Book Disc. and Book Exchange: As You Wake, Break the Shell, by Becky Chambers

About this event

Please Note: This event is two weeks earlier than it would otherwise be, to avoid conflicts with the Christmas holiday. The venue and all other properties are otherwise unchanged relative to our normal book discussion events. Additionally, we will be doing our annual book exchange at this meeting. If you would like to participate, please bring a science fiction, fantasy, or other speculative fiction book (new, used, or in any format), either wrapped or in a gift bag, and we will have a blind exchange among those who brought books. --------------------------------------------- Description from Goodreads.com: Life on the resource-poor planet of Fortune is challenging, but for its inhabitants, it’s home. For two of them, Signy and Cora, this home might no longer be enough.

Signy is a brilliant but reclusive botanist who bio-prints medicine from her small plant shop, often bending the rules to help those the system leaves behind. Her life is filled with the green of her store, the warmth of her one elderly friend, and the quiet determination to help others without putting herself in danger.

Cora is a rorqual pilot, one of the few with the unique ability to navigate the massive, living ships that connect the scattered settlements of their solar system. Her bond with her rorqual, Colibri, is profound—a connection that is both her greatest gift and a threat to her career.

It is that threat—the “mindbleed,” a dangerous side effect of her piloting—that brings her to Signy’s shop, and her appearance puts Signy in the danger she so fears. But it’s soon apparent it’s not just about losing her license—this delicate balance between risk and trust has the potential to change everything for them.

Told in an alternating timeline of their initial coming together and a not-so-distant future where they have found domestic bliss, this is a story harrowing and haunting, heartfelt and hopeful. Through a love story centered around survival, we are given a glimpse into the very best of what Becky Chambers does in her writing: explore what it means to be human, and what it means to come together.

From Kansas City Sci-Fi/Fantasy Book Club