Sophia Rose Reviews- Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty

Today on the blog Sophia Rose is back to review Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty a Sci-Fi Mystery one of her favorite genres.
Enjoy!

Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty

#1 Midsolar Murders

Sci-Fi Mystery

Publisher: Ace

Published: 10.4.22

ASIN: B09PZT7H9F

Pages:  336

Rating: 4.5 stars

Format: eARC

Source:  Berkley

Sellers:  Amazon

ADD TO: GoodReads

 

GoodReads Blurb:

From idyllic small towns to claustrophobic urban landscapes, 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….

 

Sophia Rose's Review:

Resisting a murder mystery set on a sentient, alien space station was well-nigh impossible.  I had to snatch up the book and follow along as a murder magnet woman who left earth to get away from murder happening every which way she turned, a man with a mysterious reason for hiding on station, and their odd assortment of alien buddies work against the clock to get answers before Eternity solves the problem permanently. 

 

Station Eternity presents one of my favorite genre mash-ups with sci-fi and mystery.  New to me author, Mur Lafferty didn’t chintz on the backdrop and details of the unique alien environment and alien characters she created.  The feel of the book made it easy for a reader to engage with the story and the worldbuilding even when the book took its sweet time getting to the good stuff.

 

The story opens with Mallory discovering that the station she has made her home has decided to bring more humans aboard.  And, Mal is in a dither because the whole point to moving to Eternity was to get away from people.  Since her childhood, she has been around when people are murdered and when she was old enough to pay attention, she’s had a gift for solving the murders though, like the Greek mythological Cassandra, the authorities that be don’t take her seriously or they do and don’t want her solving crimes because they half-way suspect she perpetrated them.  So, when she got the chance to get away, she did and now she wants to run again, but her human friend Xan who is also one of the three humans aboard Eternity won’t take her in a ship and get her away.  He’s acting mysterious and even moreso when all hell breaks loose because Eternity’s symbiont is killed and the inbound earth shuttle is attacked.  Mallory is the only one with the special skills to get answers before Eternity takes matters in hand- and nobody wants that to happen.

 

Station Eternity grabbed my attention from the get-go with the writing style, descriptions of station life, aliens living there, and even how the humans came to be involved.  I was intrigued by Mallory’s murder issue and Xan’s mysteries.  However, it took me a fair bit of time to warm up to Mallory.  She’s fixated on her past and her ‘murder’ problem so much that it’s a weary repeated thing in her head and her conversation.  This is why the way the book did flashbacks to bring the reader up to speed on each new character and mingled it with the present situation was a relief rather than a distraction.

 

But, before I make you think I hated it, there was so much about this one to enjoy.  Xan gave Mallory a proverbial boot up the bum and she resented it even though it did get her off herself and on track.  Okay, I found the flashbacks distracting, but I can’t argue that they were needed to give the reader a chance to see what was really going on.  This one story was complex with several moving parts. As Mal noted, she and Xan had many connections on the inbound shuttle and each of those needed to be explored along with their existing connections already on the station before the mysteries all started to come together and make sense. 

 

By the time it concluded, I wanted more.  I was happy to realize this is a first in series and she has a backlist.  It was a slow-build thriller and a complex sci-fi world that jived well together and I can definitely recommend it as a gateway book for sci-fi fans to mystery or vice versa, but definitely for those who already loved the combo.

 

Author Bio:

Mur Lafferty is the author of Solo: A Star Wars Story and the Hugo and Nebula nominated novel Six Wakes, The Shambling Guides series, and several self pubbed novels and novellas, including the award winning Afterlife series. She is the host of the Hugo-winning podcast Ditch Diggers, and the long-running I Should Be Writing. She is the recipient of the John Campbell Award for best new writer, the Manly Wade Wellman Award, the Best Fancast Hugo Award, and joined the Podcast Hall of Fame in 2015, its inaugural year.

Website:  https://murverse.com/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/mightymur

Sophia’s Bio:

Sophia is a quiet though curious gal who dabbles in cooking, book reviewing, piano-playing, and gardening. Road trips and campouts, museums and monuments, restaurants and theaters are her jam. Encouraged and supported by an incredible man and loving family. A Northern Californian transplant to the Great Lakes Region of the US. Lover of Jane Austen, Baseball, Cats, Scooby Doo, and Chocolate.

As a lifelong reader, it was inevitable that Sophia would discover book blogs and the joy of blog reviewing. Sophia is a prolific reader and audiobook listener which allows her to experience so many wonderful books, authors, and narrators. Few genres are outside her reading tastes, but her true love is fiction particularly history, mystery, sci-fi, and romance. Though, sorry, no horror or she will run like Shaggy and Scooby.

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/sophia.rose.7587

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sophiarose1816

GoodReads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13418187.Sophia_Rose