Oh, man, this was a fantastic read! I loved this read, this world, and this mystery! It was thrilling and I had such a great time reading it! There were some really thrilling moments, some huge twists, and I loved seeing it all play out!

Hester has had it rough. Between the attack, and the the subsequent injuries and bills, she's in a tough spot in life, working for a company that is making her work off those bills in a position different from the one she earned. And then she's called by a former coworker, and things really start going down!

This is basically a locked room mystery in space. There were only 11 people on the mine, so there were limited suspects. But at least this case lets her utilize her A.I. skills, to work with the mine's Overseer, the one that was David's job. So that was great!

When we got that reveal, wow, was that shocking, but it made utter sense! And so did everything that played out after, and was it oh, so satisfying! There were some really intense scenes, and that was really great. And there were some really clever bits, and I loved that!

Loved reading this book, and I can't wait for more sci fi from Kali Wallace!

Dead Space is the 2021 novel that got me back into wanting to read science fiction again. Also, what is a good science fiction novel set in distant future Mars if there is not a rebellion brewing. Dead Space is an overall dark novel and handles some sensitive topics such as PTSD, ableism, and mental health struggles. With all of that out of the way, this novel is a sci-fi, police procedural, with queer characters and I was very much here for it. This is for fans of science fiction and murder mysteries and the writing will leave you interested as the story goes on. This is my first Kali Wallace novel and I am definitely interested to read more by this author. This novel is more focused on the horror/science fiction side of things and does not really include any romance - so if you need romance in a novel this may not be the one for you. The book moved at a decent pace for a murder mystery with only a few small lulls and kept me interested through the end.

DNF - Did not finish. I decided not to keep reading this title because I did not connect with the writing or plot. Thank you, NetGalley and publisher for the early copy!

Dead Space was intriguing from the very start. The exposition of the vast world-building was sparse, but it worked for the story. The glimpses we got were enough for the plot, but I would have loved to see more! This book has two types of monsters. There is a menacing, eerie feel to both right from the start, and the cover absolutely nails it. It's a fantastic read, very disturbing bundled in the classic horror/thriller elements of isolation but impossible to put down.
Full review to come on my YouTube channel.

This book was an exciting, engrossing space murder mystery, like an updated version of a sci-fi classic by Isaac Asimov or Frederik Pohl. Sadly the thing that required no updates was the concept of dangerous and not-exactly-voluntary indentured space servitude to unscrupulous interglobal corporations—just as relevant a social and cultural commentary today as it was when Pohl put his characters through it in 1977! A depressing thought, but fantastic, plausible future world building and a truly twisty mystery.

I have been lucky with my scifi books in 2021 so far and Dead Space continues the trend.

It is an interesting murder and conspiracy mystery written in a very claustrophobic setting – a mining facility on a small asteroid, what can be more claustrophobic than that? But what makes this story so engaging is the protagonist.

Sometimes you think that you have your whole life ahead of you. You have dreams, you have a job you love, you are on a mission that will change the world… and then you watch your whole life crash and burn around you in a single agonizing moment. This is what happened to our protagonist.

To say that Hester is broken is an euphemism. The terrible explosion that destroyed her brilliant future left her with a body that is half organic and half machine… something that has never been done before to that extent. She is in constant pain from human joints rubbing against unyielding metal and a human brain trying to make sense of input submitted by a robotic eye, but that is only scratching the surface… Hester also has severe psychological trauma after her ordeal and PTSD is only part of it. And the fact that she is now stuck in a thankless job she is way overqualified for, on a dismal little asteroid far away from Earth, trying to pay off the gigantic medical debt that only keeps growing… well, you can understand that her view of the world around her is rather bleak.

I liked Hester, even though being in her head was rather hard sometimes because of how hopeless and jaded she sounded, but honestly, can you blame her? But even despite her bleak state of mind, she still tries to do her job as a crime analyst the best she can. And when another survivor of the crash that destroyed her future is murdered, she does everything she can to understand what happened.

I also love that once she understands that the situation is far worse than a simple murder, she does everything she can to keep the people she works with safe, even if that means going on a walk on the surface of an asteroid in an EVA suit and facing her biggest fear – the open vacuum.

