The Galaxy, and the Ground Within book review
Several years ago, my flight was canceled out of Iqaluit due to high winds at my destination. I couldn’t book another for two days—giving me two unexpected days to spend in a place I hadn’t expected to spend two hours. After I booked a hotel room, I set out to wander around.
That wasn’t the first time I’d been stuck somewhere for days—a blizzard once kept me in Inuvik (where I had a nice cozy hotel room), a broken airplane kept me at Skopje (sleeping on a cot in an un-heated hanger in December at the airport).
Each time I made the best of my circumstances and got to know the people I was with.
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers is about exactly that—being stuck part way on a journey and making the best of it. It’s a story about an atmosphere-less planet at a wormhole hub. While waiting their turn to go through the next wormhole on their journey, space travellers can visit habitats on the surface.
Three travellers visit one of these habitats just as a satellite catastrophe cuts the surface off from space. For several days the travellers must wait under the care of the habitat owner and her child. For each of them, there’s little to do but consider their past, where they are going and each other.
None of the characters are human, yet they all come off as relatable. Everyone is complex and torn in different directions. Even though conflict arises between them, they are also all decent at their cores. I enjoyed spending time with them while they dealt with their unexpected layover.
Like all of the Wayfarer books (A Closed and Common Orbit is still my favourite), the world building feels real down to the common everyday things each of the different aliens needs—like chairs that form when sat on, an armoured suit just to make the air breathable, tools for an alien without opposable thumbs, or what to bake that everyone can enjoy.
It’s not a big story, no empires are toppled, no galactic threats are evaded. It’s small story about ordinary people and I loved it.