Take a photo of a barcode or cover
agathe_athena 's review for:
Station Eternity
by Mur Lafferty
No one believes Mallory that murders just happen around her, or that she just happens to find the odd clues that help solve them. But after a dozen deaths and years of trying to avoid people in order to avoid murders, Mallory decides the best place for her is on a sentient space station where no other humans are allowed. And it works, at least until the station decides to allow a shuttle of human tourists, and everything goes wrong from the moment they arrive. There’s an accident with the shuttle, and the station’s host has been murdered. Mallory must figure out who did it quickly, as everyone is now in peril.
This was an interesting idea for a murder mystery, playing off the trope of the person who’s always around when there’s a murder and is able to find the clues that the authorities miss. It also does the thing where there are lots of characters that are interrelated to each other, much like “Murder on the Orient Express” or other Christie mysteries. But unfortunately, it’s not a very tight mystery, or even consistent across the whole book. The first third is almost all from Mallory or Xan’s point of view, but has lots of very sporadic flashbacks, so it’s very choppy. Then the middle third is introducing all the characters on the shuttle from their own points of view and flashbacks, while trying to move the plot forward, but it’s sometimes confusing who we’re following as there are lots of characters. And then the final third is much better because we know who everyone is and what’s going on, so it can just focus on the mystery and getting everything solved. So an interesting idea and the mystery was interesting once we got into it, but the setup and execution were not smooth.
This was an interesting idea for a murder mystery, playing off the trope of the person who’s always around when there’s a murder and is able to find the clues that the authorities miss. It also does the thing where there are lots of characters that are interrelated to each other, much like “Murder on the Orient Express” or other Christie mysteries. But unfortunately, it’s not a very tight mystery, or even consistent across the whole book. The first third is almost all from Mallory or Xan’s point of view, but has lots of very sporadic flashbacks, so it’s very choppy. Then the middle third is introducing all the characters on the shuttle from their own points of view and flashbacks, while trying to move the plot forward, but it’s sometimes confusing who we’re following as there are lots of characters. And then the final third is much better because we know who everyone is and what’s going on, so it can just focus on the mystery and getting everything solved. So an interesting idea and the mystery was interesting once we got into it, but the setup and execution were not smooth.