Cover image from Goodreads.com
Dorothy Gentleman is on a generational ship, 300 years into a 1,000 year journey, and has placed herself in her memory book where she can rest in the library for a while. She awakens in someone else’s body instead of in a blank, which tips her off that there might be a problem.
As she acclimatizes to the body, she sets out to solve a murder. Murders happen on the ship, although not too often since the person can just be put right back into a blank body, and as the ship’s detective it’s up to Dorothy to solve them.
It might help if the ship wasn’t drunk from the magnetic storm, though.
This is a novella, only 100 small pages, barely enough time to really get to know the characters or setting. As I read and found out the motive for murder, I found my head spinning as I couldn’t quite track the information. There were too many characters mentioned and not enough development of them to have them fully root in my mind. I feel like this book could use a little more padding, a few more hints about the financial aspects of the ship, for the payoff of the motive to be satisfying.
Otherwise, this was a delightful read, one that I did in one evening, and I’d read more by this author. This is the first in the Dorothy Gentleman series, so I have some more novellas to look forward to.
Should Be Writing 