Chaos Terminal by Mur Lafferty

Title: Chaos Terminal (The Midsolar Murders #2)

Author: Mur Lafferty

Publisher: Ace 2023

Genre: Science Fiction

Pages: 369

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: 52 Book Club - Locked Room Mystery; Library Love

Mallory Viridian would rather not be an amateur detective, thank you very much. But no matter what she does, people persist in dying around her—and only she seems to be able to solve the crime. After fleeing to an alien space station in hopes that the lack of humans would stop the murders, a serial killer had the nerve to follow her to Station Eternity. (Mallory deduced who the true culprit was that time, too.)

Now the law enforcement agent who hounded Mallory on Earth has come to Station Eternity, along with her teenage crush and his sister, Mallory’s best friend from high school. Mallory doesn’t believe in coincidences, and so she’s not at all surprised when someone in the latest shuttle from Earth is murdered. It’s the story of her life, after all.

Only this time she has more than a killer to deal with. Between her fugitive friends, a new threat arising from the Sundry hivemind, and the alarmingly peculiar behavior of the sentient space station they all call home, even Mallory’s deductive abilities are strained. If she can’t find out what’s going on (and fast), a disaster of intergalactic proportions may occur.…

.Finally grabbed the second book in the Midsolar Murders series and enjoyed it. I must say that for a portion of this book, I was very annoyed by the lack of information. Mallory’s inability to understand what was happening around her was frustrating. But once the mystery really started unraveling, I understand and my annoyance faded. In this one, we get some familiar characters and the reintroduction of a few storylines teased in the first book. Thankfully the book focuses on the murder mystery and leaves the romance mostly out of the story. I was afraid that the book was going to shove Mallory and Xan together romantically. It does not. Instead, another character enters the scene. I loved the interactions between the residents on the space station. Those chapters were my favorite. Overall, I fun murder mystery on a space station.

The Midsolar Murders

• #1 Station Eternity

• #2 Chaos Terminal

Next up on the TBR pile:

Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty

Title: Station Eternity (The Midsolar Murders #1)

Author: Mur Lafferty

Publisher: Ace 2022

Genre: Science Fiction

Pages: 457

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: 52 Book Club - Chapters Have Cliffhangers

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….

The Currently Reading Podcast and Schuler Books made me pick up this book! I was very intrigued by a murder mystery on a space station that only a few human (and lots of aliens) inhabit. We are thrown into Mallory’s life on Station Eternity without a life raft. We have to navigate the quickly changing situation all the while meeting new characters and even new alien species. We start to get a handle on her life when a murder occurs and a station disaster and some people from Mallory’s past all pop up in very unexpected places. From there, it is nonstop until the end. The pace alternates between quieter backstory chapters and frantic action-packed chapters in the present. We have to work with Mallory and Xan to solve a murder and understand all the connections that are present on this space station. My favorite parts of this book were the descriptions and depictions of the alien races, especially the concept of the sentient space station. It was a mix of Star Trek: DS9 and Farscape for me. I will definitely be putting the sequel on my future TBR.

The Midsolar Murders

• #1 Station Eternity

• #2 Chaos Terminal

Next up on the TBR pile: