trigger warning
<spoiler> mention of war themes, mention of gun violence, mention of genocide, grief </spoiler>

When Gora's satelites crash, all air travel is suspended and messaging channels are down, and strangers who only meant to see each other in passing have to spend days together with their host.

It feels a bit like the perfect 2020 novel: Strangers are stuck inside but for another reason. No pandemic in this one. And said strangers all belong to different sapient species, they have known of the existence of the others but not neccessarily ever met somebody from that culture.

The way space travel works in this novel series is that you have wormholes that will let you cover a vast amount of space in a fraction of the time it would usually do, but only one ship at a time can enter this wormhole for safety reasons. So you have to apply for a spot, and will get a sheduled time for your jump. This means that at the entry points, you may have a layover, and hosts have a nice place for you to maybe take a bath, eat some food, touch grass while waiting. One of these places is the setting of our story, and interestingly, this time, no humans in sight. We meet Pei, Ashby's partner, but this novel could be read as a standalone, as it is the case for all four Wayfarer novels. Same universe, you may see a character you already know of, but this is their story whereas before, they were side characters.

Loved this. Am sure I will come back time and time again to re-read all four of these and am excited to see the author's future projects when it is time.

The arc was provided by the publisher.

One thing that I particularly enjoy about Becky Chambers' books is that, while bad things happen, you never have to worry about the whole book descending into tragedy. This book was no different. Instead of escalating a small issue into a major disaster, it was all about different people working together to cope with what was happening. Reading this post lockdowns I feel that it is even more poignant that it may have originally been planned to be. The plot is different to her other books in the series but the morals and feelings are the same. Thoroughly recommend.

This is the last book in Chambers’ Wayfarers series, and if I’m being honest, it’s an absolutely fantastic book to end the series with. Set almost entirely on the airless surface of planet Gora, the story takes place during a minor catastrophe that leaves the disparate crews of a handful of spaceships stranded at a small interstellar truck stop run by an alien mother and her only child.

Unlike the previous books in the series, all the major characters in this book are non-human, and a wonderfully diverse bunch they are too. Stuck on the planet with nothing to do but wait, each of the five characters is forced to examine their past to come to terms with where they are and the path that stretches out ahead of them.

This is Becky Chambers at her best, and while I’m a little sad at the thought of not getting any more from this setting, I know I can always go back and revisit the series whenever I need a genuine comfort read.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thanks very much to the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this title. Many thanks, Dave

“And sometimes fear is good. Fear keeps you alive. But it can also keep you from what you really want.”

I’ve only read one other Becky Chambers book (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet) before, so this one was a bit different to the last. But I liked that there were references back to previous books and characters.
In this book, there are no species that are “familiar” to humans. Each is alien - and they are alien to each other - so I liked that it gave the reader plenty of chance to learn more about the galaxy. It was interesting to hear their customs and their politics and the food they could (or couldn’t!) eat, and it was hilarious to hear so many non-human species look at the stuff we like and find them weird (looking at you, cheese).
I liked the defining moment of this book and how it worked as a catalyst for the characters to talk. It allowed the story to be relaxed in some sense, so they had the time and space to have the conversations with each other.
Tupo was a great character. He encouraged the rest to come out their shells and he was just a joy to be around. With his childlike no-filter and happiness to just be, he inspired the others to be the same.
The book was almost introspective. I enjoyed Pei being able to reflect on her relationship with Ashby as he and his crew are a part of the universe I know about. It kind of made her reflect on her species too, which was interesting.
I look forward to visiting the rest of the series.

Another great installment in the Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers. This one might be up there with the first book as favorites of the series!

How does Chamber's manage to write something so beautiful and so so so good every single time? This is now of my favourites from her, and a part of that is because there is no humans involved. I found that so fresh and different, and the fact that Chambers manages to uses the exclusion to make jokes about the weirdness of humanity is perfection. Each of the alien races is so well developed and complex that I know in this novel we are only scratching the surface of what Chamber's developed about them. However this isn't a bad thing, it means that she doesn't overload us with information that is unnecessary to the plot but you can feel the world building immersed between the lines. This truly is an exploration of different and communication, almost a lesson on how you shouldn't judge a person because of where they come from and what they look like. I loved that she took races of aliens that are 'baddies' in other books and showed us a different side to them. I wish I could see what they look like from within her head because they are so well described but I bet no artist has yet come close.
I love love loved this book and even though there isn't much plot it still felt engaging, well devloped and higly addictive. Everyone should read Becky Chambers, even if you're not a Sci-Fi fan because it is so much more!

And here we have reached, the end. The end of the story of those across the Wayfarer books. If you’re one of the (smarter) people who doesn’t follow me on social media, you might not know that the only reading goal I had so far this year was to reread and finish this series in January. Quick bacground, I read The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet almost half a decade ago and while I grasp a lot of detail when I finish books, this was a bit further back (and I reviewed them all here since as well.) So we end, quietly and softly, like the series began.

