‘For anybody who could use a break’: A Q&A with sci-fi author Becky Chambers – Grist todayheadline

The vision

“One of the things I aim for is just to say, hey, it doesn’t have to be this way. I think that’s the key goal of science fiction in general, whether it’s a positive future, a negative future, somewhere in between. It doesn’t have to be like this.”

— Author Becky Chambers

The spotlight

What would the world look like if it were built on compassion — for ourselves, our fellow humans, and the other things we coexist with? That question drives the Monk & Robot series, a pair of gentle novellas by Becky Chambers, set on a moon called Panga in a future where sustainability and care are baked into the workings of society.

Last week, we had the opportunity to discuss this world with Chambers, who joined us for our book club discussion of A Psalm for the Wild-Built, the first book in the series.

In this book and its sequel, A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, we follow a monk named Dex, who has a chance encounter with a sentient robot, Mosscap. Over the course of the friendship that blossoms between monk and robot, both beings learn a great deal about their consciousness and the world they inhabit — learnings that we, the reader, get to observe, while wondering what it might be like to inhabit that world for ourselves.

At our book club event, Chambers spoke to the important role that fictional worlds like this one can play in making us question the givens in our own. She also was quick to point out that, much as we might wish to, we can’t simply launch ourselves into the future that we want — whether that looks like Panga, or something else. Building a sustainable, healthy, and kind world is not the work of even one lifetime. It will take generations dedicated to making it that much better for the ones who come after.

Still — it’s nice to know that worlds like Panga are there for us, whenever we need to escape for a while.

In our discussion, Chambers also emphasized the importance of rest, small comforts, and gathering up the glimmers and ideas of a better future that are already visible today. We’ve pulled out some highlights from the discussion below, edited and condensed for clarity. (Our full conversation covered a broader array of topics, from queer futurism to AI. If you’re hungry for more, check out the recording of our full Q&A with Chambers here.)

Q. The Monk & Robot series had been on my reading list for a very long time. When I finally cracked it open, the first thing that stood out to me was the dedication: “For anybody who could use a break.” I’d love to start there. Can you tell me a little bit about how themes of burnout and rest inform these two books, and what you hope they will offer readers?

A. Well, to start, I can tell you that I wrote the first one in 2020, if that tells you anything. But I did pitch it before that, actually. Even before things went further off the rails, I started noticing this habit that both myself and a lot of my friends were getting into. This was in the late 2010s — here in the States, things are getting quite tense. And we’re living in this golden age of media, there’s all this incredible television, all these great books out there. And what I noticed is that a lot of folks were defaulting to comfort food — sitcoms that were on TV when we were kids, straight-up kids’ shows in a lot of cases, even if you are not a parent or have kids around, The Great British Bake Off — just like, the most gentle lo-fi.

I started to have a bee in my bonnet about the fact that we were, as I said, turning to the things we took comfort in when we were younger — this sort of safe cocoon of nostalgia that we were wrapping ourselves in. There’s nothing wrong with adults watching kids’ shows. There’s absolutely a time and a place for that. But I’m an adult, and I would like things that are speaking to me as an adult.

So, my goal with these books was to create something that hit that same note, of: “You can just be comfy here for a while. You can just be safe. Nothing’s gonna jump at you, nothing’s gonna stress you out. But I am going to speak to you as a fellow adult. I’m going to talk to you about things that are relevant to you in your adult life.” I’ve likened it sometimes to having kale mixed into your mac and cheese. There’s some substance to it, there’s nutrients there. It’s something that can be comforting, but also isn’t going to talk down to you.

A screenshot from our Book Club event with Becky Chambers. Grist

Q. I want to talk a little bit about that sense of comfort and care that is infused throughout these two books. One thing that plays a big role is tea — the main character is a tea monk, who travels to towns and sets up tea service. And we see that this is a form of community care, a space to air one’s grievances and be heard and just sit for a while, take a break with a nice cup of tea made just for you. How did you come up with this idea for the public tea service as a part of this society?

A. The whole idea here is that rest and comfort are not optional. We tend to treat them that way, right? You have to earn your rest. You have to earn the treat you buy yourself after work. You have to earn some time watching TV, as though you’re still 10 years old and you have to do your chores first. We still use that language with ourselves — we all have that feeling of, like, I first must work hard and then I will be rewarded for it.

And the fact that we apply that to rest, which is one of our most basic needs — it’s as basic as food and water, right, your cells will not repair themselves correctly if you don’t rest. So the fact that we treat rest as something expendable, something that belongs in sort of a realm of luxury, there’s something deeply broken about that.

Obviously I’m not trying to ignore the realities that a lot of people have jobs that don’t allow that. The society we have built around ourselves does not make a lot of time or space for rest. We do not value rest the way we should.

So I wanted, in this book, to really drive home this idea that rest is not optional. In this society, I elevated it to something sacred really just to underscore how important it is to these people. And I wanted it to be something that we in the real world would consider to be very superfluous. A cup of tea is nothing. A cup of tea is cheap, it is finite. It is something you drink and then it’s done. It’s not the most important thing in your day — and yet it kind of can be. A long afternoon of work in which you take 10 minutes to go make yourself a nice cup of tea, that can change your whole perspective of the day.

