A locked-room murder mystery in space kicks off with a bang — literally
Station Eternity — Mur Lafferty
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Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty
Content warnings listed in the footnote of this newsletter.1
What It’s About
Mallory is cursed — her whole life, no matter where she goes or what she does, she’s surrounded by murder. Her college town, her hometown, a random party: everywhere she goes, someone close to her is murdered, and she always ends up in the middle of the case. So she does the only rational thing she can think of — applies to live in space, away from humans altogether.
And she’s accepted. Now living on Station Eternity, a sentient space station that hosts an alien species and needs human ambassadors to communicate with Earth, she’s at last able to keep herself far away from others and them out of danger. Finally, she can live in peace.
But it’s not long after she moves that the station agrees to another new program: hosting rich human tourists on vacations looking for an out-of-this-world trip. Mallory is horrified and knows that if other humans get there, they’ll be in great danger, because murder follows her.
Sure enough, the first spaceship with human tourists explodes on its way, and Mallory knows she’s going to have to be the one to solve the case — she is, after all, the only one aboard the station with experience in any of this, even if she’s not an actual detective.
Why You Should Read It
I’ve been trying to read and recommend more sci-fi, but I’ll admit, it’s an intimidating genre. Sometimes space operas and complicated plots can be difficult to get into if you’re not familiar with the genre. So diving into this murder mystery that just happened to take place in space was a great jumping-off point, and it will be for many readers who may be looking to take the leap into sci-fi.
Another sci-fi light book I loved was The Night Shift — which I recommended here. I have a stack of books queued up that are in this same vein that I’m looking forward to reading, like An Ocean of Minutes, Dreambound, and The Wonder State.
Plus, Station Eternity is an excellent standalone and series starter, which is difficult to achieve. The mystery itself takes place in this singular book, but the character development and relationships will be interesting to watch over the course of the next books, and I can’t wait to read Chaos Terminal, which is the second book (out in November this year and on my wishlist!).
It’s been a while since we’ve chatted audiobooks, but I’ve listened to some great ones lately. The Chandler Legacies is an incredible YA novel about an elite writing group at a boarding school that leads to students opening up, exposing school secrets, and becoming closer than they ever thought possible.
Tell Me What Really Happened by Chelsea Sedoti was a fun one told by four characters through police interviews, each character played by a different voice actor. I enjoyed listening to each version of their story as the mystery unfolded about what happened to the fifth member of their group out in the woods.
Can’t get enough, or looking for a different recommendation? Browse the archives, or check out some popular past recommendations:
Read about a foul-mouthed, chain-smoking, mystery-solving nun
Read a cautionary tale of a modern princess trapped in her castle
Read about a lawyer fighting against an unfair justice system
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Content warnings include racist language; suicide mention (brief, side character, not central to story); descriptions of murder scenes; blood and gore (including detailed description of mauled human); cancer (person survived); fighting; experimentation on aliens (reads as humans, science experiments performed on); fatphobia/homophobia from older relatives.
Woooow, I'm really into this cover!
Thanks for recommending this book. Mur Lafferty ..... why does that name sound familiar? Oh.....Escape pod! Listened to station eternity on audible. Terrific space opera murder mystery. Loved it.