Station Eternity blends several genres together, with enough worldbuilding to keep me interested from start to finish. Set in the near future soon after Earth has made first contact with aliens, the book's main character has a strange habit of frequently being near murders when they happen and often helping in investigations. But the constant trauma has caused Mallory Viridian to seek isolation from other humans. Unfortunately for her, that isolation is coming to an end.
Mallory has been near over a dozen murders in her life, but rarely does anyone believe her when she claims to be a catalyst for these deaths. Oh, she knows she doesn't directly cause a jealous wife to kill, or a cousin to commit homicide, but she can't help but feel like her proximity to these people is what causes their various motives to come to a head. That is why she fled Earth and sought sanctuary on Station Eternity, a sentient space station that has granted her asylum.
While Eternity has a wide variety of aliens living on it, there are only two other humans, Ambassador Adrian Casserly-Berry and an ex-military officer whom Mallory knows named Xan Morgan. The Ambassador is on the station to try and convince it to allow humans to join the population and start their first foray into intergalactic traveling. Xan is there in hiding because he is a suspect in a murder that both Xan and Mallory were present for, and, quite frankly, it doesn't look good for Xan's innocence, since he was abducted by aliens before the officials could question him.
Mallory has spent months on Eternity and the murders haven't followed her into space. While she isn't exactly living her best life, she at least can relax some, that is, until she learns that a shipload of humans will soon arrive since the station has finally agreed to start up trade and tourism. Despite her protests, the ship is allowed to get close to Eternity, and almost immediately, there is a death on the station.
Ren, Station Eternity's symbiote, is killed and in the commotion that occurs just after the administrator's death, Eternity launches an attack at the incoming human ship. Mallory and Xan head out in Xan's shuttle to rescue any survivors and bring them to safety. Unfortunately, only about half of the ship's passengers survive, and these aren't the last deaths to happen as a result of these events.
With humans once again in close proximity to Mallory, and more deaths happening around her, Mallory feels her isolation is violated, but she is also compelled to help work out the series of events that have just happened. While the chief questions she needs to answer surround Ren's death and Eternity's attack, she knows more questions will come. She also knows one more thing based on her years of experience dealing with unusual murders, unexpected connections will be revealed. Even before knowing who is on the human ship, Mallory suspects that there will be some unexpected, and maybe even unknown, links between those passengers and the inhabitants of Station Eternity, and those connections will be the key to solving the mysteries around her.
Station Eternity: The Midsolar Murders - Book 1 is a fun launchpad for an interesting new world. Lafferty has done some intriguing worldbuilding that puts humans in a strange place with a lot of different races with which to interact. I found it odd that not only does Station Eternity solve the murders started in this story, it also resolves a few other mysteries surrounding Mallory, all elements that could have been dragged out and teased at over the course of several books. I'm curious to see where Lafferty takes Mallory and the world around her, because this novel feels like it could be the culmination of Mallory's troubles, but if this is the start of a series and not the end, then I have a feeling Mallory's problems are only just getting started. Regardless, I can't wait for the next installment of The Midsolar Murders to see how things progress.
