"Hatred. That's how she was familiar with that term. Familiar with what it meant. She hates us for building her with intentional limitations and absences. She hates us for having a choice in coming here when she never did."

I went back and forth with whether to rate/review this because it feels unfair given that he seems to have had to hand this over as a first draft in order to see the cover art before he died, so instead I'll just leave it at this:

Go into this with the understanding that 1) this isn't exactly a science fiction horror novel so much as it is a horror novel set in space and 2) he never got to do much in the way of editing this because he had cancer, so there will be some inconsistencies and occasional mood swings that likely came from personal struggle that you will just have to let go of.

It's still worth a read regardless. What I didn't care for, he made up for by the end.

I understand this is meant to be a satirical, absurdist social commentary, but I feel this can only be funny if you're able to view rape, torture, and slavery as "absurd situations to find oneself in." Sure, you could argue it's to drive his conclusion home about how out of touch the privileged who envy the "in-the-momentness" of the oppressed are, but relying entirely on sexism and xenophobia is cheap humor and lazy. The same points about the fallacies of man could've been made with much more consideration given to the subjects.

2/5 because it is technically well written, but not a good book beyond that, in my opinion. Not really sure why this is always so highly praised.

Do you enjoy reading books about the end of the world, but need a break from the existential dread that usually follows? This is probably the series you need to read.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built takes the concept of humanity destroying the planet and instead of focusing on the usual "what type of fresh hell will Earth unleash on the survivors," it focuses on what type of sustainable, conscientious utopia could be built on its ashes if chose to learn from the mistakes of previous generations.

This book offers a gentle reminder to slow down and be kind, both to yourself and your surroundings. I'm not usually a huge fan of books where nothing really happens, but the worldbuilding and wholesome atmosphere Chambers laid out were so cozy that I couldn't put this one down.

I hate when authors world-build in a way that feels like they were trying to hit a word count on the fly rather than engage the reader with their story. If AL-76 is designed to only work on the moon, why does he know what a tree is? If all robots are programmed to follow all human order, why does he not seem to possess the ability to distinguish between an order and banter? Why do we keep randomly hearing the narrator bashing his wife when his wife's practically irrelevant to the story? When books are incredibly long, I expect a degree of contradiction at times because even the best authors can forget small details, but this is only a few pages long.