Space Opera Fans discussion

The April 2022 Reader Pick is Stars and Bones by Gareth L. Powell. Please use this thread to post questions, comments, and reviews, at any time.

Official description:
From the multi BSFA award-winner comes a stunningly inventive action-packed science-fiction epic adventure. A brand-new series for fans of Becky Chambers and Ann Leckie.

Seventy-five years from today, the human race has been cast from a dying Earth to wander the stars in a vast fleet of arks—each shaped by its inhabitants into a diverse and fascinating new environment, with its own rules and eccentricities.

When her sister disappears while responding to a mysterious alien distress call, Eryn insists on being part of the crew sent to look for her. What she discovers on Candidate-623 is both terrifying and deadly. When the threat follows her back to the fleet and people start dying, she is tasked with seeking out a legendary recluse who may just hold the key to humanity’s survival.

The initial story with the Angel of Benevolence and the arkships setting was extremely interesting and for me that was the best part of this book. And the talking cat and envoys were another very interesting part too.

However, the rest of the plot wasn't very original and the characters didn't have anything really distinctive that made me really care about what would happen to them.

This would perhaps have been more engaging if I would have picked this book as one of my first space opera books, but for someone who has read a lot of space opera this does not have enough novelty. I will though try more books by this author in the near future.

I was disappointed in this book. I have read other books by the author before, and I was expecting a lot more.

The premise is pretty cool, I loved the idea of humanity travelling through space in a giant convoy. I loved the idea of the Angel. The opening with the Furious Ocelot hating having passengers reminded me of the Culture novels, like maybe the ship would be like Mawhrin-Skel from The Player of Games.

And then it all just seemed to be thrown together in a hurry. Furious Ocelot has no more issues carting around passengers for the rest of the book, Eryn bounced from emotional outburst to emotional outburst without really developing a character, I didn't care about any of the other characters. It took me ages to finish, because I could only read a bit at a time without getting annoyed.

Leticia wrote: "The initial story with the Angel of Benevolence and the arkships setting was extremely interesting and for me that was the best part of this book. And the talking cat and envoys were another very i..."

agreed about the cat