Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: What Sci-fi/Fantasy Book You’d Like to Visit

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A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers I try really hard not to repeat answers for the two blogs hops I participate in here, but this week’s prompt was such a no-brainer for me and most of the speculative fiction I read is about such dangerous worlds that I’m going to need to be a little repetitive today.

There are two books in Becky Chambers’ series so far: “A Psalm for the Wild-Built” and “A Prayer for the Crown-Shy.”

I would love to live in Panga, the peaceful island where Sibling Dex lived a quiet, happy existence and developed a friendship with one of the descendants of the robots that had abandoned humanity generations ago.

What I love most about this series is how it learned to include conflict without putting anyone into terrible danger. Sibling Dex’s conflicts are more about personal development and trying to foster diplomatic ties between humanity and robots instead of anyone being at risk of physical harm. It was a much calmer reading experience than a lot of novels are, science fiction or otherwise!

No matter who you are, you would find safety and community in Panga. You don’t have to be cunning, intelligent, lucky, or wealthy to thrive there. Their entire economy is based on living in harmony with nature and your fellow humans.

It’s a simple life that includes manual labor for everyone who is capable of such things. If you can’t do physical labour, many other types of work are equally valued, and everyone has all of their basic needs met no matter who they are or how much they’re able to contribute.

There’s something appealing to me about that sort of social contract, especially since characters can change jobs so easily if a previous assignment no longer suits them for any reason. I love that freedom and flexibility for everyone in a society to find the best way for them to contribute without anyone going in debt for education or being discriminated against due to harmful stereotypes about what someone who performs role X should look like. If you have the interest in and aptitude for X, you can do it in Panga without anyone caring one whit about your sex, gender, race, age, disability status, etc.

Not only are all basic human needs automatically met in this world, many of the higher-order needs like seeking a purpose in life or finding self actualization are surprisingly easy to pursue as well. (it doesn’t mean anyone will necessarily succeed at them, of course, only that it’s much easier to worry about those things when you already have the first few levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs sorted out).

I think I could be pretty happy in this world, and I would be thrilled to visit it.

14 Comments

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14 Responses to Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: What Sci-fi/Fantasy Book You’d Like to Visit

  1. These sound great… will have to add them to my TBR list. Thanks for the recommendation.

  2. I already had A Psalm for the Wild-Built on my TBR, but I’m adding A Prayer for the Crown-Shy to it also!

  3. This is a great pick! I love everything about these books, and I would love to be able to see that world for myself.

  4. I cross over between WWBC and TTT a lot and I think it is because once I like a book it just sticks and both reference topics about books.

    You make each of your places sound very peaceful and inviting, could understand why you would want to go there.

  5. Ann

    I need more action and adventure in worlds I visit. This book sound like a utopia.

  6. I agree, that sounds like a lovely place to visit or live.

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