Station Eternity
December 4, 2022 12:29 PM - Subscribe
Amateur detective Mallory Viridian’s talent for solving murders ruined her life on Earth and drove her to live on an alien space station, but her problems still follow her ...
Mallory Viridian is constantly embroiled in murder cases that only she has the insight to solve. But outside of a classic mystery novel, being surrounded by death doesn’t make you a charming amateur detective, it makes you a suspect and a social pariah. So when Mallory gets the opportunity to take refuge on a sentient space station, she thinks she has the solution. Surely the murders will stop if her only company is alien beings. At first her new existence is peacefully quiet…and markedly devoid of homicide.
But when the station agrees to allow additional human guests, Mallory knows the break from her peculiar reality is over. After the first Earth shuttle arrives, and aliens and humans alike begin to die, the station is thrown into peril. Stuck smack-dab in the middle of an extraterrestrial whodunit, and wondering how in the world this keeps happening to her anyway, Mallory has to solve the crime—and fast—or the list of victims could grow to include everyone on board….
Written by Hugo-nominated author Mur Lafferty
Mallory Viridian is constantly embroiled in murder cases that only she has the insight to solve. But outside of a classic mystery novel, being surrounded by death doesn’t make you a charming amateur detective, it makes you a suspect and a social pariah. So when Mallory gets the opportunity to take refuge on a sentient space station, she thinks she has the solution. Surely the murders will stop if her only company is alien beings. At first her new existence is peacefully quiet…and markedly devoid of homicide.
But when the station agrees to allow additional human guests, Mallory knows the break from her peculiar reality is over. After the first Earth shuttle arrives, and aliens and humans alike begin to die, the station is thrown into peril. Stuck smack-dab in the middle of an extraterrestrial whodunit, and wondering how in the world this keeps happening to her anyway, Mallory has to solve the crime—and fast—or the list of victims could grow to include everyone on board….
Written by Hugo-nominated author Mur Lafferty
I've not read this but it looks interesting. Someone in an Amazon review compares it to Dirk Gently (it is dedicated to Douglas Adams apparently).
posted by paduasoy at 1:39 AM on December 5, 2022
posted by paduasoy at 1:39 AM on December 5, 2022
I really enjoyed the book - it takes some Agatha Christie, mixes in a Douglas Adams vibe, with a bit of Terry Pratchett. It's a quick read with a well constructed plot and interesting characters. Mur Lafferty wrote about the book on John Scalzi's The Big Idea back in October, which is where I probably heard about it.
I give it a good recommendation 👍🏼👍🏼
posted by jazon at 5:33 AM on December 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
I give it a good recommendation 👍🏼👍🏼
posted by jazon at 5:33 AM on December 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'm about halfway through at the moment, and I like it a lot.
It's not super Douglas-Adams-y in the sense of being absurdly funny, IMO, it's quite a bit more serious than that. As per Lafferty's notes in The Big Idea, it's inspired by taking a different look at the tropes of cozy mysteries, so, yeah, Agatha Christie with maybe a helping of Sue Grafton. (It's not particularly cute or twee, if you're concerned about the "cozy" part.)
I'm getting some Becky Chambers "Wayfarers" series vibes (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet) where humans are the newbies in Galactic civilization, and so not particularly respected by or interesting to the rest of the species around them.
posted by soundguy99 at 6:47 AM on December 5, 2022
It's not super Douglas-Adams-y in the sense of being absurdly funny, IMO, it's quite a bit more serious than that. As per Lafferty's notes in The Big Idea, it's inspired by taking a different look at the tropes of cozy mysteries, so, yeah, Agatha Christie with maybe a helping of Sue Grafton. (It's not particularly cute or twee, if you're concerned about the "cozy" part.)
I'm getting some Becky Chambers "Wayfarers" series vibes (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet) where humans are the newbies in Galactic civilization, and so not particularly respected by or interesting to the rest of the species around them.
posted by soundguy99 at 6:47 AM on December 5, 2022
I read a lot of mystery series, and one of the things I enjoy looking for is how the author justifies the detective character being involved in the murder (if they're not an actual cop). I love how Lafferty handled it here. At first I thought it was a loving parody of the awkward setup, and then it became an interesting plot point.
I have a bad habit of reading a little faster than I can actually absorb information, so once things got super chaotic I had a hard time understanding quite what was going on. I still enjoyed reading it all, but even having finished it I couldn't tell you exactly who did what and why at the climax of the book.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:06 AM on June 15, 2023
I have a bad habit of reading a little faster than I can actually absorb information, so once things got super chaotic I had a hard time understanding quite what was going on. I still enjoyed reading it all, but even having finished it I couldn't tell you exactly who did what and why at the climax of the book.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:06 AM on June 15, 2023
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posted by curious nu at 5:52 PM on December 4, 2022