The ending wraps up the main mystery in a quite satisfactory manner and gives us a couple more answers about what happened to Hester’s ship along the way. And Hester grows emotionally and psychologically during this ordeal, and might I say, gets a little bit of closure in the end? And even though her situation is just as bleak by the end of the book, she has made peace with it, because she knows that her biggest creation is free in the universe to do what she created it to do – explore.

PS: I received an advanced copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

DEAD SPACE is packed with thrills and chills, with a dash of political intrigue. Honestly, it reminded me of The Expanse and The Martian, but on a smaller scale.

Set on Mars, it highlights the very real dangers of living in space, while also confronting the complex reactions humanity might have to such an endeavor. Though I'd argue this leans a bit more soft science fiction than hard, I think that makes DEAD SPACE a strong story because it's easy to digest for a wide variety of readers. We end up CARING about the characters, about their situations, about the terrorism and fight for survival.

DEAD SPACE is perfect for anyone looking to get off-world and into the unknown, ready to face whatever horrors might await them. If you're that kind of reader, then this book is definitely for you!

A great fast paced whodunit in space. The author did a great job of introducing a new world while moving the plot forward at a fast clip.

I'm just going to come out and say it: Dead Space is the best science fiction novel I've read this year. And I expect it will still be my favorite by the end of the year. This is a thrilling tale written by Kali Wallace that merges science fiction with horror, with touches of mystery.

Once upon a time, Hester Marley had a plan. She had a job she loved; she had friends, the works. But that all went away the day of the tragedy. While she was lucky to escape with her life, she lost so much in the process.

Now she's stuck indebted to a company she hates, working a dead-end job that she can barely pretend to tolerate. It's a life of misery, and it's about to get a whole lot more complicated with the death of an old friend and college.

“This was my body now. Nothing more, nothing less, and never what the biohackers and transhumanists and weird fetishists wanted to hear.”

Dead Space grabbed my mind with both hands and refused to let go. No, seriously, I was that invested in the plot. In some ways, I still find myself thinking back to Hester and all of the insanity that she found herself involved in.

This novel combined two of my greatest loves: science fiction and horror. But it did more than that as well, throwing in some thriller and mystery elements, as well as having a lot of fantastic representation (LGBT+ and a prosthetic-wearing main character).

On that note, Kali Wallace did an excellent job describing the world and situation. Hester's pain and PTSD felt both real and accurate – almost too much so at points. There's plenty of danger and gore to go around as well, so keep all of that in mind.

This is a dark book. Not just because of the horror elements, but for the view on corporations and humanity as a whole. It was actually the ideal setting for everything else that happened. This is also a novel that will make you think, which you guys know I adore. There's a moral center to this story, and it will not hand feed it to you.

Dead Space by and far has one of the best endings I've read in such a long time. It actually left me both amused and satisfied, which I feel is a rare thing, especially in the horror genre. I seriously cannot recommend this book more.

Thanks to Berkley Publishing Group and #NetGalley for making this book available for review. All opinions expressed are my own.

What a ride! This book has it all, great storyline, developed characters and not a lot of science fiction to make it accessible to all types of readers. I was held rapt as I quickly turned the pages to find out whodunit on this ‘locked planet’ mystery. It was a heck of a storyline. Her writing is crisp and concise and I never felt the need to turn back to see what I missed earlier .I cannot wait to discover what else this author has written and I look forward to her future titles as well. This title appealed to me as a casual science fiction reader and I believe it will appeal to the more dedicated readers of the genre as well.

3.5 stars

Dead Space opens in the distant future, when humans have inhabited Mars; exploration of moons in the outer solar system is ongoing; and rich corporations are mining planetoids in the asteroid belt. A rebellion by discontented residents of Mars has been subdued, and the horrific weapons used in that conflict have been outlawed.

In this atmosphere, AI specialist Hester Marley was looking forward to a bright future. She was one of two hundred people aboard the spaceship Symposium, on their way to establish the first human settlement on Saturn's moon Titan. It was to be a research colony, for scientific exploration and discovery.

To aid in exploration, Marley and her colleagues had built an AI called Vanguard, whose complex mind and innumerable lifetimes' worth of learned experience would be invaluable for reconnaissance and research. Vanguard had a quirky streak as well, and liked to take on the shape of a praying mantis, resulting in its nickname Bug.

Tragically, an anti-expansion terrorist group blew up Symposium en route, killing almost all the passengers and destroying Vanguard. The explosion left thirty-one survivors, including Hester, all of whom were rescued by cargo ships belonging to Parthenope Enterprises, which has mining operations in the asteroid belt.

