The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is feel-good science fiction, in some ways a rarity. It's a story set in post-apocalyptic future, after mankind managed to dig its way out of the destroyed Earth, but there's nothing apocalyptic about the story itself.

The Wayfarer is a tunneling ship, a spaceship used to create stable wormholes to enable faster than light travel between faraway places. The main plot involves creating a passageway to manage contact with a previously isolated civilization.

The plot, though, is a side issue. The book is really a description of a journey of friends - the crew of the Wayfarer - who meet new people and visit new places. Most of the book is about more or less mundane, everyday things, so even if every chapter has a defined date, it's actually hard to follow the journey.

There are plenty of aliens in the Wayfarers universe, and it's nice to see they are different - some of them are humanoid, some are something else. Different species have clearly different modes of communication and different social norms. The species could be more complete, though; most of the species have their appearance described, but the norms and peculiarities are often also just descriptions - they are not really a part of the story, just something thrown in.

Social norms also present the author with means for social commentary, and in places that becomes a bit tedious; I heartily approve of the message of acceptance, but the way it is delivered - and the way it so obviously mirrors current events - is a bit heavy handed in places.

Having said that, I still enjoyed the book and I'm definitely going to read the sequel.