Source: NetGalley – Thank you to the publisher!
TL;DR: Fantastic vignette style SF story about finding lost love in a post-apocalyptic world!
Plot: Told through short stories so the overall plot is cohesive but the micro plot is per story
Characters: Diverse and weird and wonderful, I really enjoyed how each of them represented a different view and personality
Setting: A well realized and beautifully drawn desolated Earth
Science Fiction: Pretty strong! Because of the strength of the setting, the SF on this felt light but believable
Thoughts:
I was so excited when I finished this book I completely forgot to write this review. That… almost never happens. I even hurried off and pre-ordered a beautiful special edition.
Frontier is a collection of short vignettes telling the story of a mostly unnamed narrator as she searches a scorched, post-apocalyptic Earth for her lost love. The two were on a mission of aid and peace to the planet and were shot down. We follow her through the eyes of the people she meets and interacts with along the way, and we see the best and worst of the planets inhabitants.
Our narrator and all the other characters all felt very genuine and unique to me so this read so well. The setting was easy to picture and imagine, the atmosphere was just cloudy enough to make it easy to fill in the details. This was just overall a well structured and thought out story. The truly wonderful part for me was the hopeful feel of this. Around the 70% there is a shift in the story and by the end I genuinely felt a hope and happiness there. It’s still a desolate earth and there were still terrible people on it but there was also hope, and that’s something rare for me in SF these days.
I would recommend this one for fans of Becky Chambers, and really any SF fans. It’s genuinely one of my favorite books I’ve read so far this year but I don’t want to say too much without spoiling it! I highly recommend this one, it is a fantastic hopeful SF that is going to go on my shelves.
5 out 5 Empty Laser Pistols
[Graphic: Religious bigotry
Moderate: Xenophobia and Violence
Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Ableism, Torture, Sexism, and Vomit]
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