# Station Eternity

What would it be like to actually be the main character of something like Murder, She Wrote – someone who is constantly surrounded by murder & mayhem through no fault of their own? Oh, and also they go into space and meet aliens and stuff.

That combination is a very ambitious premise so I am willing to forgive the book for not doing much with it when you have to fit it in alongside a murder mystery, an overview of a milieu of spacefaring species, the story of mankind’s first contact, and a frankly overwhelming amount of backstories. There’s enough going on that, even when many of those plotlines weren’t working for me, there was usually something to keep my interest.

After an underwhelming first half though, the book moves from staid exposition into mystery, and I enjoyed it much more. The seemingly pedestrian alien archetypes (rock people! insect people!) found depth and the plot found momentum.

I hope that a number of the side characters don’t return for the next installment, but I’ll be looking forward to reading it regardless as now the universe is established and the author can (hopefully!) spend less time establishing.