The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet: Wayfarers 1

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Loophole Abuse: When Corbin is put under arrest by the Quelin for being a clone, Rosemary finds out that they can rescue him if they have someone stand in as his legal guardian while he goes through the application process for non-GC species. However, said guardian has to come from a species that doesn't ban cloning...meaning it'll have to be Sissix, who shares a mutual loathing with Corbin. The fact that she does this for him despite their hatred of each other is a major factor in spurring his Character Development. Exodans despise Martian values and cultures, as they're descended from the rich people who abandoned them to die on Earth until they built the Fleet and their lifestyle contrasts with the Exodans' views on No Poverty and refusing violence. The slow introduction of Martian and alien culture is thus a contested one, with one character bemoaning that her children are learning more Klip than Ensk. They sometimes extend this to aliens as well, with a drunken Exodan yelling at Gluh'loloan that she has nothing to teach them. Colonized Solar System: When Earth suffered "The Collapse" the wealthy followed Elon Musk's lead and claimed Mars, moving out through the Solar System from there, though most other bodies seem to be just mining bases or research posts. While the less fortunate masses built improvised Generation Ships and left Sol entirely. The Quelin despise clones, no thanks to a brutal interplanetary war involving cloning and eugenics, and openly refer to Corbin as an abomination. If their representative is anything to go by, they don't think too highly of humans, either.

Corrupt Corporate Executive: Quentin Harris, Rosemary's father, who sold gene targeting weapons to both sides of a civil war, even though he was already fabulously rich through a legitimate business. Have you been in Sissix’s room yet?’ ‘No.’ ‘Okay, well, on her wall, there’s this big fancy frame with a mess of Aandrisk feathers hanging from it. Every Aandrisk’s got one, as far as I know. See, if you’re an Aandrisk and somebody really touches your life in some way, you give that person one of your feathers. And then you keep the feathers you get from others as a symbol of how many paths you’ve crossed. Having a lot of feathers on your wall shows that you’ve had an impact on a lot of people. That’s a pretty big life priority for most Aandrisks.”

Gender-Equal Ensemble: As close to it as an odd-numbered crew can get; the Wayfarer crew has five male members (Ashby, Jenks, Dr. Chef, Ohan, and Corbin) and, once Rosemary joins, four female members (Rosemary herself, Kizzy, Sissix, and Lovey). The male and female supporting characters are about equal in number as well. This is averted, though, by the end of the book; the original Lovey dies and her Lovelace reboot leaves the ship and is replaced with a male AI named Tycho, leaving the count at six men and three women. Mmm, Sissix has a lot of prep work to do before the punch tomorrow. She probably won’t have the time.’ Ashby grinned. ‘I’m sure you’ll give her a great tour.’ Disproportionate Retribution: The Toremi kill each other over disagreements that would seem extremely minor to any other species. Pei mentions that a few literally tore each other apart over an argument about whether Harmagians were sentient, and representatives who don't agree with the higher-ups are known to vanish. A major theme of the crew as a whole, and grows into it more and more over the course of the story. Some of them do have families living elsewhere, and others don't, but they do consider each other to be family all the same. Rosemary, who had to leave her entire previous life behind, comes to see the crew this way more and more; Kizzy confesses to Jenks near the end that he's the brother she always wanted growing up; several crewmembers admit after discovering Ohan can be cured of their virus that, even though they don't know them very well, they can't bear to see them die because they're one of them; Corbin admits to Ohan that, even though he doesn't understand his crewmates very well, he cares about their happiness; and Ohan, despite the fact that him becoming Solitary at the end means that he should stay in the exile colony for Heretics, realizes he doesn't want to, and chooses to stay with the Wayfarer crew.

Interspecies Friendship: Everyone on the Wayfarer (at least by the end) are friends, but there are a few standouts: Some of the Toremi (such a Toum, a POV character shown near the end) hate the other GC species, mainly because they don't follow the same beliefs as the Toremi — namely that everyone must think the exact same way, with dissenters getting torn apart. The Stoner: Rosemary notes that the Whisperer's effects on Ohan make them look like a "stoned college student". Still, she reminds herself that they are also one of the galaxy's best Navigators because of it.Upload images (When uploading images ensure correct source and licensing is listed and included in the file description)

How We Got Here: At the end of the first chapter, Pepper admits to Sidra that part of the reason she's helping Sidra is because she was raised by an AI herself. Most of the rest of the book then alternates between Sidra's current present and Pepper's childhood past, showing how she met Owl and Blue, until Pepper's story concludes in one of Sidra's chapters near the end.

Tastes Better Than It Looks: Rosemary's reaction to the traditionally Exodan delicacy of Red Coast Bugs. Does This Remind You of Anything?: Pei deciding what to do about her egg sounds very similar to deciding whether she's going to get an abortion. She doesn't really want to have kids, but she feels like she should and like she doesn't have a good enough reason not to get her egg fertilized, not helped by the fact there are lots of negative stereotypes about Aeluons in interspecies relationships "wasting" their eggs. Cannot Tell a Lie: A huge problem for Sidra, as it's part of her programming as a Lovelace unit that she must answer direct questions honestly and must obey direct commands, which makes her wary of becoming too close to sapient lifeforms for fear that they'll find out the truth about her, and forces her to become very good at utilizing Exact Words. About 80% of the way through the book, she finally learns how to remove this thanks to a programming class she takes, and with Tak's help, successfully gets rid of it. In the ending, she's removed it from Owl as well. No Biochemical Barriers: Almost always explicitly true, with an in-fiction article even dedicated to various official theories about why all known sentient species can share air and sustenance with each other. There are some species-based allergic reactions, though. The Akarak are an exception, having evolved in a methane atmosphere. Ace Pilot: Sissix, the ship's pilot, who is very good at her job. She also serves as Ashby's Number Two.

Taught by Television: Pepper was raised alone by an AI from age 10 to 19, and all she knows of other people comes from a small selection of interactive films the previous owners forgot to delete from the AI's memory. Not that she had a lot to work with when she started - up to the age of 10 she was raised by a group of robot "mothers" programmed to teach her and her clones to sort, clean and fix discarded technology. The Board is smoking smash.’ He stabbed his finger towards the scrib again. ‘She’s got no long-haul experience. She’s never lived off Mars, as far as I can tell. She’s fresh out of university—’ Token Non-Human: Averted. Of the nine members of the crew, five of them—Rosemary, Ashby, Kizzy, Jenks, and Corbin—are Humans, while four are not: Sissix (Aandrisk), Dr. Chef (Grum), Ohan (Sianat Pair), and Lovey (AI).

Goodreads Summary:

The most notable case, however, is the Toremi, who no-one else in the galaxy can figure out. They process the entire universe in terms of patterns, and view conformity as so intrinsically good that when Toremi dispute their particular subgroup's orthodoxy, they will swiftly form a new subgroup, hostile to their former one, in which to insist upon their new orthodoxy, an approach that has left them with many factions engaged in a constant war with every other faction. Ashby and Sissix. Sissix chose the Wayfarer crew as her feather family originally because of Ashby, whom she considers the best friend she ever had, and she's certainly the crewmember that he's closest to. Death of Personality: Of the Blank Slate variety. After the Wayfarer escapes from the sabotaged wormhole, they are forced to hard reset Lovey because she's too far gone to save as is. Unfortunately, this also wipes out her accumulated databases, essentially resetting her to factory standards and making her a different person with no memory of her previous time with the crew or her love for Jenks.