeling in it. It's a book about what it truly means to be a human and as a trained research scientist myself I was both deeply moved by and really emotionally connected with the hunger and thirst for knowledge that was illustrated in the book.
Highly recommended
five stars As the Secretary General of the United Nations, an organisation of one hundred and forty seven member states who represent almost all of the human inhabitants of the planet Earth, I send greetings on behalf of the people of our planet. We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship - to teach, if we are called upon; to be taught, if we are fortunate. We know full well that our planet and its inhabitants are but a small part of this immense universe that surrounds us, and it is with humility and hope that we take this step.
- Former UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim,
1977,
as recorded on the Voyager Golden Record.
For more reviews and book related chat check out my blog
Rating: really liked it
The moment Mrin realized that she did not enjoy
FANTASY her go-to genre BUT ended up liking this book...
This was me after reading this book
NO, I WON'T LET YOU GUYS KNOW THE PLOT OF THE BOOK!!!!
I forbid you all to look at the blurb!!!!Just go into it blindly
This book was so atmospheric and fascinating !!!
Also, you
DON'T have to be a science student to enjoy this
though you will enjoy it more if you are (Which is what happened to me🤗)
The various terms the author used were something I was familiar with BUT she did an AMAZING job of explaining it!!
It felt like
I went with the crew on an adventure!!
It also seemed like a mixture between The MARTIAN and INTERSTELLAR
This book was unlike ANY OTHER book I have read!!
The story itself was unique
Mrin to the author:
Thanks to my friend Rue for bringing this under my radar😊🥰
SORING CEREMONY!!!🤗
Chikondi: Hufflepuff
Elena: Slytherin
Jack: Gryffindor
Ariadne: Ravenclaw
Special mention to the fuffy animal (I still mourn its loss)
I had named it fluffy
I thought it looked like this😥😭
RIP Fluffy😭😣
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Reading this because my friends were raving about this ...
So even though we have
different taste in books...I have decided to give this book a try
*shrugs*What can I say?? Its peer pressure
Rating: really liked it
3.5 stars
Well written, but this kind of felt like the result of a creative writing assignment. It's like someone gave the author a prompt of "write a novella where a small number of humans are visiting unknown planets/moons light years away" and this is what the author came up with. Don't get me wrong, I would give this an A if I was a teacher grading this. There's thought given to how humans would need to adjust to different conditions (gravity, light, etc), how they would attempt to identify alien animal/plant life, how isolation can wear on them mentally, and there's even some LGBTQ representation in the characters. It's lovely. But as far as the plot goes, it's not particularly exciting reading, no matter how well it was written and thought out. I would give this author another try though.
Rating: really liked it
THE MARTIAN meets INTERSTELLAR, this is high-concept speculative fic at its finest. Rendered with startling clarity, Chambers' latest offering is a short but fierce ode to humanity and all our reaches and flaws. Unputdownable.
Rating: really liked it
“Hello, I hope you are listening and it’s okay even though I’m a space traveller I won’t exclude you by using fancy words coz I want to talk to ALL of you so I’m gonna talk like you’re all simpleminded idiots ok? So yesterday I found a stone and it was so pretty and this is the whole meaning of life, you know? I used to live somewhere that sounds pretty and today we’re having this for dinner and I find animals so fascinating especially insects because they are one thing and then they are another. Let’s take the caterpillar for example” NO PLEASE LET’S NOT HOW DO I GET OFF THIS TRAIN OF RAMBLING TEENAGE DIARY?
Other parts of the story consisted of “you know how a mammal looks a certain way and a cat looks a certain way so if you see a cat like thing you go oooh a cat except this wasn’t a cat so it would be wrong to say a cat when it really isn’t a cat because long explanation of limbs and vertebrae AND YET I’m going to say oooh it looked like a cat coz otherwise you wouldn’t understand what I mean. OK I GET IT THINGS LOOK DIFFERENT FROM ON EARTH BUT THANK YOU FOR 22 MINUTES OF EXPLANATIONS AND 14 ALLEGORIES JFC.
I’m sorry, but I have rarely been talked down to as much as Becky Chambers loves to do. Just as an exercise I’d like her to try and write children’s books, just to test how fast kids would zone out of her mile long explanations of the simplest concepts that anyone with an ounce of imagination can do on their own!
Less is more! Show, don’t tell!
Uughhh no. I just cannot.
Rating: really liked it
Guys, if you haven't read any of Becky Chambers' uplifting solar punk (see her Hugo-award wining
Wayfarers trilogy), then
To Be Taught, If Fortunate is the perfect place to start. Stuffed into less than 200 pages, it is a compelling, intelligent, and deeply humanistic science-fiction yarn that is representative of what Chambers does best.
The story is told as a letter being sent back to Earth from Adriane, pilot of a OCA spaceship meant to categorize and study exoplanets. These four pilots travel the stars, alter their physiology, and do massive scientific investigations of local flora and fauna. The story's structure is roughly chopped into four planets that the team explores throughout their journey, with decades spent in suspended animation in the interim.
Chambers has a real knack for pulling the hope out of hopeless-seeming situations. The crew of
Merian modify their bodies to be able to absorb the harsh radiation of the stars, manage 2G gravity, and prevent the blood in their veins from freezing. This human ability to adapt and evolve is a constant in Chambers' work, but is most prominent here. Even though the wacky science transformations are cool, it is just as satisfying to travel with Adriane, Elena, Chikondi, and Jack through their personal hardships. Their unbridled excitement for scientific discovery is heartening and captures both the mundane reality of benchwork with the exhilaration of uncovering something heretofore unknown.
Overall, this is a super solid sci-fi. It is interesting, well constructed, and has that uniquely positive spin that makes Chambers' work so satisfying. This tends more toward hard sci-fi than
Wayfarers' more fantastical alien civilization, but also touches on real-world struggles of today (climate change is a frequent talking point). Again, if you haven't given Chambers' solarpunk a try,
To Be Taught, If Fortunate provides the perfect entry point.
