ABSTRACT
In her Wayfarers series of novels, Becky Chambers imagines a future in which humans, with their laughably limited range of genders and sexualities, become part of a Galactic Commons alongside species whose differences occasion frequent opportunities to practice extreme interspecies understanding. Because humans joined the Galactic Commons as refugees from a dying planet, not the intrepid explorers or conquering heroes more typical of science fiction, their humility in the face of these differences is the vehicle for a clever, joyful, sex-positive, low-key exploration of inclusion.
