The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet: Wayfarers 1

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Gender-Equal Ensemble: As close to it as an odd-numbered crew can get; the Wayfarer crew has five male members (Ashby, Jenks, Dr. Chef, Ohan, and Corbin) and, once Rosemary joins, four female members (Rosemary herself, Kizzy, Sissix, and Lovey). The male and female supporting characters are about equal in number as well. This is averted, though, by the end of the book; the original Lovey dies and her Lovelace reboot leaves the ship and is replaced with a male AI named Tycho, leaving the count at six men and three women. Perfect Pacifist People: Downplayed. The fleet isn't free of violence or crime, but Exodan culture relies heavily on discouraging violence in any form, a relic of their days as wanderers when they just couldn't afford to fight. When Sawyer is found supposedly murdered by an Exodan, the whole fleet is badly shaken by it, and even then it isn't actually a murder but a salvage crew trying to cover up a fatal accident. Character Filibuster: Isabel gets one towards Kip near the end of the book, when she's explaining the importance of the Archives and the Fleet, and offering him an apprenticeship, but only if he goes off and learns more about others first to decide if it's what he truly wants. When Lovelace uploads herself into a synthetic body, Pepper tells her that she needs to choose a new name (of Earth origin, since the body is Human-based) because, since "Lovelace" is a computer AI program of which other models exist, it won't be too hard for someone to figure out that she's an AI illegally loaded into an android body. She chooses "Sidra" as her new name simply because she likes the sound of it. I Choose to Stay: In the denouement, Corbin has forcibly cured Ohan of the Whisperer, meaning that the latter is no longer a Pair. Ohan states that, according to the customs and beliefs of the Sianat, he should go to the Heretics' colony, where Solitaries (Sianats who refused or have been cured of the Whisperer) are expected to live out the rest of their days. However, that isn't what he wants, so he decides to remain on the Wayfarer to continue to be with his friends as their Navigator, to their happiness.

Team Mom: Dr. Chef, as The Medic and the cook for the crew, who is not afraid to be emotional and gives very good advice, especially to the crew's younger members. It makes sense when you remember that, due to how Grums work, he used to be female and was once an actual mother himself. Loophole Abuse: When Corbin is put under arrest by the Quelin for being a clone, Rosemary finds out that they can rescue him if they have someone stand in as his legal guardian while he goes through the application process for non-GC species. However, said guardian has to come from a species that doesn't ban cloning...meaning it'll have to be Sissix, who shares a mutual loathing with Corbin. The fact that she does this for him despite their hatred of each other is a major factor in spurring his Character Development.Using tunnels (wormholes) to travel interstellar distances is mentioned as an alternative to "FTL", which is possible but illegal due to the time travel implications. However, as far as physics is concerned any form of effective FTL is a form of time travel, even with the care taken by tunneling ships to ensure their wormholes connect two places in the same time period. Though Lovey is an AI rather than a different species, her relationship with Jenks, an Earth Human, counts. Genetic engineering and the eugenics that follow is a recurring subject with a variety of laws intersecting it across species, with the most universal laws being allowing prenatal gene therapy in the case of extreme disability and banning cloning. Corrupt Corporate Executive: Quentin Harris, Rosemary's father, who sold gene targeting weapons to both sides of a civil war, even though he was already fabulously rich through a legitimate business.

Pepper is a member of a large group of genetically-engineered children meant to serve as slave labor. Faster-Than-Light Travel: It exists in this universe, but has been banned due to the problems of temporal disruption vastly outweighing the gains. Wormholes and pinhole drive avoid it by taking an Extra-Dimensional Shortcut. We Will Spend Credits in the Future: Money is known as "creds" and exists digitally in a patch embedded underneath the wrist. Show Within a Show: Pepper is a huge fan of The Big Bug Crew, a long-running interactive children's show that she credits with helping foster the tolerance between various species that makes the current civilization possible. It helps that she grew up alone with an AI and watched the single episode of Big Bug available to her literally thousands of times.No Sense of Personal Space: The Aandrisks have this reputation, since their normal mode of showing personal affection in public would count as foreplay in many other cultures. The engine whined as it prepared for another sublayer jump. The drugs reached out, tugging her down into uneasy sleep. As she faded, she thought again of the job, the lies, the smug look on the official’s face as she’d poured credits into his account. She wondered if it had been enough. It had to be. It had to. She’d paid too much already for mistakes she’d had no part in. No sapient could sustain happiness all of the time, just as no one could live permanently within anger, or boredom, or grief.” When Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer, she isn't expecting much. The Wayfarer, a patched up ship that's seen better days, offers her everything she could possibly want: a small, quiet spot to call home for a while, adventure in far-off corners of the galaxy, and distance from her troubled past. The people we remember are the ones who decided how our maps should be drawn. Nobody remembers who built the roads.”

Corbin was indignant. ‘They don’t come cheap! She did it just to get at me, I know she did. If that selfish lizard can’t—’ Acting all sanctimonious while spouting bad info was a terrible way to win a debate, but a great way to piss people off.” Rules Lawyer: Rosemary Harper, the new girl on the crew. She's officially hired as the crew's bookkeeper and receptionist of sorts, but her linguistic abilities and skills with paperwork save the crew from hot water multiple times. No-Paper Future: When Ashby gets an actual letter from his love interest, some of the crew have to have the very idea of "paper" explained to them.Translation Convention: Pepper's chapters from when she's 10 years old indicate that she and her fellow factory girls speak Sko-Ensk, a dialect of Ensk that appears to be prominent in the slum parts of the Earth. When she first starts learning Klip from Owl, a few words of it are shown in how they'd actually sound instead of being directly "translated." Once Pepper becomes more fluent, though, her dialogue is written in English with the narration indicating which language she's using at any particular moment. I Will Find You: Pepper has been searching for Owl for a decade, and the last third of the book is dedicated to recovering her from a museum. Hey!’ Ashby sat up straight. ‘Not okay. I don’t want to hear that word come out of your mouth again.’ As far as racial insults went, lizard was hardly the worst, but it was bad enough. Small Town Boredom: Kip feels as though nothing happens on the Asteria. To relieve his boredom, he partakes in some teenage rebellious activity (sneaking into a tryst club, smoking redreed, etc.) in the hopes it'll spruce up his life. His character arc is about him learning that he might not actually want the kind of adventure he craves, and that home has its own advantages. Interspecies Friendship: Everyone on the Wayfarer (at least by the end) are friends, but there are a few standouts:

The Board is smoking smash.’ He stabbed his finger towards the scrib again. ‘She’s got no long-haul experience. She’s never lived off Mars, as far as I can tell. She’s fresh out of university—’ Artistic License – Physics: Though the series makes no claims of being 'hard' science fiction, a few examples stand out: The Smart Guy: Artis Corbin, the scientist of the crew, who, as an algaeist, produces the ship's fuel. Reversed when Sissix, an Aandrisk, is disgusted that a Solan human like Rosemary has eaten mammals. Corbin’s reply was predictable, even before he opened his mouth: ‘I didn’t have the time.’ Corbin had a habit of ignoring tasks that didn’t originate within his lab. ‘What the hell are you thinking, bringing aboard a kid like that?’Team Dad: The Captain Ashby Santoso, who is very much A Father to His Men and looks after the safety and well-being of his whole crew, which functions like a family. Until the crew are offered the job of a lifetime: the chance to build a hyperspace tunnel to a distant planet. They'll earn enough money to live comfortably for years... if they survive the long trip through war-torn space without endangering any of the fragile alliances that keep the galaxy peaceful.