Space, the final frontier.
This was a beautiful work of science fiction. I love to get a bit existential about space and our small teeny tiny planet in the midst of an infinite universe. It puts things in perspective. See photo of The Menagerie of Galaxies, I think about it often 🙃

Our narrator, Ariadne is writing a journal to everyone back on Earth, it will take fourteen years to reach their home planet. As part of the education mission Lawki 6, Ari and her crew are studying four different planets, spanning decades in space, and sending the knowledge back to Earth. After 50 years exploring exoplanets, communication from Earth simply stops.

Wonderful writing and very interesting characters, it didn’t seem like a novella at all! In our current reality, humans will never be able to travel the universe, the technology just simply doesn’t exist, it may not happen at all and that’s okay. The novella briefly mentions events on Earth, wars, famine and global climate change that affect us all, and unfortunately that’s a reality we are running towards 😔

I’m impressed by the research Becky Chambers put into this book, even though she says it’s all made up, I think the themes are very real. I highly recommend this quick read if you are a fan of science fiction!

Title: To Be Taught, If Fortunate
Author: Becky Chambers
Genre: Science Fiction, Novella
Rating: 5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️