Book Review: Station Eternity

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….

Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty will be published on October 4th, 2022; Berkley Publishing provided me an early galley in exchange for an honest review.

This novel is an interesting mix of sci-fi and mystery. That got my attention. The author is also from a part of North Carolina where I lived for a long time, so those references were an interest for me as well.

Admittedly, I had a harder time focusing on this book. It could have been some of the narrative flow which, at times, was not so straightforward. That tends to throw me. The change in focus characters also is a bit confusing for me as well. Lafferty does some interesting world-building here which will further payoff on any future sequels. The alien races are intriguing.