A review by nenya_kanadka
Mirabile by Janet Kagan

5.0

I loved the hell out of every minute reading this goofy little book. It's full of charm and friendliness and weird-ass science-fiction critters (with enough of a technobabble explanation that it works for me). The main character is a lot of fun--determined, passionate, funny, kind, focused, in a unique job. And the secondary characters are lovely as well, from the woman whose career (with all the respect that word implies) is raising children to the heroine's proteges and coworkers to the hot older gent our heroine takes up with. (It's an adorable partnership of equals between two middle-aged folks who have adventures together and aren't in the slightest bit possessive or mired in 20th century gender roles. A complete delight.)

The book also did a fantastic job of making the life cycles and habitats of animals--both real ones and fictional/alien ones--sound completely fascinating. I feel like Kagan must have really enjoyed whatever research she did for this book. Biology and sociology and friendship, oh my!

This is actually a string of I think five short stories rather than a novel, but everything hangs together to make a coherent story. (You have to put up with a tad of explaining the backstory in each chapter/short story, but that's the only downside.) Honestly my only complaint is that this isn't the first in a ten-novel series!

A++ would read again.