Lucas Blogs About To Be Taught if Fortunate

As cool as the picture is, no such scene occurs in the book.

So, what's this book's dea—wait a minute! Is that a regular book?

What do you mean by that?

You know what I mean, a book that isn't a comic or The Canterbury Tales?

Oh. . . yeah. I still read some of those sometimes. Anyway, the deal with this particular book is that it's a novella by Becky Chambers and it's called To Be Taught if Fortunate. In spite of the person floating in space without a helmet, it's what you might call hard science fiction.

Oh was it difficult to get through?

What? Oh I see, you're pretending to not know about the distinction between "hard" and "soft" science fiction so that I can explain it.

Does pointing out the purpose of a rhetorical device render the whole thing moot?

Maybe. But generally the dividing line between hard and soft science fiction is whether the story generally comports with the current scientific understanding of what is possible. Also, how have we not talked about this yet?

‾\_(ツ)_/‾.

Fair enough. Anyway, it's not really a hard line, but usually hard science fiction is more about the ways that (theoretically possible) technological changes affect society and soft science fiction is more interested in using hypothetical technology (no matter how impossible) to discuss some sort of sociological or philosophical concern.

Those sound kind of the same.

A little, I guess it's more a question of whether you want to explore the social change that a scientific breakthrough would engender or whether you want to explore a social issue and invent a theoretical technology to facilitate that discussion.

So about To Be Taught if Fortunate.

Yeah, about that. So the book follows a manned scientific survey of four extra-solar planets. It's framed as a transmission to Earth by flight engineer Ariadne O'Neill. She writes about the scientific work carried out by herself and the other mission specialists: Jack Vo, Elena Quesada-Cruz, and Chikondi Daka. It covers the gene-editing that allows their bodies to survive on the planets very different from earth, the things they learn (including a breakthrough discovery about chirality on one of the exoplanets), and the psychological impact of spending years in alien environments isolated from the planet they left behind. Speaking of, while engrossed in their work, they neglect the scheduled transmissions they receive from the NGO that sponsored their expedition, only to find that the transmissions had ceased years ago. Which raises the question: do they have a planet to return to? Should they go home? Should they instead use their remaining fuel to perform a survey of the next system over?

Do you think maybe that had a couple of SPOILERS?

Possibly, but in science fiction the questions raised by a story are often more the point than the plot.

So is the book any good or did it just make you think?

Oh, it's good. It's got sort of a Frankenstein vibe, at least in its use of a framing device. Ariadne isn't sending back a dry mission log, but presenting a case for why she believes space exploration to be worthwhile. This alerts the reader that some sort of unforeseen complication is lurking on the horizon, providing a nice hook early on. It also means that she can make her case on an emotional as well as an intellectual ground. In addition to detailing the mission's work, she's able to freely discuss the joy of discovery, as well as the impacts of the traumas suffered during the journey. Like the time when they're packing up to leave a planet and discover one of the local fauna has stowed away and they have to kill it and decontaminate the whole ship, or the several months they spend trapped inside the ship on a rock in a storm while unpleasant shrieking creatures cling to the hull.

Sounds kinda like The Martian.

Kinda, but not really. I mean, sure both deal with the fallout of a manned space expedition that loses contact with earth. But The Martian leans pretty heavily on humor and a survival story, while To Be Taught if Fortunate is more thoughtful. It's less about the danger of space travel and more about the effects, both positive and negative, that a years-long space expedition might have on four people. And, of course, asking the reader to think about why they do or do not see value in manned space exploration in the first place.

Like why should we be rocketing people into space and exploring other planets when that money and energy might be better expended on solving the problems we have on Earth?

Exactly. Is the pursuit of knowledge a means to an end or an end in itself? Without giving too much away, this is the question the reader is left with at the end of the book. Given that some catastrophe appears to have occurred on Earth, what is the point of their mission? Do they still have any obligation to report back to the space agency? Do they still have any obligation to the people back on Earth, given that — due to the effects of traveling at relativistic speeds — everyone they know is gone and they've only aged by a decade or so.

But are those new questions? I mean, just now you made it sound like that play Joey was in on Friends.

Maybe not, but you know, not everyone's read The Forever War, for example, and just about any book could be someone's first exposure to these kinds of ideas. Becky Chambers happens to have executed the concept well. The storytelling and characterization is lean and effective, which helps the emotional beats land; and the central questions of the story leave the reader with plenty to mull over. Also, it's really short, you could probably knock it out in a day or two and not consider your time ill-used. Unless you've spent so much time in quarantine or lockdown in the past year that the idea of reading about four people confined in close quarters distasteful.

So a recommendation?

Yeah, if that sounds like your bag.

Who even uses that expression any more. This better not be a set up for a dated Austin Powers reference.

Well, now it's not.

To Be Taught if Fortunate by Becky Chambers, Harper Voyager trade paperback edition, 2019, 142 pages, pairs well with ignoring potentially bad news and being unable to leave your house

Links:

Here's the author's website, if you're into that kinda thing.