![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Sep. 16th, 2019 10:05 pmI just finished reading the third Becky Chambers book - Record of a Spaceborn Few.
I've heard people saying that they missed the plottiness of the first two, but I actually adored the gentle slice-of-life style of this. Probably I'm just feeling overwrought but I cried quite a few times.
In particular I had Feelings about the socioreligious structure of Archivists and Caretakers - the former providing ceremonies for the recording of births and marriages, the latter a combined undertaker and funeral-officiator. I wanted to understand more about how this evolution of the sacraments intersected with care and community, though - and other big things that People Get From Religion. I suppose the hexes are community units, and a lot of the care/charity work of religions become meaningless in a society where everyone is fed and housed? Perhaps the reason I had so many Feelings is that the whole of the Exodus fleet had the feeling of a monastic life - everything Purposeful, with a good balance of Freedom and Knowing One's Place (in the safe-certainty sense rather than the subservience sense).
And ultimately the whole thing was precisely the hopepunk that I needed this week. Particularly Eyas, whose questioning and ultimate development of her vocation felt very timely to me.
If anyone has recommendations for similarly hopepunk books, I still have a couple of weeks before uni kicks off...
I've heard people saying that they missed the plottiness of the first two, but I actually adored the gentle slice-of-life style of this. Probably I'm just feeling overwrought but I cried quite a few times.
In particular I had Feelings about the socioreligious structure of Archivists and Caretakers - the former providing ceremonies for the recording of births and marriages, the latter a combined undertaker and funeral-officiator. I wanted to understand more about how this evolution of the sacraments intersected with care and community, though - and other big things that People Get From Religion. I suppose the hexes are community units, and a lot of the care/charity work of religions become meaningless in a society where everyone is fed and housed? Perhaps the reason I had so many Feelings is that the whole of the Exodus fleet had the feeling of a monastic life - everything Purposeful, with a good balance of Freedom and Knowing One's Place (in the safe-certainty sense rather than the subservience sense).
And ultimately the whole thing was precisely the hopepunk that I needed this week. Particularly Eyas, whose questioning and ultimate development of her vocation felt very timely to me.
If anyone has recommendations for similarly hopepunk books, I still have a couple of weeks before uni kicks off...