Reviews with content warning for Medical content - Persephone Station

The beginning of "Persephone Station" was quite a struggle to get through with the info dumping and confusing scenes. Howbeit, when the action picked up it was much more enjoyable. The diversity and queerness was great and I appreciated the non binary representation which I rarely have the pleasure of reading about.

However, I think that "Persephone Station" tried to do too much which negated from other aspects of the book. I wish there had been more focus on character development rather than action. I found it difficult to care about any of the characters even when their lives were at stake. I was invested in the snippets of backstories- particularily that of Kennedy's- but felt there wasn't enough to create well rounded characters. The world building also lacked full development. Although there are solid explorations of alien species, artificial intelligence and illnesses these were not explored in a satisfactory way, leaving me with many questions.

Throughout the book there's a secondary storyline that doesn't really mix into the main one until the very end and even then they do not tie up neatly. The ending of this book was wrapped up quite conveniently and with many plot holes

The author tended to use the word "said" so frequently that by the end I found it utterly inffureable. It made the writing seem juvenile (although this may just be a personal irk).

I had high hopes for this book but for 500 pages It was quite dissapointing. Despite this, if you're into the idea of a predominantly female cast with non stop action then this may be for you. If you're more into character development and world building this is not the book for you.

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story_goblin's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense 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

This book is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. It's a space opera/mystery thing packed with action, queer characters, and female leads. To me, though, it suffered a bit from trying to be too much- part mystery novel but also space opera, part treatise on human nature but also condemnation of corporate greed, part exploration of grief in its many forms plus the many different reactions to it but also action-packed. There just wasn't really room to do ALL of those things well. Also, honestly, the literature references were more just distracting than anything else (and I'm an English teacher). But it was vivid and intense and generally pretty neat.

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azrah786's review

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3.5

[This full review can also be found on my BLOG]

**I was provided with an ARC through netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

CW: violence, gore, gun violence, murder, war, death, medical procedures

A fun and fresh take on the genre with much to love but not without its flaws.

Set on a backwater planet, Persephone Station primarily follows a band of mercenaries under contract with a criminal boss. A particular job that they undergo puts them head to head with a corrupt Earther corporation who are hell-bent on exploiting the planets resources and eradicating its native species - The Emissaries, who want nothing more than to remain discrete from the rest of the universe.

There is also a secondary storyline following a character who finds themselves on the planet after following a distress call that only they can hear.

Action packed, this is a Space Opera-Western mashup that has a cinematic feel to it. In fact what caught my attention about this book to begin with was how it was described to have an air of Cowboy Bebop, Firefly and The Mandalorian and I’d say the vibes are definitely there.

It is very much a plot-driven story with intriguing political commentary and a cast of characters that you can’t help but get attached to. However, I do feel like the story could have maybe benefitted from being split into more than one book.

A slow and slightly info-dumpy beginning sets the story off, giving you a feel for the boisterous weather of another world and immersing you right into the noir city scene of West Brynner, but you have to push through a good 40% of the book before things really start to get interesting. Not only that, the world-building doesn’t really expand further than Persephone. Other than giving an insight on the political side of things and the United Republic of Worlds being name dropped a handful of times, we learn hardly anything about the rest of this universe. This wasn’t exactly a bad thing, it’s just that you’re left wanting more!

Furthermore though the two storylines weave and intersect one another perfectly, it did feel like there was a little too much going on so at times the story felt a little rushed and it was a case of more telling rather than showing with the action. A particularly gripping section towards the end where some big reveals occurred was wrapped up so quickly compared to other events in the book and I just wish it had had more page time.

However, there were so much to love about this book too! The sci-fi elements were exciting and well researched particularly when it came to The Emissariesand the discussions and ethics around artificial intelligence. I absolutely loved the main cast of characters who were all either female or non-binary. Each of them, despite having again a sort of info-dumpy introduction, was beautifully nuanced and their relationships and interactions with one another added both great humour and so much emotion to the narrative. I was personally a big fan of Angel de la Reza who sort of reminded me of Bobby Draper from The Expanse.

