An entertaining read that feels oddly dated, and fails to do much with the intriguing setting. Full review on the Chicago Review of Books.

This Virtual Night by C.S. Friedman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I might have mentioned in my review for the first book in this series, This Alien Shore, that I missed this kind of SF.

The bookgods have smiled upon me. (Or at least C.S. Friedman has.)

What we have here is a setting focused on gritty space stations, hacking, aliens everywhere among us, GAMES, mystery, and a good healthy dose of wanderlust gone wrong. If you liked This Alien Shore, I'm pretty certain that you'll love this one.

It's a return to quite complicated SF settings, characters, and investigations that are never reduced to stereotypes. There's heart here and a clear love of the possibilities inherent in these tropes. Virtuals, hacking, melting pot space stations, and pure noir. I'd say it might be a cyberpunk novel, but it's very well rounded.

I very much recommend it.

The download link expired six weeks before publication so I had no opportunity to download the title. This isn't a great strategy for getting reviews.