Tämä sivusto käyttää evästeitä palvelujen toimittamiseen, toiminnan parantamiseen, analytiikkaan ja (jos et ole kirjautunut sisään) mainostamiseen. Käyttämällä LibraryThingiä ilmaiset, että olet lukenut ja ymmärtänyt käyttöehdot ja yksityisyydensuojakäytännöt. Sivujen ja palveluiden käytön tulee olla näiden ehtojen ja käytäntöjen mukaista.
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 in this witty, self-aware novel that puts a speculative spin on murder mysteries, from the Hugo-nominated author of Six Wakes. 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....… (lisätietoja)
What I expected was to adore this book, sit down and read it in a weekend, and then rave about it. Because that is approximately what I did with Six Wakes, and in so many ways this sounds like a very similar book.
What happened was I read about a third, was completely unenthused, and put it aside for some months. I came back to it and took about a week to read the remaining 2/3. The plot is great, the writing is good, the world building is fascinating. I really really struggled with the characters. I could not get invested in them, or their stories, and this story very much needed that. It did have the saving grace that I was able to step straight back in to the story, and remember what was going on.
The mystery part is really the B plot, although I'm not sure I can actually articulate the A plot -- complex politics and shenanigans in a multi-species alien space station. ( )
Mallory seems to attract murders, so she runs away to a sentient space station to be one of only 3 humans allowed, but then she finds that more humans are coming and is afraid that murder might be come with them, and... spoilers... it does. Fun story, besides the murders, its a first contact story, and a government conspiracy story. Lafferty introduces us to several aliens species that aren't your usual Star Trekesque humanoids with different noses trope. She also explores what it would be like to life on a ship that wasn't designed for you. Can you eat the alien food, can you breath the air? It appears that its going to be a series for Lafferty - The Midsolar Murders. The second book is called Chaos Terminal ( )
pretty chaotic book by any standard so if you're looking for a nice tidy mystery look elsewhere, but as sf it's really comic fun, with its quirky aliens and points of contact. the amateur central detective character, Mallory, believes herself to be a murder magnet, which leads her to a space station almost devoid of humans, and she casually chats up and befriends many diverse types of aliens in hope of solving her case. the narrative is overstuffed with both characters and plot, but it's all interesting stuff so i'll be looking for the next installment of the series. ( )
In as much as Mur Lafferty has become something of a rising star in the field, and I really don't read much short fiction, I figured that this novel was as good a place as any to start with the woman's writing. My basic reservation was that I'm not a fan of murder mysteries so, again, I had the attitude of "impress me." What I didn't gather, until I read Lafferty's dedication to Douglas Adams, is that this is very much a send-up of that particular genre. Lafferty is also quite prepared to offer a send-up of the first-contact novel, as her advanced alien races can be jerks as much as her human characters. Further, giving this novel some depth, is that Lafferty spends a lot of time offering mini-portraits of her characters; this novel does read like it was written by someone with a MFA, and I'm counting this as a virtue. As for downsides, there were points where the action could have been a little more gripping, and there could have been a little more sense of urgency. That said, seeing as this is apparently going to be at least a trilogy, there was a lot of set up work to be done, and I'm now looking forward to those follow-on works. ( )
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 in this witty, self-aware novel that puts a speculative spin on murder mysteries, from the Hugo-nominated author of Six Wakes. 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....
)
)
)
Google Books — Ladataan...
3
What happened was I read about a third, was completely unenthused, and put it aside for some months. I came back to it and took about a week to read the remaining 2/3. The plot is great, the writing is good, the world building is fascinating. I really really struggled with the characters. I could not get invested in them, or their stories, and this story very much needed that. It did have the saving grace that I was able to step straight back in to the story, and remember what was going on.
The mystery part is really the B plot, although I'm not sure I can actually articulate the A plot -- complex politics and shenanigans in a multi-species alien space station. (