So my feelings are slightly conflicted but all in all I'd say this book is a solid Sci-Fi debut and I’d probably be interested if the author ever decided to return to this universe.
Final Rating – 3.5/5 Stars

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jayisreading's review

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adventurous medium-paced

3.0

The first word that came to mind after I finished Persephone Station was ambitious. With more candor, I’d say overambitious. There was a lot packed into five hundred or so pages that, at multiple points, it was somewhat difficult to process everything. The content and universe themselves were interesting, and it was clear that Leicht put a lot of care into worldbuilding. The issue was there was a little too much for one book. (A little more on this in a moment.)

However, this isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy the novel. In fact, there was a lot that I liked. With all frankness, we can agree that it’s rare to find space opera that feature a diverse cast of characters. Well, look no further, because Leicht goes above and beyond to place nonwhite, queer, women, and/or nonbinary characters at the forefront. In addition, Leicht did an impressive job with worldbuilding, really taking the time to set the stage at the start of the novel. The details that went into Persephone Station is deserving of recognition, to say the least. (And just a side thing, but Leicht does a pretty great job writing fight/battle scenes, which I would say is something a lot of authors struggle with.)

Leicht’s worldbuilding and characters are a bit of a double-edged sword, though. While impressive, as I mentioned earlier, there was just too much. Leicht did well on the details, but she fell short on further developing them that it was harder to appreciate everything. In addition, with such a large cast of characters, it often got confusing to follow who was talking. While most of the characters had their unique quirks, it wasn’t enough to fully parse out who was speaking or develop any kind of attachment to these characters.

Plot-wise, it was very slow at the start. On one hand, I understood this was for worldbuilding purposes; on the other hand and, as I mentioned earlier, all the details started getting much. This, in turn, affected the plot (or, rather, plots). For the most part, you were able to follow the two plots, but it’s very clear that the book would have been far stronger if Leicht stuck with one of the two. At least to me, it seemed more apparent that she was interested in the colonialism plotline, but was reluctant to let go of the plotline about AI development.

There was a lot of promise in Persephone Station that I think fell short. For those who really enjoy worldbuilding, this book might be of interest to you. However, for those who are looking for a strong plotline and/or character development, you’ll be sorely disappointed. On a final note, I do think that this would have made for a better television adaptation as a limited series. It would certainly give a lot of room for Leicht to further develop her characters and plot as much of the describing wouldn’t be needed due to audiovisuals.

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melaniereadsbooks's review

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

4.25

Thank you so much to the publisher and the author for an ARC of this amazing book debuting on January 5th!

Angel and her team have a very important mission--to save the Indigenous life forms on Persephone from the corporation that rules the planet. This book is an action packed space opera with a great cast of female and nonbinary characters and very interesting alien lifeforms!

There is so much amazing technology happening in this book and I love the bits about AGI and anything relating to The Emissaries.

The girl squad is top notch and I loved to read about their quirks and the way they worked together. Beautiful and heart wrenching!

Leicht is a great writer and I definitely want to read more by them in the future!

My only complaint is that I felt this could have been a little shorter, as a few sections in the middle kind of dragged. But overall this book was great!

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caseythereader's review

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adventurous challenging emotional funny tense medium-paced

3.75

Thanks to Saga Press for the free advance copy of this book.

📚 Mix together a little bit space western, a little bit space opera, and a lotta badass queer women and nonbinary people, and you've got the start of PERSEPHONE STATION.
📚 The plot is vast and the characters are all easy to root for, even when you're not sure if they're the good guys. (Seriously, there's no way I could succinctly sum up the plot, but it's also not too hard to follow.)
📚 There are some truly excellent battle scenes.
📚 PERSEPHONE STATION also poses some interesting questions about artificial intelligence and the Singularity without getting too 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY about it.
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What I didn't like:
📚 The characters are pointedly racially diverse but that doesn’t really have any bearing on things - I'm not entirely sure if race doesn't mean anything in this universe (the same way it's a queernorm universe) or if the author just wasn't sure how those identities would play into the story.

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