To Be Taught, If Fortunate

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
Genre: SF
I read it as a(n): audiobook
Narrator: Brittany Pressley
Length: 4:30:00
Her Grace’s rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

This novella tells the story of 4 astronauts who volunteered for a decades-long mission to explore other worlds. Because of the distances, travel between planets would be done by the ship so the crew could be in suspension. They don’t explore in hopes of finding a planet to terraform. Instead, each time they wake up in orbit around a new planet, they have different bodies that are adapted to the planet’s environment. They send their research home to Earth, which changes drastically in between their sleep cycles, even though to the crew, they only left a few months ago.

So this was the first anything I ever read by Becky Chambers. I fucking loved it. One of my coworkers said that I needed to read Chambers’ debut novel, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. I have actually had it sitting on my shelf for a few years and have gotten around to it yet. To Be Taught…was a book club selection and I’m really glad it was. It will be the impetus I needed to finally read Chambers’ other books. 

I thought that altering the humans’ bodies to fit the planet rather than the other way around was a cool idea. I would think it would be so much easier to do that than to terraform a whole planet just for 4 people. 

The worldbuilding, history, and character development were all phenomenal, especially considering that this was such a short book. I listened to the audio version which was only 4.5 hours; the print version is 153 pages. The crew were all diverse and had a distinct voice within the story. I thought it was all very nicely done.

I also loved the title. It is a quote from NASA’s Golden Record, the recordings from Earth that were sent out with the Voyager 1 and 2 space probes. Specifically, it is from the then-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kurt Waldheim, who wrote, “We step out of our Solar System into the Universe, seeking only peace and friendship, to teach if we are called upon, to be taught if we are fortunate. We know full well that our planet and all its inhabitants are but a small part of this immense Universe that surrounds us, and it is with humility and hope that we take this step.” I can hardly even write the words down without tearing up. Look what we can do when we put aside petty irrelevancies like religion, skin color, sex, or geographic boundaries. Imagine what we could do if we eliminated all these superficial limitations and really became a true global society.