Hester's hideous injuries required her to be fitted with a prosthetic left arm, left leg, left ear, and left eye and the medical expenses left her hugely indebted to Parthenope, which could repossess the prosthetics for non-payment.

Thus - two years after the disaster - Hester is working as a Safety Officer at Parthenope's headquarters on the asteroid Hygeia, which oversees commercial operations in the region. Hester's job is to make criminals and troublemakers vanish before they can affect the company's profits, so wrongdoing is usually whitewashed and wrongdoers are generally expelled.

Hester is in constant discomfort from her prosthetics, and misses her family, friends, colleagues, and the Vanguard AI - who was almost like a child to her. Then one day, out of the blue, Marley gets a video message from another Symposium survivor, robotics expert David Prussenko, who was a close friend on Earth.

David is a sysadmin for the Overseer AI that manages Parthenope's asteroid mine Nimue, which produces water, fuel, and rare metals. In his missive, David seems to misremember things that happened in the past, and Hester concludes that he's sending a coded message. Before Hester can respond, David is killed, and Hester joins the team investigating his death.

The detective squad going to Nimue consists of Hester; lead investigator Mohammad Adisa, a native of Mars; non-binary security tech Avery Ryu; and Parthenope lawyer Hugo van Arendonk, who represents the company's interests.

The investigators expect to find the culprit quickly and close the case before it generates any adverse publicity. Things don't work out that way though. Nimue foreperson Yevgenya Sigrah is obstructive; David's co-workers, including his fellow sysadmin Mary Ping, are evasive. operational problems on Nimue are suspicious; and it becomes clear David was investigating something.

As Hester assists with the investigation, examines David's quarters, and delves into David's activities on Nimue, she uncovers a monumental conspiracy. At this point the story morphs from mystery to thriller, and Hester must race against time to head off further tragedy.

This story is an intriguing blend of science fiction and mystery that leaves the reader wanting more.

Thanks to Netgalley, Kali Wallace, and Berkley Publishers for a copy of the book.

Wait? Am I getting my sci-fi mojo back? Is that what this is?

A police procedural set in space with queer characters?! HELL YES! I was 100% here for this book.

When it comes to sci-fi, I am quick to DNF books when the science described isn’t actual science. Y’all don’t understand the sheer joy I felt when Kali Wallace described the accurate and dire conditions of Titan (Saturn’s largest moon and the moon my cat is named after) that the main character’s team would face during colonization attempts. Which is to say that rovers would be doing all of the work because humans literally CAN’T withstand the conditions. End rant.

Okay, so back to the story.

Hester Marley has been dealt a raw deal. After a mission that spectacularly failed, she now has robotic parts, swimming in debt, and stranded on a planet that isn’t her home. Now Hester has been assigned to a case where an old colleague of hers has been brutally murdered, and it’s a race against time to find the culprit before the body count starts piling up.

Right off the bat, this story sets the stage for a high octane, heart pumping murder mystery that is set within the confinements of space (hello claustrophobia my old friend).

In addition to the murder mystery, I loved that we got to see the consequences of space colonization and how privatization and capitalism ultimately leads to the same discrimination that today’s society is all too familiar with.

What Kali Wallace pulled off really well in this book is leading you up to certain events, but pushing past those boundaries to go even further than that. I know that sounds incredibly vague, but I don’t want to give away any spoilers, and trust me you want to experience it for yourself.

Overall, this has definitely renewed my faith in giving more sci-fi a chance, and I can’t wait to read more of what Kali Wallace has to offer the genre!

Thank you to Berkley Pub for providing a review copy. This did not influence my review. All opinions are my own.

I can’t remember exactly when I first heard about Dead Space. At some point the synopsis appeared on my radar and became an instant "must-read." Murder on an asteroid? Queer? Sci-fi? Yes, this book has all the things I love: exes having to work together, badasses from Mars with cute accents, AI with questionable morals, an investigation, lies, more death, EXPLOSIONS, and very little gravity. Not sure if you can tell, but I enjoyed Dead Space tremendously.

I must admit, the pacing was a little slow, but since it’s not a long book I didn't mind. Action-packed, unputdownable at times, and so many characters to root for—once you get past the detailed world building. Such incredible research went into this title, especially on the nature of AI and cybernetics. The main character’s mental health was relatable as well, and I absolutely felt Hester's isolation; someone who has been through trauma and still living with her grief. I also love how the nonbinary character was written. Never once did I feel that Ryu was token or tacked on. Excellently done!

