If you like stories about space and different alien species, combined with a mystery, you should enjoy this one. This is the first in a three-book series about Mallory Veridian, a woman encountered murder wherever she went, so she decides to live on an alien space station where there are no humans. The book is set in a time similar to ours, only first contact has been made by aliens, who are much more advanced than humans. The U.S. government is excited about this, but also apprehensive. The military is developing a secret weapon to protect humans by killing aliens – if they need to.
There isn’t a ton of science in the story, but the aliens are all shapes and sizes with different cultural practices, much like Star Trek. One big thing that differentiates the humans from the aliens is that all the aliens enter into symbiotic relationships with other species, which enhances their abilities and provides mutual benefits (most of the time). The aliens view humans as “half a person” because they don’t do this. Also, the station itself, and its space shuttles, are sentient beings.
I enjoyed the slow-build friendship between Mallory and Xan, and the way relationships were built among the different aliens. It’s a long, twisty story, with new characters introduced frequently, so if you’re looking for quick and simple, this won’t be it. But it’s the kind of story I like, one with a lot of character development but also suspense. There were lots of things I saw coming and some I didn’t.
This is a fun story, but it does have some pacing issues. There were a lot of new character introductions and point of view changes late in the story, which disrupted the flow and weren’t all necessary. I would have preferred fewer POVs and backstories. Also, Mallory’s character was often annoying – that might have been the fault of the audiobook narrator, but she comes off as self-centered and impulsive, even when she’s trying to prevent others from being murdered.
The audiobook was confusing at times, since a lot of the character’s voices (especially the male characters) sounded similar, and I kept confusing two similar character names, Ren and Xan.
I liked that the human characters are racially diverse, although race mostly didn’t impact the story, and it seemed like it should have played a larger role. Also, the focus was on the U.S. military, but it wasn’t clear to me that the governments of Earth were actually working together. Also there were two epilogues, one of which didn’t seem to add anything, and I expected more of a reveal.
So it’s not a perfect read, but for someone looking for science fiction about first contact, space stations, and interspecies relationships, with a detective vibe, this is good summer fun. There are two more books that come after this one, Chaos Terminal and Infinite Archive.
