48 pages • 1 hour read
Becky ChambersThe Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 8-9
Chapter 8 Summary: “Day 132-145, GC Standard 306: The Job”
Ashby and Sissix play chess in the Fishbowl and talk about Ashby’s family. The crew got drunk the previous night and is now waiting for the wormhole’s containment cage to finish self-assembling. Dr. Chef tends to his herb garden. After winning the chess game, Ashby leaves to check the news. Dr. Chef and Sissix discuss humans. Sissix is puzzled by the contradiction between Humanity’s violent past and the kindness of the humans she has personally known. Dr. Chef understand humans better, seeing aspects of his own species in them.
The pair worry about Ashby, who has a secret Aeluon lover, Pei. Her species is at war, and he checks the news hoping to discern where she might be. Sissix and Dr. Chef play tikkit, an Aandrisk game. After a while, Ashby returns to them and turns on the news for them. The Toremi Ka, a single clan of their species, has been admitted to the Galactic Commons. They are all bewildered by the decision. The Toremi are a mostly unknown race who violently repulse all attempts at contact. Ashby shows Sissix a new job contract that has just appeared. New tunnels will need to be punched from existing GC space to the Toremi Ka territories, and the crew of the Wayfarer stands to make a lot of money. Ashby has Sissix fetch Rosemary who is still hungover.
A letter from the Transport Board soon arrives, informing them that they have been awarded the contract. Because the Toremi Ka homeworld, Hedra Ka, is located in a “soft zone,” the Wayfarer cannot make a blind punch to the system. The ship will need to travel to the edge of GC space and rendezvous with a pinhole tug that will take them the rest of the way. The Board estimates that the trip will take nearly a standard year. The Board’s message arrives at night. Ashby and Sissix discuss the contract by text, and both are ecstatic. They both have concerns about the length and relative danger of the job. Sissix blares an announcement summoning the crew to the rec room.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Day 163, GC Standard 306: Port Coriol”
The crew of Wayfarer are shopping at Port Coriol, a sprawling and chaotic market full of technological oddities. As the crew breaks up to head to do their respective shopping, Ashby receives a message letting him know that his lover Pei is also there. Rosemary joins Kizzy and Sissix in their shopping, relying on their experience to help her navigate the port. They are interrupted by Gaiists, human fanatics who believe in only natural evolution and selection. The Gaiists fetishize Earth before it became unlivable and forced the race to migrate into the stars. Gaiists are also xenophobic, and their acolyte pointedly ignores Sissix while trying to convert Rosemary and Kizzy. Sissix flusters him until he goes away.
Rosemary learns from the other two that Jenks’ mother, Mala, was a Survivalist, a particularly extreme sect of Gaiists that reject all technology. When Jenks was born and was abnormally small, the other members wanted to kill him, so Mala left the group and found sanctuary in the Ring, an orbiting space station that houses the project to rehabilitate the planet. Rosemary also learns that Mala and Jenks both refused gene therapy for him. Jenks heads to the tech district and calls on his friend Pepper who tells him where to find the parts he needs. Jenks then asks Pepper about body kits, highly illegal technology that allows AIs to take physical forms. Pepper agrees to keep a lookout for one despite expressing her strong disapproval.
Ashby waits in a hotel room for Pei. It is strongly taboo for Aeluons to partner with members of other species, and they must take extraordinary precautions to hide their relationship. Elsewhere, Rosemary shows off her language skills in dealing with a Harmagian merchant in front of Kizzy and Sissix. They then set off to find scale scrub for Sissix. Sissix spots an old, lonely Aandrisk women with a booth and approaches her. Sissix and the older woman talk for a short while and then share physical affection. Sissix later explains that the Aandrisk woman has a disorder that makes it difficult to interact with others. Sissix wanted to comfort her. Rosemary is struck by Sissix’s generosity and finds herself admiring the Aandrisk. Ashby and Pei discuss ordering room service in their hotel room. Ashby asks about a large, new scar on Pei. Pei tells him that she was injured when a Rosk strike team attacked her delivery site. Ashby is a pacifist and has complicated feelings about Pei’s stories of bloodshed. Pei worries that Ashby will not be ready for the violent nature of the Toremi.
Chapters 8-9 Analysis
The main plot of the novel is now introduced: The Wayfarer will take nearly a year to travel to Hedra Ka and punch the wormhole connecting the GC to its newest member. Ashby wants to take bigger jobs so he can send more money to the family he helps support but does not make the decision unilaterally, only accepting the job after putting it to the full crew.
Problems of xenophobia and notions of “purity” are highlighted during the visit to Port Coriol. The Gaiist who tries to convert Kizzy and Rosemary tries to ignore Sissix because she is not human; however, the Gaiists’ ideal of human purity is impossible to realize without the contribution of other species to the reclamation project. Rosemary represents the typical Human approach to galactic society, i.e., as newcomers Humans need to adapt to already established social customs and political institutions. Species that have belonged to the GC for longer probably have a stronger sense of their own capability and distinctiveness. This may explain the strong taboo Aeluons have against coupling with other species, a sharp contrast to the novel’s general atmosphere of xenophilia.
Notions of purity are also at play in the backstory of Jenks, whose mother comes from what is essentially a cult with fanatical notions of biological purity and evolutionary fitness. Jenks’ mother rejects this ideology when it requires her to kill Jenks as an infant. After her escape to the reclamation project in orbit, though, she must contend with less obvious norms of purity. Doctors wish to “correct” Jenks’ short stature, but because there is nothing medically wrong with him, the treatment would only serve to make Jenks look “normal.” When a person who has a disability, either acquired or congenital, is pressured to change their appearance or behavior simply to make others around them feel less uncomfortable, that is a form of ableism and one that Jenks and his mother emphatically reject.
Sissix’s interaction with the Aandrisk in the market is also a commentary on how, even in highly socially integrated communities, the neurodivergent can still be excluded. The Aandrisk are known for their high sociability and, by the standards of other species, are quick to form emotional connections. This dynamic produces a society in which those with families have massive amounts of emotional support. If, however, an Aandrisk is incapable of socializing the way they are expected to, they are shunned. The novel encourages open-mindedness to other ways of living and being but does not ignore the problems that can exist under these other arrangements.
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By Becky Chambers
