A review by silky_octopus
Shifting Reality by Patty Jansen

5.0

I really enjoyed this; I'm not sure if it's an intentional starting point in the universe (I know there are at least two novels and two short stories/novellas) but I thought it was a well-paced and well-written sci-fi story. On the one hand, there's a pretty hardcore sci-fi mystery involving cloning, the movement of minds between bodies, an interstellar cold war that occasionally goes hot and conspiracies. On the other, there's a great plot involving the protagonist dealing with the issues around her being a third-generation Indonesian immigrant on a station rife with class, gender and nationalistic issues. Having elected to work as a government employee on a station that has a large contingent of illegal workers and where the population is generally divided sharply between the military, the government and the Indonesian worker population, against the wishes of her family, after a scandal brought on by poverty, Melati makes for an interesting and sympathetic protagonist - particularly when she's raging against the societal constraints put on her and the well-meaning intentions of her surviving family.