The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, Book 1)

If Firefly and Red Dwarf had a baby and it was raised by The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the cast of Girls, and the baby was a novel, it would be The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet follows a cheerfully motley crew of humans and aliens as they drift around galaxies punching holes through space to create intergalactic wormhole tunnel things.

Kizzy, one of the techs, explains it much better than I just did and she uses props. Rosemary – the clerk and most recent (human) crew-member – is as new to it all as we are, having grown up sheltered by a wealthy family on Mars. She is welcomed aboard the Wayfarer by Captain Ashby (human); Pilot Sissix (an Anndrisk); Techs Kizzy and Jenks (both humans, one a little person); Chef and Doctor, Dr Chef (a Grum), Fuel specialist Corbin (human); Lovey (the AI and voice of the ship) and the navigator Ohan (a Sianat pair); most of whom are delighted by the new company.

Though it is set in huge expanses of black empty space in a galaxy full and busy with hundreds of different aliens and cultures to become accustomed to, The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet is a sweetly personal story. Though the destination and events of the conclusion were worthy of any season finale I’ve seen on TV, the journey itself was what mattered the most. It didn’t take me long at all to fall completely in love with each of the crew and by the end of the book I felt like I’d just finished a long road trip with the kind of housemates you’ve had for so long that your conversations are seventy-percent in-jokes and a hell of a lot of laughter.

Dani Solomon