Murder on the Interstellar Express is a humorous sci-fi novel by Gregory D. Little. It is scheduled to be published in September 2024. This review is intended to be free of spoilers, but none of us are perfect. An advance copy of the ebook was provided. There are affiliate links at the end of this review.
Blurb:
In the face of an existential threat to her world—an impending alien invasion—Bell Beauregard does something unprecedented: her job. She’s rewarded by being labeled a traitor, sentenced to indentured servitude, and shipped off-world on a half-built colony ship being used as an escape hatch for the rich and powerful.
Bell is woken from cryosleep as part of an emergency maintenance crew, but before she even has a chance to shirk her duties or flirt with the enticing Tas, things go full “oh, f#*$ me!” when a fellow prisoner is brutally murdered and Bell is the most obvious suspect. To have any chance with Tas—and, like, clear her name and stuff—Bell must begrudgingly solve the murder.
But false accusations, unrequited romance, and having to make an effort are the least of Bell’s concerns. Because the killer isn’t content to stop at one victim. And if Bell can’t unravel the mystery, the only way to prove her innocence may be to turn up dead.
Review:
I was a couple of pages into this book when I decided that I didn’t like it. The tone felt a bit all over the place and the sci-fi buzzwords and clumsy tech-talk were kicking around in abundance. I’m glad I stuck it out, though. I didn’t care for the opening, wherein the main character is introduced and she is given a reason for being on the ship. Once we get onto the ship, however, things pick up hugely.
It’s not the first book with an offputting opening. One of my favourite novels is the Scottish classic, Sunset Song, and it has an introduction that I recommend people skip and then return to later. The opening pages of To Kill a Mockingbird aren’t great either, and that book goes on to soar. Sometimes these stories take a bit of setting up, or are slow to get off the ground.
Once we’re on the ship, the Ultima Thule, we are immediately a claustrophobic world of intrigue, murder, and humour; all delivered via compelling, interesting, and distinct characters. The characters are the real strength of this novel. Our no-nonsense protagonist, Bell, is sentenced to indentured servitude aboard the hastily-built Ultima Thule colony ship and the subsequent colony that will follow. Her dry humour and determination make her relatable, as she jokes and flirts her way through the story. Whilst the characters of Tas, Fault, and Xian are also very interesting to me, my favourite secondary character is the Ultima Thule itself, or rather the ship’s biological brain. Given that the ship launched early, it wasn’t quite ready and so has a quirky personality that seems to flip between coy and arch at a moment’s notice. I’ll come back to that.
The central mystery of the novel is well constructed. Regular readers know I like a good investigation, and have written at length about structuring them for investigative roleplay. The pacing of the investigation feels spot-on and escalation and progress, when they occur, feel earned.
Dialogue is very well done, and characters have their own clear, unique personalities. Interactions between characters feel genuine, and take those personalities into account. The interactions with the ship’s brain are the most interesting ones, especially as it starts to show signs of strain and the faults in the ship become more apparent. I did say I’d return to this character. This is a blog that is primarily about tabletop gaming, and in this character, I see elements of a more adolescent version of Paranoia’s Friend Computer. I’d love to run a game of Paranoia based on this book. I think it would work really well as a solid Paranoia one-shot.
The ending is a little drawn out and perhaps a little much. I think that things could have ended a little more simply, or a little sooner and the book would have been better for it. Still, I see what the author wants to do, and it does work, even if it’s a little Altered Carbon.
If you’d told me at the start of this novel that I’d have been rating it 4 stars, I wouldn’t have believed you, but I had a lot of fun with this book, and I didn’t want to leave the Ultima Thule by the end. I didn’t realise when reading it that it was going to be a series. I’m happy to see that.
Rating: 4/5
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