.This is a feeling of finishing a series that I haven’t felt before. There was this calming sweep of feelings came over me as I read the last pages of this book. And a feeling of peace mostly. For these characters and their story. We start off the story with Ouloo as she prepares for her incoming travellers for the day and tries to wrestle her very teenaged child, Tupo, into some form of sociable. I loved the set up here, Ouloo is such a mother character. She’s even described as such later by another character, Pei, and it’s really the best summary I can use for her character. Her caring attention to detail to accomodate the various species she shes at the Five-Hop, along with her stern side with Tupo when they are being unruly was very comforting.

Of course this being a Becky Chambers novel, we have far more than just Ouloo and Tupo. The one familiar character is of course Pei, who appears in The Long Way to a Small Angry planet. She is an Aeulon and captain of a cargo runner ship. There’s also Roveg, a game (or ‘sim’) designer exiled by his people the Quelin and then there is Speaker, a Laru. Her and her sister, Tracker, being the closest thing to a descriminated species this series gets. So none of these are human, the types of alien I will leave you to discover yourself but as this bunch get’s stuck on Gora, the conversations and scenarios that play out are excellent.

There isn’t much plot here other than that, and the worldbuilding is lesser than it has been in the previous too. Where in the previous books Chambers took the reader to a planet, the fleet or to a different time in the GC history, she is now taking us to the very heart of these 5 different people. And she really turns a mirror on them. What I loved about each interaction was it felt real but also not so cynical about the people it presented. Scifi has a habit of being overly cynical at times but I think we all know at this point to learn to know and grow, we have to accept our ugly bits too.

Some of the best character work was, for me anyway, between Pei and Speaker. As a species, they clash. By nature of their vocations, they clash. Pei brings supplies to a hostile border to help people ousted by war. Speaker literally speaks for all her people, her role is to communicate. I liked the contrast of both being dedicated to their professions but being similarly wearied by it. Pei’s does tend to come from her relationship with Ashby but Speaker, just by being her race, is strongly expected to mind her words. To essentially as she puts it, make it easier for others;

‘I can’t always speak my mind, not if I want to get the things I need or go places I need to go. Everything I do, every word I say, is calculated to make people comfortable. To make them respect me. None of it is a lie, but it is an act, and it’s one that gets very, very tiring.’

The main discussion around this entire story is at the heart, prejudice and overcoming the barriers imposed on us by history. I’ve found each book to cover a theme at heart and this seems to sum up The Galaxy and the Ground Within. As I mentioned in a few places, this is the first series I have encountered that ended how it does. Not with sorrow, though I will miss all these lovely darlings, but with hope, kindness and a whisper.

Thank you to Netgalley and Hodderscape for the digital copy of this for review. And thank you all for checking in, happy reading!

I’ve held off reading this book, even though I’ve had it since the release date, purely because I just really didn’t want the series to end. I love The Wayfarers series, and this last instalment is no different in that respect.

The Galaxy and the Ground Within is another look into the lives of a diverse group of people. Apart from a technological failure that strands the Five-Hops guests, nothing much actually happens in this novel (ok, something does happen about 3/4 of the way through, but I’m not saying what it is!), but what I really love about these books are the characters and how they’re explored and developed. The fact that they’re aliens is by-the-by. They have their own hopes and fears, cultural expectations and taboos.

Oh how i adore these books - it’s everything that I love in literature, be it science fiction, literary fiction or ANYTHING!

If you haven’t read The Wayfarers series (lucky you!), I’d say that you need to. And if you have and like me, you’ve been putting off reading the final book, it won’t disappoint you.

I kind of don’t want to write a review for this because (as much as it breaks my heart to admit it) this was my least favourite book in the Wayfarers series.

It sucks even more because this is the final book of the series! A series I have adored! But I just can’t help but think it was missing something? I cried at the end, as per usual, but my investment in the characters took a long time to develop, and the story didn’t feel as meaningful as the other three. I can’t put my finger on exactly what I didn’t like as much, but it’s there, somewhere.

I’ve written in previous reviews of this series that I often walk away feeling an immense sense of satisfaction at a story well-told. Unfortunately, that feeling was absent this time. It was still a good book and I enjoyed it, but it just didn’t strike the same chord as the others. Definitely worth a read if you’re a fan of the series, but just be aware that you might not enjoy it as much.

Another warm hug in the form of a book, just what I needed. And while in an ideal world this series would never end, it was a satisfying book both on its own and as a conclusion to the Wayfarers books.

Becky Chamber's story is so good. I've read the 3 books under this saga and I absolutely like the humor and the premise of every story. I still enjoy though the first crew at the Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.

Looking forward to more Chamber's stories!

