Station Eternity - A Quick Review

 

Mur Lafferty has written a true gem. Everyone loves a good murder mystery, and when it contains the fantastical, so much the better. This book, the first in the "Midsolar Murders" series (and every other science fiction writer is kicking themselves for not coming up with that one first), is both a serious work and a fun romp, featuring alien abduction, interstellar romance, and a whole lot of death.

Meet Mallory Viridian, a bright young woman who is cursed by two extraordinary things: First, every time she encounters a murder, she instantly intuits who did it. And second, murders seem to happen around her all the time. Convinced that she is a hazard to anyone who encounters her, she gets as far away from other people as she possibly can, going so far as to abandon the planet Earth altogether in favor of a distant, alien space station. Her curse, it seems, doesn't affect extraterrestrials. 

This remote and lonely existence works well enough, until she learns a shuttle filled with human diplomats and tourists is about to dock with the station soon. She panics, because she knows, as surely as she knows anything, that someone on that shuttle is going to be affected by her curse, and be murdered.

And she knows that she will likely be tasked to help solve the murder as well.

Mur's imagination goes into overdrive on this tale, conjuring up aliens like the Gneiss, that are essentially walking boulders, the Phantasmagore, who can blend in with any background, and the Sundry, who are wasp-like aliens who exist as a hive-mind. A translation matrix inside her head renders alien linguistic concepts into their nearest human equivalent, which leaves Mallory to sometimes wonder how aliens seem to know certain English idioms. Also, the name of a particular Gneiss, who happens to also be her best friend on the station, is rendered as "Stephanie."

The story unfolds into one disaster after another, relying on flashbacks to reveal Mallory's background, and incredible concepts which evolve to explain both Mallory's curse and her unique talents. This is one for the ages, and I think it is a graduation of sorts for Lafferty, because it puts her in the sort of writer category that always gets considered during awards season.

I can't say more for fear of spoiling a wonderful, wonderful story. But pick this one up! You won't regret it.

Eric

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