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. ( )

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. ( )

What I expected was to adore this book, sit down and read it in a weekend, and then rave about it. Because that is approximately what I did with Six Wakes, and in so many ways this sounds like a very similar book.

What happened was I read about a third, was completely unenthused, and put it aside for some months. I came back to it and took about a week to read the remaining 2/3. The plot is great, the writing is good, the world building is fascinating. I really really struggled with the characters. I could not get invested in them, or their stories, and this story very much needed that. It did have the saving grace that I was able to step straight back in to the story, and remember what was going on.

The mystery part is really the B plot, although I'm not sure I can actually articulate the A plot -- complex politics and shenanigans in a multi-species alien space station. ( )

Mallory seems to attract murders, so she runs away to a sentient space station to be one of only 3 humans allowed, but then she finds that more humans are coming and is afraid that murder might be come with them, and... spoilers... it does. Fun story, besides the murders, its a first contact story, and a government conspiracy story. Lafferty introduces us to several aliens species that aren't your usual Star Trekesque humanoids with different noses trope. She also explores what it would be like to life on a ship that wasn't designed for you. Can you eat the alien food, can you breath the air? It appears that its going to be a series for Lafferty - The Midsolar Murders. The second book is called Chaos Terminal ( )

pretty chaotic book by any standard so if you're looking for a nice tidy mystery look elsewhere, but as sf it's really comic fun, with its quirky aliens and points of contact. the amateur central detective character, Mallory, believes herself to be a murder magnet, which leads her to a space station almost devoid of humans, and she casually chats up and befriends many diverse types of aliens in hope of solving her case. the narrative is overstuffed with both characters and plot, but it's all interesting stuff so i'll be looking for the next installment of the series. ( )