Sometimes you need a change of scenery to change your luck, but that doesn't always help. Mallory Viridian has the bad luck to be murder-adjacent so often that the police and even the FBI begin to suspect she is somehow involved in the deaths. When she gets the chance to leave Earth and live on a space station filled with aliens, she thinks she may have found the answer to her lifelong dilemma. But once the station allows a shuttle loaded with humans to visit, all bets are off.
The flashbacks to different murders show Mallory at various ages when she witnessed or helped to solve the crimes. The problem began back in her childhood - including the death of her own mother. She has tried over the years to avoid making connections with other people (hard to maintain that sort of lifestyle), see therapists (who don't believe her), or even become a private investigator. Nothing has helped except this hiatus among beings from other worlds.
The space station itself is intriguing. I imagine it as a sort of Babylon 5 with various interstellar species living there and mostly cooperating. The station itself is sentient, like the ships in the Binti books. All the alien species think humans are unevolved because they do not form symbiotic relationships with other beings. Among the aliens are the wasp-like Sundry, the Gneiss (who look like Fantastic Four's Ben Grimm), the chameleon-like Phantasmagore (who "looked like a bendy store manikin had gotten into a fight with a honeysuckle vine"), the Silence (who have no verbal speech), and the Gurudev (a "humanoid stick insect"). In a Babel fish sort of way, the aliens have developed a universal translator that is a chip stuck into the ear.
What makes this story unique is the way it takes elements found in other successful media and recombines them in such a clever way. The sentient space station that needs a symbiont to communicate and function properly. Aliens who enjoy visiting Earth, but aren't impressed with humans (okay, a bit like "Men In Black"). A cozy mystery in a closed setting with connections between many of the characters, but including aliens and advanced technology. There is so much going on that readers must pay close attention or they will miss the clues.
This book is due out on October 4th and is listed as #1 of a series, so there will be more to look forward to. I received an advance copy from the publisher for review purposes.
No comments:
Post a Comment