Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty

10 reviews

caitlinjadams's review

adventurous funny mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

It’s a testament only to how busy my work week was that I didn’t finish this book in two days tops. I never wanted to put it down—I kept getting more and more pulled into the story. Both the mystery and the sci-fi were firing and I enjoyed the underpinning of person-to-person connections and small worldedness. The final act felt rushed and that’s the only reason this wasn’t five stars for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Violence, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Blood, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Bullying, Gun violence, Drug use, Death of parent, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Xenophobia, Stalking, Murder, Medical trauma, and War

Minor: Cancer

military, insects, sacrifice ritual, death in space

mademoisellemonalisa's review

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug use, Violence, and Murder

rachelkreadsbookz's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Gore, Violence, and Child abuse

bugaboobear's review

adventurous lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I was excited by the premise of this book but the execution let me down. 

The human characters were enjoyable, but there was SO much hopping between present and background for each character. It was disorienting to have no paragraph breaks or anything to let you know you're in a time jump.

The aliens were the biggest let down. There were a lot of reused tropes and the alien races all felt like things I'd seen before. They weren't fleshed out and it really felt like a story about a bunch of humans with the aliens as mostly colorful background. I wasn't very invested in the mystery either. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, and Blood

Moderate: Drug use

Minor: War, Cancer, Child abuse, Racism, and Death of parent

mlewis's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Death, Body horror, Death of parent, Alcohol, Abandonment, and Gaslighting

Minor: Suicide

schnaucl's review

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

I really enjoyed this book.  The characters and the setting were both very interesting, the aliens were actually very alien.  

I really hope there are more books in this series

though I wonder how it will work if the station is running at normal capacity since it seems like maybe the station would know immediately who the murderer is.  Though the second epilogue suggests not, but not why the station wouldn't know since she was able to piece things together after she had a compatible host.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gore, Blood, Violence, Xenophobia, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Cancer, Drug use, Medical content, Death of parent, Physical abuse, and Death

local_hat's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Absolutely did not go where I expected it to. And there were so many satisfying "oh SHIT" moments. Really excellent. It very much starts slow, and you catch yourself wondering why so much of the stuff that's in there is in there, and then the last third is SO fast, and so much "oh MY GOD!!" as the pieces start falling.  It will be very interesting to see where the next book goes.

Also I very intensely love the cover.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Violence, and Body horror

Moderate: Racism, Death, Drug use, Drug abuse, Death of parent, Alcohol, Gun violence, Gaslighting, Xenophobia, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Colonisation, Murder, and Medical content

pvbobrien's review

adventurous funny mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood

Moderate: Death, Murder, Violence, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Domestic abuse, Medical content, Child abuse, and Racial slurs

Minor: Alcohol, Death of parent, Gore, and Car accident

kat_smith24's review

adventurous funny mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

It's like this book was custom-designed for my weirdo brain. I loved it and can't wait to read the sequel(s)!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Child abuse, Violence, and Murder

readundancies's review

adventurous funny lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

So I think 2022 is The Year of Sci-Fi just kicking ass and taking names for me and I am here for it. 

Because I really enjoyed this sci-fi mystery moment. 

The highlight for me was the worldbuilding. The worldbuilding was so well developed and while it did make the pacing a little inconsistent (the beginning felt rather slow in comparison to the action-packed and wildly quick pace of the latter half), I was so thoroughly hooked by the worldbuilding. The Gneiss and Gurudev and Phantasmagore and Sundry and Silence, and the sentient space station/ships of Eternity and Infinity - so imaginative, so gripping, so interesting. I’ve never come across a series of alien species interacting with humans on an isolated sentient space station in the manner that they’re depicted in this story and I think the mystery aspect was the perfect framework to implement it all. 

The characters paled in comparison to the world-building but that’s more because this is definitely a plot-driven story. But I still really liked all of the characters. There were quite a few to finagle, and I don’t think that helped matters when it came to character development, but the limited glimpses we got of the characters were pretty great. I think I would’ve liked this even more if there was a romantic element incorporated with our two lead characters, Xan and Mallory, which is sort of implied and could be cultivated as the series progresses. But the diversity with respect to race, sexual orientation, age, etc. of the cast of characters was so seamlessly integrated without feeling forced and there were some great personalities to explore, with Mrs. Brown and Calliope being a couple of my favourites. 

And the way that the mystery and plot kind of converged at the end worked really well with the incredibly fast pace as we got to the conclusion. It wasn’t about any plot twists that stood out for me, it was how it all came together at the end, because the number of connections between Xan and Mallory and the shuttle of human passengers that end up boarding Eternity was a lot. 

I will definitely be continuing on with this series just so I can immerse myself in this world again, and definitely encourage anyone who’s a fan of fast paced sci-fi mysteries with aliens and military involvement to try this one. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Terminal illness, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Violence, Physical abuse, Death of parent, Death, and Blood