A character driven, episodic space opera with comedic elements that's lots of fun to read.

Rather than having a major over-arching plot that drives the entire novel, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is structured more like a television show with a running story. Each chapter is a compact episode that focuses one of the crew members, and serves primarily to move that character's story and character development further. Each chapter, while depending on the whole for continuity and depth, presents a complete narrative. It's a somewhat unusual structure for a novel and I think is probably the reason why some readers say this book doesn't really have a plot. Which is definitely not true! Each story is exciting and fun; sometimes funny, sometimes touching, often both.

Like a good space opera it explores a lot of the classic questions of the genre: in a conflict of values between alien moral and legal systems, how do you resolve what's right? What are humans good for? What's it like to have sex with Alien Babes? How far should biological beings go in modifying their bodies? Should AIs have legal rights? How shall we bullshit our way to faster than light travel?

None of the answer are particularly revolutionary, but sometimes what you want is just a nice, fun space opera, and this book delivers!