Mur Lafferty

1.75 stars. there's a lot here that she did that i really liked, at least in theory. it felt unusual and interesting to me to have the ship be sentient and even have familial relationships with other ships. i liked all the different ways that people and different types of aliens all related and coexisted. the communication that she both developed and bypassed (with a translator implant) seemed innovative to me. i don't have much experience with science fiction, though, especially this type - space and aliens are particularly hard for me and i'm very much predisposed to dislike this.

so for me this was too heavy on the sci-fi and too light on the mystery, and i wasn't all that into it overall. but did see how someone who likes sci-fi might enjoy this. and i do think it was well done, in the sense that she incorporated sentient aliens/bugs/space stations/etc and things like this in a very accessible way. and there was humor, which i don't generally expect in sci-fi (or often in mystery).

so i guess i appreciate this for what it was and how she did it, but this wasn't for me.… (mais)

A murder mystery in space, with many, many coincidences and points of view.

First, I did enjoy this book, it was fun, the world building was fun, the different species on the station were fun and I enjoyed the main characters. And to my surprise, the various many threads of plot points did all end up coming together in the end, and it was a satisfying end.

So far I have enjoyed each of the authors books but that being said, there are some unfortunate consistencies with Mur Lafferty's writing. One is that everything feels kind of shallow and there aren't any real surprises. The second is that in every single book I've ready by her, there is something, a scene or chapter or writing technique that is upsetting or shouldn't be there. And in this book just after the half way point in the book she began to insert several totally unnecessary POV CHAPTERS for minor background characters that don't really matter or chapters spent on a POV flashbacks to events that could have been summarized in a few short sentences. And every time one of these POV's started the book just slammed to a stop and became a slog to get through. It felt like the author had spent so much time on the world building and background characters that she just couldn't bring herself to let them go, even though the book would have been a thousand times better without them. It took me days to get through less than 100 pages.

Once that part stopped and she finally got back to the plot of the book, it started to flow much better and went back to being a fun read. And as I said above, for me the ending was satisfying. And I am looking forward to reading the sequel.… (mais)

What a fun ride! So many bonkers things happen in this book. All my favorite characters (Mallory, Xan, Tina) are back, along with a whole new set of colorful characters. And there's a series of disasters on the space station, personal drama to deal with, and of course another murder to solve. I loved it! In the end, the only ones dead are two guys who kind of had it coming, and there are some interesting threads for the future, like, will Adrian get his translation bug turned off so he can really learn alien languages?… (mais)

This is, in part, a locked-room mystery set on a spaceship. The author has done an interesting job of creating the technological underpinnings for the story so that it can all hang together well. But for some reason I cannot put my finger on (which is not all helpful in a review, I know), I didn't find it as satisfying as I think it ought to be. Hence the three-star review. But I would encourage you to read it, nonetheless. Laffterty definitely has talent, and I look forward to reading her work in the future.… (mais)