Q. Climate solutions are also embedded throughout these books. Climate catastrophe was not a big factor — it was not explicitly part of the impetus for why this society transitioned the way that it did. But it is referenced that there was a previous Factory Age that sounds more similar to what our current society looks like, in contrast with the sustainable world that the main characters live in. What kind of research or interests of yours informed the climate solutions that do show up in the book?

A. I’ve heard some people refer to this work as “post-dystopian,” and I actually quite like that. That is something that I very intentionally do in a lot of my books. We are after the catastrophe. We are after the collapse, the story where the planet fell apart and everything went bad — you know, the sorts of stories that we tend to associate with science fiction. What I’m really interested in exploring is, what comes next? What’s after the crisis? What is it that makes the struggle of getting through the crisis worth it?

I did imagine a world very familiar to us that is reaching a tipping point — but instead of letting it fall over that cliff, massive effort is taken to pull it back from the brink. Because the characters in the story are not people who are actively involved in those efforts, because we’re in a point in history when the dust has settled, I did want [climate solutions] to just be sort of quiet and in the background and just feel as seamless as possible. Here are these different things that could be in place, and here’s what it would be like to live in that and have it just feel everyday.

I have a lot of interest in green technology, in sustainable cities, sustainable agriculture, wildlife and natural resource management. I don’t know that there was any one topic that I really did a deep dive into in writing this book. It was more an amalgamation of years and years and years of, “Here’s a cool show I watched about solar energy, here’s stuff I’ve learned from the regenerative farmers in my community, here’s this one time I was on a road trip and I stopped by this permaculture center and I spent all afternoon there.” I’m such a magpie with things like that, where I’m just like, I’m gonna pick up little bits and pieces and save them and eventually they coalesce into a thing. With some books I’ve had a thing where I’m like, I’m going to the library, I’m talking to a research librarian, I’m really deep-diving into this thing. With this it was more just like, here’s a lot of stuff I love, and I’m gonna make a world with all of that in it. It was more casual, but also from a very heartfelt place.

Q. I love that — because none of the solutions in the book are like complete inventions; they all have seeds today. You can see these things today.

A. That was intentional. I wanted it to feel tangible and I wanted it to feel possible. In some ways I get very sci-fi, like in Wayfarers, there’s stuff that’s just, you know, nobody’s out there actually building wormholes. That’s not something we’re ever going to do.

Here, though, there’s not really anything in the world of Panga that is impossible. These are very real technologies. I didn’t make up anything whole cloth. Obviously robots talking is not a thing. But for the most part it’s like, here’s a little something that I’ve seen, if we developed it fully. I see somebody in the chat here mentioning E.O. Wilson’s Half-Earth, which is exactly where I got the idea to set aside half of the world to be without humans, to just let it be.

Q. We’re going to wrap up with a question that was submitted ahead of time by one of our readers, Carlos Ariza — thank you for this! Carlos says: “My question for Becky is whether she feels this world she built is actually possible for our planet, and whether we should work toward it.” I’ll add, how can we work toward it? Do you embody any of any of these things yourself?

A. I never try to be prescriptive with my work. I’m never writing a blueprint where I’m like, “And here’s how I think everything should work, go do this.” One of the things that was really important to me in writing this was that there was not a one-size-fits-all solution for the world. We see this more in the second book, A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, when Dex and Mosscap go traveling through different communities, in that these communities are set up very differently. They use different technologies, they have slightly different philosophical vibes, they farm differently. I didn’t want to be like, if we all just do this one thing, we’ll all reach that sort of progressive rapture and the perfect utopian world. Things will work in certain climates that won’t work elsewhere. Things will work in different cultural templates that won’t work elsewhere.

Do I think this book is exactly the world we should aim for? Not necessarily. Do I think that a sustainable world is possible? Yes. Do I think it will take an enormous amount of work? Also yes.

One of the things about it is that you have to look at a future like this not as something that’s going to be attainable for you. It is not realistic that we will see this world within our lifetimes. That sucks. But that’s the reality of it. The world that Dex and Mosscap live in is something that took hundreds of years to get to. All we can really do right now is think about what seeds we’re planting for the future, as cliche as that sounds — that’s what we have to do.

There’s a lot right now that’s broken. There’s a lot right now that I wish was different, there’s a lot right now that isn’t fair. But if I can make small changes in my life, be it in how I approach other people, in the work that I do, in the technologies that I use, how is that going to snowball, right? What effect is that going to have on the next generation and the generation after that and the generation after that?

Taking the long view and being kind — that’s really what it comes down to, is those two things. And however you want to implement those in your life, however that works in your community, however that work works in your place in the world, it’s for you to decide. But I truly, truly believe that we can turn these things around, as long as we make an effort. And as long as you give yourself the rest and the care you need, as much as you can, to give you the energy to make that effort.

— Claire Elise Thompson

A parting shot

In our book club discussion, I also asked Chambers if she has a favorite tea (a question she’s gotten a lot). She said: “The tea I’ve reached for most often is peppermint. It’s something I will find everywhere. I always like it. It always hits the spot.” I’m a big fan of peppermint tea myself — so in Becky’s honor, I brewed a cup on my porch yesterday and took a few minutes to drink it in the sun. I hope you do the same.

IMAGE CREDITS

Vision: Mia Torres / Grist

Parting shot: Claire Elise Thompson / Grist