Karen Osborne

Okay, I get why this has so many positive reviews. Whew. It's definitely above average.

We get a few other points of view, but Ash is our MC, and she's been poisoned by what she used to mine, the material that makes the spaceships go, and she's hiding the effects--this is in the opening scene. From there, it gets a LOT more complicated with bad and worse choices in a universe of corporations using indentured humans vs. an alien enemy no one understands. The tactile nature of the prose is great. The underlying hatred of corporations appealed to me. I adored what the author did with the aliens, that part is a solid five stars, omg.

Where it lacks for me is in one or two Earth-based similes the MC can't know, and in some of the more extremely over-the-top descriptions later on. I mean, what's happening called for it, but it wasn't as coherent as I prefer, so that was distracting for me, at critical points. I'm not sure I'll read the rest of the series, but it could happen. Where this one ends, is... Oof. But oddly satisfying.… (meer)

I agree with most of both the positive and negative comments posted already. Osborne does a good job of bringing us into Ash's world in medias res and quickly settling us in to it. Ash is well-drawn as the protagonist, though the subsidiary characters are at this point more set-pieces.

There are a ton of well-established tropes in the plot--evil corporations, luckless but resourceful peons, alien technology, "special" characters bordering on Messiahs.

What will become the backbone of the series, I imagine, is the aliens, and they, so far, do NOT look to be straight out of central casting.

A good debut with corners cut where you might expect corners to be cut in a first novel, but I'll read number 2.… (meer)

"Architects of Memory," the first half of this duo, impressed me with its tale of dystopian corporate government in space involved in a "forever war" with an incomprehensible alien civilization. This novel shifts the focus, as we follow Natalie Chan, true believer in the corporate order, from loyal soldier to vindictive rebel. The opening and close are great, the process of getting there I didn't always find convincing, but I'd still argue that these books are worth your time, and I look forward to what Ms. Osborne comes up with next.… (meer)