About As You Wake Break the Shell
Explore a universe of stubborn survival and found family, of persistent danger and quiet wonder in the first installment of a heartfelt new duology from Hugo Award–winning author Becky Chambers.
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.
As You Wake, Break the Shell
Becky Chambers is a fantastic writer. Her newest book, As You Wake, Break the Shell, shows off her prose and story telling abilities.
As You Wake, Break the Shell is a more experimental book that I have seen from Chambers. It is a dual timeline love story that has a space creature as a spaceship (kind of). At first I was slightly confused by the “interstitials”, chapters that jump in time, but as I read on they made sense. It was interesting to see what kind of information was released in the interstitials vs the “past” chapters. I also genuinely appreciate the italics in the Cora/Colibri sections. I would have been a little lost without it.
If you like Becky Chambers, you’ll most likely enjoy this book as well, but if you are worried that you won’t enjoy it, just have your local library get a copy that you can check out.
You can find Becky Chambers on her website, OtherScribbles.com. You can preorder signed copies through Mysterious Galaxy and maybe Eureka Books. The Eureka Books link didn’t work for me, but it might not be up yet.
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