My finished copy is arriving soon and I can’t wait to share my review. Thank you for approving me for an advanced copy of Dead Space!

I have to say, I was pretty damn excited to receive my copy of this book a few weeks ago. Kali Wallace is one of those authors who seems to jump from genre to genre with every new book release and I absolutely love it -- you never really know what you're going to get with her! I've been in a bit of a reading rut for the last couple months, with nothing really sounding too good, so I've mostly been rereading my favorite books or series. Dead Space was just about everything I wanted from a new book and it was full of enough intense action and horror to keep me on the edge of my seat the entire time I was reading.

I didn't really read much about Dead Space before I requested a copy to review for the blog here, I mainly just saw the author and knew I had to read it. So I wasn't really sure what to expect when I was finally able to sit down and start reading it, but a kind of a mashup of horror story and a cop procedural story was not at all what I expected. I don't want to go into too much detail on what made this book so amazing because I feel like that would really take away from the joy of reading it the first time yourself, so all I will say here is that the story is both surprising and amazing and no one who buys this book will regret it.

One of the main things I didn't expect with this book was how many serious topics it would manage to address while still managing to be a fun read. It touches on Ableism, sexual orientation, suicide, murder, etc..the list goes on and on. Usually when I find a book that does that I often find it can sometimes bog the story down, but Kali Wallace did a fantastic job touching on some important and serious topics while still managing to tell a really tight and focused story. It honestly just reminded me once again why I love her books as much as I do.

All in all, I thought this was a great story that is well both the money and time it takes to read it. I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone looking for something new to read and even if you don't like this specific book, I would highly recommend anything else written by the author, she's just great.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

DNF at 27%. This is just too slowly paced for me and I'm having a hell of a time trying to find a reason to stay invested for roughly another 70%. I'm simply too bored to bother with any more of this one. Many thanks to Berkley Publishing for the NetGalley ARC, though!

A twisty tale of of corporate overlords.
A good take on the trope of hard cop, fine mind vs. heartless corporations.
Hundreds of years from now, many things have not changed.

3.75 Stars. This was a solid read that I enjoyed. I made myself three reading goals for 2021. I wanted to catch up on some series that I’ve started, I want to read more YA, and I really wanted to read more spec-fic. When I saw that this was a sci-fi/murder mystery, with a queer main character, well this just screamed “read me!” While this book had a few mini bumps for me, in the end I was glad I read it.

The main premise is about Hester, an AI scientific expert, who was caught in a terrorist attack. After losing almost the whole side of her body, a corporation paid for her to be repaired with robotic parts. The medical bills were astronomical so Hester has to work off the debt with the corporation. Hester’s new job is as a security officer who investigates crimes. When a suspicious death report comes across her desk, Hester knows her life may never be the same.

I thought the premise was great and I was hooked instantly. It’s not too often you get a good sci-fi story that is also a murder mystery. I loved the mix and I found the book to be very readable. However, it was a little info dumpy at times. I wished Wallace would have taken her time uncovering some of the facts instead of just in blocks of information. I know that it’s hard not to have info dumps in spec-fic books, but I think this could have had a smoother approach. But beyond that I was quite happy with the overall writing of the book.

I do want to mention that while some people used the horror and thriller tag, I’m 50/50 on that. This is a medium paced book that takes its time to investigate the murder mystery. It is not until the final third of the book that the pace really picks up and has some action and light thriller moments. If you are looking for a fast paced thriller, you might be disappointed as that is not what this book really is. I also don’t understand the horror tag. A few dead bodies and some violence, does not equal horror to me. For romance fans out there, sorry but there is no romance. Hester is queer and talks a little about her past fling with a non-binary secondary character, she obviously cares about, but there are no explicit sex scenes or even kissing.

In the end I would recommend this to sci-fi fans and murder mystery fans. If you like how murder mysteries unfold, slow but steady, than really ramp up at the end, I think you will like the feel of this book. For the most part I enjoyed Wallace’s writing and I would definitely read her again.

