Audiobook
I really liked Six Wakes, and Station Eternity makes it clear that it was not a fluke.
I loved the different alien species, the way the plot continually unfolded new dimensions, and the depth and variety of the characters.
I would unreservedly recommend this book to anybody who has any interest in science fiction, mystery thrillers, or just good storytelling.
The ending was a bit messy and all that characterization felt a bit long, but I really enjoyed it!
<spoiler> I almost never DNF but I just really wasn’t enjoying this. For something that was billed as a science fiction murder mystery series similar to Midsomer Murders (or if that wasn’t the intent, calling the series Midsolar Murders was a huge misstep) there was a distinct lack of on-page murder mystery solving or intrigue. Instead it’s just backstory, 1/3 of a book spent freaking out about humans moving to the space station, and then after the halfway point new backstory for new point of view characters. It felt like the entire book was basically being used as setup for the intended series without including enough plot or forward movement to make me at all interested in continuing. Or even finishing it, obviously.
The aliens really bothered me too, they kept making throwaway comments about how humans are fragile bags of water walking around and then themselves turning out to …
<spoiler> I almost never DNF but I just really wasn’t enjoying this. For something that was billed as a science fiction murder mystery series similar to Midsomer Murders (or if that wasn’t the intent, calling the series Midsolar Murders was a huge misstep) there was a distinct lack of on-page murder mystery solving or intrigue. Instead it’s just backstory, 1/3 of a book spent freaking out about humans moving to the space station, and then after the halfway point new backstory for new point of view characters. It felt like the entire book was basically being used as setup for the intended series without including enough plot or forward movement to make me at all interested in continuing. Or even finishing it, obviously.
The aliens really bothered me too, they kept making throwaway comments about how humans are fragile bags of water walking around and then themselves turning out to be full of blood also?? Blood is liquid, yes? It implies a liquid vascular system? Or just sentient versions of earth animals like wasps or chameleons, or straight up “just the rock biters from The Neverending Story.” Plus how do we all have the same type of ear canal and eardrums that the translator devices work the same, yet again we keep hearing how wildly different and fragile humans are? </spoiler>
And for me the biggest, and this honestly probably biased me against the rest of the book: you can’t have a throwaway joke about authors arguing about using “singular they” and then have a strictly binary gender system and zero characters that use singular they or other non-binary pronouns without sounding like you come down on the bigoted side!! There aren’t even any acknowledged binary trans characters! Yikes yikes yikes. I mean I’d say it’s just crap anyway not having trans characters at all in your near-future science fiction, but that just rubs in the salt. Will not be reading more by this author.
Very satisfying murder mystery story, set in space and with great characters. Would read a Mallory Viridian novel again.
