Title: A Closed and Common Orbit

Author: Becky Chambers

Completed: October 2025 (Full list of books)

Overview: After finishing The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, the first in the Wayfarers series, I assumed the second book would continue to follow the crew we met already. This was a different direction but very enjoyable. I enjoyed reading this on my phone in the brief moments between other activities.

The discussion about how to treat AI was interesting to think about but also clearly demonstrates just how far we are from achieving real artificial intelligence. Despite what promoters claim, there was no way to mistake ChatGPT for any of the AIs in this book except the frustrating “non-sentient” versions that barely helped the characters buy train tickets.

Looking forward to finding out which characters show up in the next book in the series during the interstitial moments that I no longer use to check social media.

Highlights:

• Names are important, and if you pick your own, it should be something with meaning to you. That’s how modders go about it, anyway. Chosen names are kind of a big deal for us
• ‘I’m so sorry to put you through all this trouble.’
  ‘Oh, no, this isn’t trouble. It’s gonna be work, yeah, but it’s not trouble.’
• personal power generators, empty fuel drums, receivers and transmitters of all kinds. But likewise, there were lovingly tended strips of plantlife basking under sunlamps, and glowing fountains that glittered in the dark. There were sculptures made of scrap, smooth benches utilised by chatting friends and amorous couples, soft lighting fixtures that looked like the pet projects of individuals with disparate senses of style. There was nothing bureaucratic or single-minded about the public decor. This was a place built by many.
• My pricing is . . . variable. Whatever it says on the package, or whatever I promised. Between you and me, I really don’t care how much things cost. As long as I have food in my belly and can buy dumb stuff to decorate my house with, it doesn’t matter whether people are paying me the same amount every time.
• Your mind comes from your body. It’s born out of it. And yet, it’s a wholly independent thing. Even though the two are linked, there’s a disconnect. Your body does stuff without asking your mind about it, and your mind wants stuff that your body can’t always do. You know what I mean?’
  ‘Yes.’ Stars, did she ever.
  ‘So, tattooing . . . you’ve got a picture in your mind, then you put it on your body. You make a hazy imagining into a tangible part of you. Or, to flip it around, you want a reminder of something, so you put it on your body, where it’s a real, touchable thing. You see the thing on your body, you remember it in your mind, then you touch it on your body, you remember why you got it, what you were feeling then, and so on, and so on. It’s a re-enforcing circle. You’re reminded that all these separate pieces are part of the whole that comprises you.’ The Aeluon laughed at herself. ‘Or is that too fluffy?’
• So much scrap. Scrap everywhere. Piles and piles and piles, on and on. How could anyone use this much stuff? And why would they get rid of it, if most of it just needed some fixing to be good?
• The land on their side was where all the scrap went, and where all the factories were (there was more than just the one!). The land on the other side had cities. The cities were where the scrap came from. The people in the cities didn’t like scrap or think about it much, but they liked stuff, and since they didn’t talk to other Humans or species, they couldn’t get new stuff, or materials to make new stuff (they’d already used up everything they dug out of the ground, Owl said). If they wanted new stuff, they had to make it out of old stuff.
• I love learning. I love history. But there’s history in everything. Every building, everybody you talk to. It’s not limited to libraries and museums. I think people who spend their lives in school forget that sometimes.
• We live in a society, Sidra. Societies have rules.’
  ‘You break rules all the time.’
  ‘I break laws. That’s different. Social rules have their place. It’s how we all get along. It’s how we trust each other and work together’
• How did Blue stay so patient? Sidra had wondered this often. Perhaps it was something in his genes, something his makers had written into his organic code. (Was it less admirable, then, if it was something inbuilt, rather than cultivated by conscious thought and effort?