Dead Space by Kali Wallace | 02 Mar 2021|Berkley Publishing Group

So you’ve watched the last episode of The Expanse and are going crazy waiting for the final book, Leviathan Falls, probably in October. Take heart. Kali Wallace, who proved her space opera chops in Salvation Day (2019) is back with a terrific piece of space noir in which an investigator gets caught up in finding a friend’s killer, and uncovers far more than she bargained for in an asteroid colony.

Hester Marley didn’t plan on being a corporate rent-a-cop/data analyst out in the asteroid belt. What she planned on was doing AI research in a colony of the best and brightest she was on the way to help build, along with her prodigy AI, Vanguard, affectionately known as Bug because of its favorite praying mantis shape. But a terrorist attack on the colony ship left her badly injured, her work destroyed, and her colleagues dead, except for a lucky few. The corporation that rescued her gave her cybernetic prosthetics to replace a damaged leg, arm, and eye…and gave her the bill for each. To pay off her debt, they offered her a job doing data analysis on an investigative team, so she spends her days sorting through illegal porn, surveillance videos, and whatever there is to find on suspect’s personal devices.

Until she hears from a fellow survivor in a message that tells her he’s found something wrong but can’t say what. No surprise then, that he winds up dead and Hester gets herself assigned to the investigative team and is soon on her way to a mining asteroid where everyone lies to her and nothing is what it seems. She’ll have to dig into her own past to get to the root of the mysteries there, and a friend’s murder is just the tip of the iceberg.

This is a good yarn, more Miller than Holden( if you’re an Expanse watcher). It’s held back a bit by Hester’s willful isolation from her teammates: a med-tech she’s had a relationship with; a lawyer with impeccable genetic and corporate credentials; and a former Martian activist that plotted sabotage during the Earth=Mars conflict, now a not-too-distant memory. Readers won’t be surprised to find that AIs can turn bad, corporations are bad by nature, and lawyers are lawyers wherever you go, except sometimes you get lucky.

There’s room for another book or two, and I found this interesting enough that I’d like to follow some of those threads.

The nitty-gritty: A thrilling, sci-fi horror mystery with plenty of twists, Dead Space is a superb novel and is destined to be one of my favorite books of 2021. 

It’s hard to believe, but Dead Space is my first five-star read of 2021, and folks, it’s a good one. Hold onto your hats because Kali Wallace’s latest has all the sci-fi mystery goodness of Six Wakes combined with the terrifying, pulse-pounding horror of Alien. I knew it would be hard to top one of my favorite “locked room” sci-fi thrillers—Mur Lafferty’s Six Wakes is one I still think about four years later—but Dead Space comes damn close. This book has it all: complex characters and relationships, some timely social commentary, plenty of exciting action and a bunch of twists and misdirection that kept me guessing for a large chunk of the story.

The story centers around an asteroid belt controlled by a mining company called Parthenope Enterprises. Hester Marley is an AI expert who was part of an exploration crew headed toward the planet Titan. But their ship, the Symposium, was hijacked and destroyed enroute to the planet, and nearly everyone aboard was killed in the explosion, including Vanguard, the remarkable AI that Hester helped build. Hester herself barely escaped with her life and required extensive surgeries in order to survive, which included a prosthetic leg, arm, ear and eye. Parthenope agreed to pay all her medical bills, but in exchange Hester must work for them as a security officer for five years in order to pay off her debts.

Hester is only one year into her servitude when she receives a private video message from her old friend David Prussenko, who also survived the Symposium disaster. David is part of a small crew on the asteroid Nimue, a robotics genius whose job as sysadmin lets him work with Nimue’s Overseer, the AI that manages the station's operations. The message is odd and doesn’t make sense, and Hester immediately senses that David might be trying to tell her something. Her fears are confirmed when only days later, she’s assigned to investigate a murder on Nimue—and David is the victim.

Hester arrives on Nimue with the rest of the investigative team, including Parthenope lawyer Hugo von Arendonk and Martian investigator Adisa. They begin questioning the remaining crew members—it had to be one of the crew, since Nimue is a remote station with barely any outside contact—but it doesn’t take long before their investigation turns up a number of anomalies in the station's communications and electrical grids. As Hester, Hugo and Adisa delve further into the strange secrets that the crew seems to be hiding, they begin to realize the extent of the mystery. Something big is going down on Nimue, and David was most likely killed because of it.

