Station Eternity

I'm going to start from this premise: If they had properly marketed this book as a sci-fi thriller or an action sci-fi or something, I probably would have fewer problems with it. I probably wouldn't have spent 300+ pages trying to keep track of clues (that didn't exist) so that I could solve a mystery (that wasn't really there); I would've just gone with the flow, as I did for the remainder of the book. It got better (not good) once I did that, but the marketing was literally the worst part because it established incorrect assumptions and expectations. They told me it was a sci-fi mystery/detective novel... I literally got zero of one of those genres, despite all claims to the contrary (by people who I'm guessing didn't even read the book or have no concept of what makes a mystery).

Beyond that, while it would've been a more tolerable read had they actually tried to set expectations in a better way, it still wasn't good. So much of it is peak white liberal woman writing diversity, not knowing shit about anyone or anything. The aliens are treated very similarly to how we (predominantly but not limited to English-speakers) treat East Asians with regards to their names; I seriously couldn't get that out of my head, especially as the explanation for why there are aliens named Tina, Ferdinand, Stephanie, Algernon and the like... is because it's the "closest approximation in our language" (or some similar rubbish). And all the random social justice throws? A psychiatrist telling a patient off for using the word crazy because it's ableist, the weird handling of race and poking at racist characters (with the single Korean character needing a non-Korean man to tell her what is part of Korean culture because she's "so disconnected")... It kept happening in so many ways that I had to roll my eyes at how White Liberal Lady this book genuinely is.

Along with that, there is very little creativity in the handling of non-human species, even when they are vaguely interesting. The Sundry are a hivemind (but they still act like humans despite being a bunch of insect-like sentients); the Gneiss are rock people (who are still more culturally like humans despite... being fucking rock people). The qualities that make aliens... alien? Aren't really there and are... quite superficial. There's very little deviation based on perspective.

The other thing that ruins this book is the timeline. The timeline is atrocious and difficult to follow, which I'm guessing is how so many people wrongly categorised this as "mystery." A book being obtuse for no real reason and difficult to follow does not... make it a mystery. It makes it annoying. So many chapters could've been pulled from where they were and re-slotted somewhere else to make things coherent, especially when it was never clear what time or place you were in until you were at least half a page into a chapter. Or section, actually! Sometimes the middle of chapters just would suddenly jump without any indication anywhere of what was going on.

My final gripe is with the number of references to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I have no problem with references, but these were at one point so excessive and frequent that it really just felt like "Did you get it? Did you? Did you see it? Get that one? What about that one?!" I wanted to scream because it honestly just made me angry at how many there were. I'm fine with references when they're utilised well, but this was just the equivalent of smashing me in the face with a brick for at least the first half of the book. Annoying as hell.

I wouldn't recommend this, and I have zero desire to read anything else in this series... especially because it's not a mystery like it keeps trying to claim.