Is this a new sub genre or just new to me? Becky writes about emotions more than about space, science or any other sci-fi staple.

Tbh, her books are not for me as they spend a lot of time on relationships and feelings. I need space opera or hard sci-fi to keep me interested; for things to happen. This book has two significant events and then it's like a soap opera. A very good soap, but.....

Thank you netgalley and publishers for letting me review

The planet Gora is a waypoint for travellers around the galaxy, but Pei, Roveg and Speaker find themselves unexpectedly stranded at Ouloo’s Five-Hop One-Stop. Each one alien to the other, the strangers quickly learn that they are not alone in the galaxy.

I absolutely adore Becky Chamber’s writing. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is one of my firm favourite novels and it was no surprise that I also loved The Galaxy, and the Ground Within. Chambers has this knack of writing characters in such a deeply moving and compelling way. Her novels are less about action and fast paced plot points, and more about character growth and development. The interaction between the alien species teaches important messages about tolerance and understanding, completely relevant and applicable in the real world.

The cast of characters are diverse and interesting. Pei is an Aeluon whose story links back to the first story of the series and I loved learning about the colour changes and the communication methods. Speaker is an Akarak and it was fascinating to read about her relationship with her sister Tracker and the way that family can be portrayed in so many different ways in these different species. I also enjoyed Roveg, a Quelin, and the element of secrecy surrounding his story. Perhaps my favourite familial dynamic was Ouloo and Tupo and the complete sense of openness and care from that mother and child relationship.

Every novel in The Wayfarers series has made my heart feel warm, as well as bringing some absolute heart ache and this book was no exception. I’m sad that this fabulous series is coming to an end, because I feel I could have read these beautifully character driven novels forever.

A firm 5 out of 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for providing an e-book review copy.

Becky Chambers continues to amaze me with her stories. Beautiful, heartwarming science fiction, that I couldn't put down. I am sad that this is the last of the Wayfarer's series, but I'm sure there will be more amazing stories by the author.

This series of books (The Wayfarers) is definitely on my list of all-time favourites - thoughtful science fiction, more concerned with the people involved than with technology or space battles and full of ideas about tolerance and diversity without ramming their 'wokeness' down your throat. We have followed various characters through the universe which Chambers has created and seen them on spaceships, on vast artificial ship-based worlds and on small planets and it is on the latter that this book is set. Not much of a planet - Gora has no air or water, plants or creatures - but one very conveniently situated at a sort of intergalactic crossroads of the wormholes used to travel to the more habitable and cosmopolitan worlds. To avoid messy accidents travel through these wormholes has to be controlled so Gora has become a sort of motorway services where ships and their crews await their turn to move on. 

The book tells the story of one group of travellers, and their various spacecraft, who are stranded for an extended period during a freak technical crisis which knocks out most communications. The owner of the self-contained dome they are in and her adolescent child do everything they can to keep their guests happy and safe and the novel follows the backstories of the hosts, the three visitors, their interactions and, in the end, their potential futures. This is another of Chambers' character-led tales where, through the lives of various alien races, we can explore questions which affect us as humans.

A worthy conclusion to Chambers' wonderful series. Once again she introduces a new cast of characters peripherally related to those in her earlier books, bringing to life a variety of alien species with a deft descriptive hand and an absolute genius for creating fully-realised, distinct characters. That she can imbue the strangeness of her created creatures with such depth of feeling and utter believability is remarkable.

In this case there's something very 2020-21 about a story that places its characters in an unknown situation where they are cut off from the world (I should say galaxy) beyond their immediate surroundings. Gora, a desert planet, is just a pit-stop, not a destination and not a place that anyone wants to stay, but the choice is taken away when an accident grounds all ships and cuts off most communication. The transitory visitors must band together with their hosts to deal with the emergency and as they do Chambers' uses their differences, biases and histories to dig deep into our human issues of discrimination, exploitation, xenophobia.

As ever, it is enlightening, heart-warming and piercingly astute, just because this is "feel-good' sci-fi doesn't mean that its observations don't pack a punch. I have loved exploring the Wayfarer universe and I hope that Chambers will return to it, and take us with her.

Whenever anybody asks me to recommend some new Sci-Fi to them there are three names that instantly come to me. Eamon Ambrose, James S.A. Corey, and Becky Chambers. The first name I mention? Becky Chambers. While I will freely admit that I didn’t absolutely love the first book in the Wayfarers series the books that followed are some of my absolute favourites, so, if anything, I would say I was absolutely wrong about The Long Way to a Small and Angry Planet (I mean, I still thought it was good) and I should read it again. Becky’s Wayfarers series has gone from strength to strength and here, with The Galaxy, and the Ground Within we close the door on what has been an eye opening and thought provoking journey.

Note: While this is book 4 of a series, you don’t have to have read any of the other books, there isn’t really much connection to the other stories.

Let’s get the big part of the story out of the way first – The Galaxy and The Ground Within is a story set during a lockdown. Yes, a word I don’t think many of us want anything to do with. Fear not, the lockdown is not because of a global pandemic. It happens because of a catastrophic failure to the satellites which control all incoming and outcoming traffic from the planet Gora (I’m being a bit generous with the word planet. Gora is essentially a big rest area/truck stop). See? Much better….

So the planet is locked down and three travellers, each from different planets, end up stranded. With only each other, and the owner of the premises they are refueling at, for company they try to get along as much as possible.

Over the course of the novel we learn about each of the characters, where they are going, and why. Their reasons are varied, but all of them have burdens to carry, and the exposure of these burdens uncover an amazing tale. They share anecdotes, some of which are hilarious, some of which point to supposed faults with humanity – but all a reflection of things we have got wrong here at home. As with all good sci-fi the author is pointing to how we could change things for the better here, for EVERYONE, not just the select few.

I don’t really want to go too deep into the story here, for fear of ruining something. I’ll leave by saying that by the end of the book I felt like I had just received a really good hug. It was such a comforting read, especially during such harrowing times when everybody seems to be sniping at each other.

I absolutely loved it. Highly recommended.

Reviewed by my co-blogger, TS Chan, at Novel Notions

ARC received from the publisher, Hodder & Stoughton, in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars.

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within concludes Becky Chambers' wonderfully charming science fiction series with another heartwarming story that is so characteristic of all the Wayfarers books.

This final volume harkens back to the themes that I've read and loved in the very first book, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. In most science fiction stories, there's always some form of study of the human condition as humanity is flung into circumstances which at this point only exists in the imagination of what-ifs and possibilities of what's to come. What Chambers did in her series is to shift that into an even more exaggerated form by giving us multi-species interactions in a space-age era with galactic-level governments and politics. Just imagine, even though our world has begun to feel a lot smaller with globalisation and technological advances, it is at the same time still fragmented as differences in races, religions and cultures remain as barriers between people.

Apply this concept into the universe, across species and galaxies, and that's what you get with the Wayfarers series, which was felt most keenly in the first and last book of the series. However, humans are still physiologically the same despite the differences I've mentioned above. By extending this to multi-species, where some aliens don't even breath the same air or reproduce the same way, the barriers are magnified manifold. Somehow Chambers managed to make it work wonderfully in her stories, which are just narratives of these characters (with all their past history, cultural heritage, and even career choices) interacting with each other and learning how to tolerate, accept or even welcome the differences. Given these strong themes of acceptance, LBGTQIA representations are important in these books.

In The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, we have three different alien species stuck on the planet Gora after a freak accident took out all the satellites in orbit. The danger of the space debris resulted in them having to stay grounded at their rest stop, the Five Hop, One Stop, run by a mother and son (Ouloo and Tupo) who were also of another type of alien species. The entire story played out as they all got to know each other, sometimes much more than what could be deemed as comfortable. One of these characters, an Akarak called Speaker, is the one that fascinated me the most as her species was probably one of the most misunderstood amongst them all.

The character interactions are the best part of the book (and series) for me. Those who have read this series before would already know that these books do not centre its narrative around a plot. They are just stories about people and aliens. Stories that explore the condition of being alive, or what it means to have a place to call home or someone totally different to call a friend or even family. Warm and fuzzy feelings abound when I read this book, although it still wasn't as good as the first one for me. That one made me cry as my heart felt close to bursting.

The Wayfarers books are connected only in the barest sense of an arc and through its worldbuilding, and each could entirely stand on its own. Having said that, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is still the best entry point into this series as there are threads which flow into its immediate sequel and this final instalment. I find it most unusual to consider The Galaxy, and the Ground Within as a conclusion as there really isn't anything to conclude upon. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and felt satisfied with the ending. I also found it to be a good book to be read together with another title; the lack of any real plot or tension means that it doesn't have that unputdownable quality but it sure made me feel good whenever I was reading it. This is cosy science fiction at its best.

Series rating:
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet: 5/5 stars
A Closed and Common Orbit: 4.5/5 stars
Record of a Spaceborn Few: 3.5/5 stars
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within: 4.5/5 stars
Overall: 17.5/20 stars

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You can find this and my other reviews at Novel Notions.

This author always manages to make me cry as though I'm in therapy. These books are so cosy, edging on boring, but somehow - they're just bittersweet enough, there's just enough peril for the characters you've come to care for - I'm drawn in and the ending is a big weepy catharsis. I don't think this one is the best of the four; it might even be my least favourite, but it's the perfect wrap up for the Wayfarers series. I don't think there's anyone who's read these and doesn't hope to visit this setting again, but if she never does, I'm happy we got as much as we did.

Side note: that discussion about cheese was just perfect.