Dead Space is such a well written, perfectly paced book, and I don’t get to say that very often. It grabbed me from the first page and never let up, even during its quieter moments. It starts out as a murder mystery but quickly turns into something else, and I was blown away by how layered and thrilling this story was. Wallace is also great at misdirection. She convinces you of one thing and then pulls the rug out from under you, and you only have moments to recover before the next surprise. There were quite a few twists and I loved every one of them. I will say I had an inkling of what one of the big twists was, but guessing it ahead of time only made the experience more enjoyable. I wish I could talk to you about so much more, but I do not want to spoil anything!

All of this is great, but a story without heart and emotion doesn’t go too far for me. Luckily I needn’t have worried. I absolutely loved the flashbacks where Hester and David are working with Vanguard aboard the Symposium. Vanguard is almost like a child to them, as they are teaching it how to explore and grow, and knowing that the AI was lost in the explosion cut me to the bone. 

Earlier I compared this book to Alien, and although I’m not going into specifics because of spoilers, I did want to mention how scary the story is at times. Wallace has created a claustrophobic, gritty environment that rivaled the ship on Alien, and I seriously could not turn the pages fast enough!

I loved the characters too. Hester is such a multilayered character, and if you’re looking for disability rep in your reading, then you need to read this book. She’s been through a lot, and Wallace does a great job of filling in her past without taking anything away from the story in the present. Even with advanced medical technology and the ability to rebuild a person with traumatic injuries, Hester is forced to deal with her prosthetic limbs on a daily basis. Her leg hurts if she does too much, her left shoulder is always sore, and even her eye has glitches now and then. She faces some big physical challenges in this book—I mean half the time she’s running away from something that’s trying to kill her!—but she doesn't let her pain stop her. And her physical challenges are only one thing she’s dealing with. Her dreams were shattered when the Symposium disaster took everything away from her, and she's become bitter and unhappy because of that. Not every reader is going to like Hester—sometimes her anger at her situation takes over and affects the choices she makes—but I thought she was authentic and believable, and I ended up really relating to her.

The rest of the cast of characters are just as engaging, and I thought it was a fantastic ensemble. There’s Adisa, the soft-spoken Martian who is trying to do his job while dealing with racism; Sighra, the brash, unfriendly leader of Nimue who is clearly hiding something, and Mary Ping, the other sysadmin who worked with David and whose robotic coolness suggests she knows way more than she’s telling.

Wallace includes some timely issues in her story. Part of the backstory is that there was a war between humans and Martians, and things are still tense between the two groups. The author uses this rift to show how racism against Martians is still an ongoing issue, and including a Martian character in her story was a great way to illustrate that fact. For me, the Martians’ plight reminded me of the horrors faced by Jewish people during World War II, and it was definitely one of the more sobering elements of the story.

I absolutely loved the hell out of this book, in case you haven’t guessed by now. I believe Dead Space is a standalone, and the ending wraps up perfectly (with a nice emotional surprise no less!), and yet I want to know what happens next! Such is the curse of finding such an excellent story with no planned sequel. With this book, Kali Wallace has secured a spot on my “must read” list, and I can hardly wait to see what she does next.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.

After a life-altering that left her stranded, AI researcher Hester Marley is forced into a dead-end security job working for a powerful mining company in the outer reaches of space. Instead of working on an exploration team filled with the brightest scientific minds, she now spends her days watching surveillance footage and investigating petty crimes. Out of the blue, an old friend and fellow victim of the fateful attack contacts her with a strange message claiming to have discovered something shocking. But before Hester can even begin to figure out what the message was about, she learns that said friend had been violently murdered that day. Now Hester has to unravel both the sinister meaning of the message and a murder mystery aboard a remote asteroid mine.

Dead Space was so engrossing from start to finish! There were many twists and turns in the plot that all caught me by surprise. Not much happens before 50%, mainly just questioning the crew aboard the Parthenope asteroid mine after Hester's old friend and colleague was murdered. Even then it was still intriguing since I could just tell something wasn't right with the dodgy crew. From there everything is ramped up to eleven and just takes off at a breakneck speed until the end. I just didn't want to put it down!

I loved how it touched on topics like the ethics and morality of AI, the future of capitalism, and what space would look like if monopolized by wealthy corporations. There was also great LGBTQIA+ rep throughout the book with casual mentions of same-sex relationships, a lesbian main character, and a non-binary supporting character.

The ending leaves room for a sequel as well, so I hope the author decides to revisit this world and Hester because a new, smart sci-fi thriller series would be amazing.