Welcome to Friday Firsts – a weekly meme created by Tenacious Reader. First paragraphs. First impressions. A new favourite?
| Friday Firsts: July 17 |
To Be Taught, If Fortunate
A Novella
by Becky Chambers
Science Fiction | 136 Pages | Published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2018
| First Paragraphs |
If you read nothing else we’ve sent home, please at least read this. I ask knowing full well that this request is antithetical to what I believe in my heart of hearts. Our mission reports contain our science, and the science is by far the most important thing here. My crew and I are a secondary concern. Tertiary, even.
But all the same, we do have a lot riding on someone picking this up.
You don’t have to rush. The file will have taken fourteen years to reach Earth, and assuming that we have the good luck of someone reading it right away and replying straight after, it’d take that file another fourteen years. So, while we can’t wait around forever, the urgency – like so many things in space travel – is relative.
Amazon | The Book Depository | Goodreads
| First Impressions |
Hot off the heels of finishing the second novel in Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers series, A Closed and Common Orbit, I decided to embark on her stand-alone science fiction novella, To be Taught, If Fortunate.
Having read several disparate reviews for this novella, I have decided to read it with no expectations either way and let myself be carried along whether good, bad or ugly. Having said that, I have developed a somewhat unreserved love for Chambers’ writing and the opening paragraphs are so very intriguing and, as always, so beautifully written that I can’t help but feel like I will love this novella all the same!
What are you currently reading? What were your first impressions?
Books by Proxy 
I have that! I also have her first book in her series – I must hurry up and read them! Great post.
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I really hope you enjoy them! 😀 I cannot even fault her writing, it’s a hug in the form of a space opera!
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I thought the novels, especially the second, worked better for me. Check my review 😉
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Oh I did! I’m going to finish it and then see on which side I lie… I’m hoping I like it regardless 🤞
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I’m curious to see what you think when you finish. I think some readers struggle with the novella format, so that might be the reason some people aren’t loving this as much😁
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Perhaps that is the case! I am enjoying it so far so I guess I’ll just have to wait and see… I want to love it though!
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