To Be Taught, If Fortunate

by Becky Chambers

Overview

A Hugo and Locus Award Nominee!

“Extraordinary . . . A future sci-fi masterwork in a new and welcome tradition.” — Joanne Harris, author if Chocolat

A stand-alone science fiction novella from the award-winning, bestselling, critically-acclaimed author of the Wayfarers series.

At the turn of the twenty-second century, scientists make a breakthrough in human spaceflight. Through a revolutionary method known as somaforming, astronauts can survive in hostile environments off Earth using synthetic biological supplementations. They can produce antifreeze in subzero temperatures, absorb radiation and convert it for food, and conveniently adjust to the pull of different gravitational forces. With the fragility of the body no longer a limiting factor, human beings are at last able to journey to neighboring exoplanets long known to harbor life.

A team of these explorers, Ariadne O’Neill and her three crewmates, are hard at work in a planetary system fifteen light-years from Sol, on a mission to ecologically survey four habitable worlds. But as Ariadne shifts through both form and time, the culture back on Earth has also been transformed. Faced with the possibility of returning to a planet that has forgotten those who have left, Ariadne begins to chronicle the story of the wonders and dangers of her mission, in the hope that someone back home might still be listening.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062936011
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	09/03/2019
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	21,640
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Becky Chambers is a science fiction author based in Northern California. She is best known for her Hugo Award-winning Wayfarers series, which currently includes The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, A Closed and Common Orbit, and Record of a Spaceborn Few. Her books have also been nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Locus Award, and the Women's Prize for Fiction, among others. Her most recent work is To Be Taught, If Fortunate, a standalone novella.

Becky has a background in performing arts, and grew up in a family heavily involved in space science. She spends her free time playing video and tabletop games, keeping bees, and looking through her telescope. Having hopped around the world a bit, she’s now back in her home state, where she lives with her wife. She hopes to see Earth from orbit one day.

 

Editorial Reviews

★ 06/17/2019

With technical prowess and outstanding visceral imagery, Chambers (the Wayfarer Series) packs an immense amount of story into a novella worthy of full-length praise. Humans have begun to perfect the process of space exploration at the turn of the 22nd century with the use of somaforming, a technology allowing astronauts to survive under any conditions in the galaxy. With human fragility no longer a concern, astronaut Ariadne O’Neill and her explorer companions are sent to four distant planets. As the voyagers traverse time and change physical forms, the Earth undergoes its own transformation, and Ariadne and her colleagues are forced to confront the possibility of returning to a planet that has forgotten them. As Ariadne chronicles her missions, her stories raise questions about the ethics of research and beg the reader to empathize with being alone. Using precise language to paint awe-inspiring pictures of the unknown, Chambers offers a troubling, beckoning glimpse into the future of humankind. Agent: Seth Fishman, Gernert Company. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Extraordinary . . . A future sci-fi masterwork in a new and welcome tradition.

Joanne Harris

Rendered with startling clarity, Chambers’ latest offering is a short but fierce ode to humanity and all our reaches and flaws. Unputdownable.

Natasha Ngan

An exquisite expression of our moment in time. Here’s why we need to keep going boldly into space - not to exploit, but to learn. Impressive and essential.”  

Stephen Baxter

Epic in the scale of discoveries but with a miniaturist’s eye for detail, and as revealing of the observers as the observed. In a word, brilliant.

Andrew Caldecott

"To Be Taught, If Fortunate is a tight, frequently funny, character-driven novella."

Locus

Becky Chambers takes space opera in a whole new and unexpected direction, her books bring me so much joy.

Ben Aaronovitch

Some of the most forward-thinking, inspiring science fiction out there . . . a joyful antidote to crushed spirits and a celebration of the power of curiosity, love, adventure and discovery.”

Claire North

Becky Chambers is a master of delivering sadness and devastation right alongside a true and genuine love for humanity, and that is something that illuminates everything she’s written.

Black Forest Basilisks

2019-07-17
In this novella set in the not-too-distant future, four astronauts look for life in a galaxy that's light-years from Earth.

Through somaforming, the four can alter their own biology to fit each new world so as not to alter or interfere with the world itself—a key tenet of their voyage. Their blood can produce antifreeze, their bodies absorb radiation and convert it to nutrition, and their bones can stand up to increases in gravity. The story of their visits to four unique worlds, some filled with the wonder of alien life and others filled with the horror of it, is told by engineer Ariadne O'Neill, who wrestles with the changes to her body and to her knowledge of the universe. When she and her crewmates—Elena Queseda-Cruz, Jack Vo, and Chikondi Daka—lose contact with Earth, they must ultimately decide whether to return home to an uncertain fate or honor their mission and continue to explore new worlds, even if nobody back home is listening…or alive. Chambers (Record of a Spaceborn Few, 2018, etc.) writes with the curiosity of a scientist laced with the wonder of a child in this compelling exploration of home, family, and what makes us human in the midst of all that isn't, but could be.

An extraordinary picture of humanity among the stars.

Kirkus Reviews

08/01/2019

Ariadne O'Neill is a flight engineer aboard the spacecraft Meridian, part of the Lawki program, exploring four planets that are light years outside the sun's orbit. Using a long-period suspension system called topor, and a body-enhancing process called somaforming, the crew will be able make an 80-year journey and return to Earth while only aging a few years. As the group begins their exploration of the planets, alien life and fauna are discovered, documented, and sometimes destroyed. But as time-delayed reports come from Earth, the changes that Ari and the team can only bear witness to soon trigger psychological repercussions, leaving them to wonder if they will have a home, however changed, to go back to, and if anyone will remember them. VERDICT Grasping current and potential future trends and winding them into her accessible hard science plot, Hugo Award winner Chambers creates an energy of hope and determination with every word, bringing life to space travel and the wonders—and traumas—of Earth's possible future. [See Prepub Alert, 3/17/19.]—Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., Northampton

Library Journal

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