Name: The Galaxy, and the Ground Within
ISBN: 9781473647657

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within

With no water, no air, and no native life, the planet Gora is unremarkable. The only thing it has going for it is a chance proximity to more popular worlds, making it a decent stopover for ships traveling between the wormholes that keep the Galactic Commons connected. If deep space is a highway, Gora is just your average truck stop. At the Five-Hop One-Stop, long-haul spacers can stretch their legs (if they have legs, that is), and get fuel, transit permits, and assorted supplies. The Five-Hop is run by an enterprising alien and her sometimes helpful child, who work hard to provide a little piece of home to everyone passing through. When a freak technological failure halts all traffic to and from Gora, three strangers—all different species with different aims—are thrown together at the Five-Hop. Grounded, with nothing to do but wait, the trio—an exiled artist with an appointment to keep, a cargo runner at a personal crossroads, and a mysterious individual doing her best to help those on the fringes—are compelled to confront where they’ve been, where they might go, and what they are, or could be, to each other.

What Hacker News says

adityaathalyeFeb 2026

Just past page 281 of Becky Chambers's delightful "the galaxy, and the ground within".

  Received Message
  Encryption: 0
  From: GC Transit Authority --- Gora System (path: 487-45411-479-4)
  To: Ooli Oht Ouloo (path: 5787-598-66)
  Subject: URGENT UPDATE

Man I love the series.

Looks like this multispecies universe has centrally-agreed-upon path addressing system.

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morelispOct 2022

For non-fiction, Graeber and Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything (which I'm still working through the references of as well, many of which are also good).

For fiction, my sample size this year is sadly small but probably Becky Chambers's The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, the final(?) book in the Wayfarers (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet) series. A great end to the series, and given that it must have been plotted originally pre-2020 oddly contemporary.

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dmdOct 2022

I've been mostly reading fiction:

Tom Holt "Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City" and its two sequels. Sardonic fantasy similar to Ursula Vernon. Fun.

Max Gladstone "Last Exit". Magic/alternate-worlds/tentacled-horrors-ish America. Will definitely win the Hugo.

Chuck Tingle "Trans Wizard Harriet Porber and the Bad Boy Parasaurolophus" (from which I learned that Chuck Tingle actually writes the stories, not just the title, and they're ... actually not terrible and pretty funny and very meta.

Katherine Addison "The Grief of Stones". Sequel to Goblin Emperor/Witness for the Dead. Murder mystery in an extremely engaging industrial-era fantasy world.

Alix E. Harrow "A Spindle Splintered" and sequels. Fairy tales encounter the multiverse.

C L Polk "Witchmark" and sequels. Fantastic series in a world where magic is outlawed - but the rich are aware of and use it, and imprison and exploit the poor who use it.

Tamsyn Muir "Nona the Ninth". Book 3 in Locked Tomb. More magic skeletons. A bit more of the backstory. Do I have any idea what's going on? Not so much. But I love it.

Naomi Novik "The Golden Enclaves". Scholomance book 3. Magic school, metaphor for boomers ruining the world and climate change, probably. Good conclusion.

qntm "There is no antimemetics division". A SCP novel. Not quite as good as his "Ra" but fun and mindbending.

Becky Chambers "The Galaxy and the Ground Within". A warm hug of a book. Travelers stranded at a space-rest-stop find they have something in common.

Charles Stross "The Bloodline Feud" and sequels. Alternate-universes-travel, Medici-style mercantilism feuds.

Madeline Miller "Circe". Gorgeously written, captivating reimagining of Circe's story. timeless.

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nanomonkeyOct 2021

"The Galaxy, and the Ground Within" by Becky Chambers (Book 4 in the Wayfarers Series) not only deals with a mixed alien usability environment, it also passes an alien Bechdel test of sorts.

The whole Wayfarers series is amazing in my opinion.

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ElevenLatheJan 2024

You're right! I just misspoke. Also, honestly, /The Galaxy and the Ground Within/ is IMO the least compelling of the series, but I'm more of a "space opera" fan and thus wasn't crazy about the calm, contemplative, almost-nothing-is-happening tone of it. Now that I analyze it this way, they kind of trend in that direction, with the Monk and Robot books being even more that way and /Angry Planet/ being almost pure space opera.

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