128 pages
The boy was raised as one of the Chained, condemned to toil in the bowels of a mining ship out among the stars. His whole world changes—literally—when he is yanked “upstairs” and informed he has been given an opportunity to be educated at the ship’s university alongside the elite.
Overwhelmed and alone, the boy forms a bond with the woman he comes to know as “the professor,” a weary idealist and descendent of the Chained who has spent her career striving for validation from her more senior colleagues, only to fall short at every turn.
Together, the boy and the woman will embark on a transformative journey to grasp the design of the chains that fetter them both—and are the key to breaking free.
Samatar’s novella is set in the far future on a fleet of ships that escaped a dying earth. It offers biting commentary on social hierarchy and academia. A well paced and moving read let down slightly as the science fictional elements give way to the fantastical near the end in a way I found awkward.
Wow.
In some ways this is radically different from the Olondria books, which are the other things I've read by Samatar so far: where those are an overwhelmingly rich feast with many interwoven strands, this is a short, very sparsely written story with a very tight focus. But Samatar is an exceptionally good writer, and part of what makes all of them work is simply that. And I see something of a continuity:
A Stranger in Olondria: one person's very self-centred account of some epochal changes in a place he doesn't entirely understand Winged Histories: 4 peoples' accounts of how their stories weave in and out of the events of A Stranger in Olondria. This book: all about connection, imposed or chosen.
...which is probably as much as I can say without spoilers. #SFFBookClub
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain is a deeply dark yet eventually hopeful look at the continuation of current societal structures into space.
