SPACE OPERA FANS GATHER 'ROUND

Gloriously queer cast of dreamers, liars, and killers. What more could you want?

Maybe a little more character development but I really loved it. Hope there's more to come.

(From my online review)
"Overall author Stina Leicht did a phenomenal job writing this book. Persephone Station is a must-read, that I would personally recommend to anyone no matter what genre they normally read. I’m looking forward to a future where more books become as inclusive and exciting to read as this novel."

https://culturess.com/2021/01/13/queer-woman-perspective-persephone-station/

I HAVE TO WRITE THIS REVIEW IN ALL CAPS. WHY, YOU ASK? WELL, IT'S BECAUSE I WANT TO SCREAM HOW MUCH I LOVED THIS STORY. MAGIC. WHO DOESN'T ENJOY A STORY WITH MAGIC? I FOUND THE CHARACTERIZATIONS REALISTIC AND RELATABLE. THE PLOT HELD ME THE ENTIRE TIME. I THOROUGHLY ENJOYED THE BOOK IN ITS ENTIRETY. I STRONGLY RECOMMEND IT.

Featured in early 2021 Anticipated Reads
PERSEPHONE STATION by Stina Leicht

This dark and gritty space opera is unapologetically queer, rooted in feminism, and unexpectedly emotional. I was drawn in by the world-building–which takes a bit of time, but is truly worth it to understand this world–and had to know how these unexpected allies would figure out how to work together to beat an unfathomable common enemy and save the planet in the process.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Persephone Station is a space saga that follows many different points of view, all of them female/nonbinary. It's interesting to see a sci-fi story told from so many female perspectives, as well as from different species perspectives. It's the story of the big bad humans purchasing a planet that wasn't every really for sale and trying to cover up the indigenous life forms(who just so happen to be able to shape shift, even into a human form). There is so much to unbox in this storyline and I don't want to spoil anything so this summary may feel a little.lacking, but it's on purpose.

While the characters were interesting enough to keep me reading, the indigenous species that you begin the story with begins to feel like an incomplete thought by the end. There is so much more focus on the Mercenary, Angel, and her crew that even when they are with the Emissaries (pretty great name for what these aliens are) you don't really get to know them. I guess I wish it would have been more about who and what the Emissaries are then more focused on the human aspect. Humans are kinda boring, gimme aliens every time. As soon as we began learning more about the Emissaries, we completely switch gears off to another storyline and leave them completely behind.

Overall, this one just wasn't great for me, but to be fair, I'm more of a fantasy reader. Space books have to have a pretty great hook on order to attract me and while this has a solid story, I just wish it had more aliens.

I received an e-arc of this via NetGalley (thank you!) and all opinions are my own.

3.5 Stars.
This book starts off running full speed ahead. You get a wonderful cast of characters who are diverse, there is a main character, Rosie, who is nonbinary which is always good to see. I can't personally speak on the representation of Rosie, as I am not nonbinary.

I was really enjoy how quickly paced this was, the plot was intriguing, although fuzzy at times, and the middle definitely slowed down exponentially with its pacing. For a bit, nothing was really clear, which was frustrating to me as reader. I wasn't sure where our plot was going, what the characters had in way of motivation, and the world building felt a little bit lackluster in the middle part. When there <i>were</i> action scenes, it was very much "Angel did this. Angel went here. Angel shot this," and I am very much someone who enjoys being shown over being told, so some of the action scenes felt slower than they should've due to the repetitive nature of how actions were told.

The ending is what really saved this one for me. Had it not been as exciting, I would probably have given this book a 3 star rating, which is a solid book on my scale, that may have had just that something missing that didn't make it great to me personally.

Overall, it was very enjoyable, I liked seeing the diversity in the characters, though I wish I had gotten to know some of them better along the way. I think that world building could use a little bit of help in some areas, and the slowness of the middle was truly made up for due to the last 75-100 pages of this one.

I'd recommend it to those who enjoy Firefly and diversity in their science fiction books!
Thanks again to NetGalley for the e-arc to read and review.

En algunas películas pasa, pero es rara la ocasión en la que los personajes secundarios se comen cada escena en la que aparecen en un libro, ya que se supone que el autor tiene más control sobre lo que escribe. Sin embargo, en Persephone Station me llamaban mucho más la atención las tramas secundarias que la historia principal, aunque esta no careciera de interés. Y tampoco os dejéis engañar por el título, porque lo que es en la estación espacial propiamente dicha tampoco es que transcurra la mayor parte del libro.


Sentía mucha curiosidad por el salto a la ciencia ficción de Stina Leitch, una autora hasta ahora más centrada en la fantasía. Y no le ha sentado nada mal el cambio, porque consigue ofrecernos una obra muy entretenida con personajes con los que empatizar y cierto aire de western fronterizo espacial que es de agradecer.

Uno de los aspectos destacables de la panoplia de personajes que Leitch despliega ante nosotros son sus variadas orientaciones sexuales, algo que está tratado con total naturalidad y se integra de forma orgánica en la narración. El hecho de que se cuente desde tres puntos de vista diferentes que se van entrelazando también favorece el ritmo de lectura, aunque he de reconocer que no todas las narradoras tenían el mismo interés para mí, porque una de ellas en particular destaca especialmente sobre todas las demás. No sé si será porque su intrahistoria está más trabajada o simplemente resulta más interesante, pero es algo que merece la pena destacar.

Persephone Station se puede enmarcar dentro de la corriente de ciencia ficción optimista que parece ser tendencia en estos momentos. Por supuesto que hay confrontación, enfrentamientos militares y alguna que otra muerte, pero el tono general es esperanzador, como si las buenas acciones que se llevan a cabo pudieran desequilibrar la balanza hacia el lado de la comprensión y la aceptación de las diferencias inherentes a una cultura alienígena.

Porque sí, también hay aliens en este libro, además de alguna que otra sorpresa que no desvelaré pero que es totalmente de mi gusto. El hecho de que estos aliens tengan una biología un tanto atípica y moldeable permite a Leitch jugar con las relaciones con los demás personajes, bastante facilitadas por su capacidad de tomar formas humanas. En este caso es la otra especie la que se adapta a nosotros para facilitar la comunicación.

Aunque no he encontrado ninguna referencia sobre si este libro es el primero de una serie o no, no me importaría volver a ver a estos personajes en acción. Es una novela perfectamente auto-conclusiva, no me malinterpretéis, pero se les coge cariño a los protagonistas, por lo que otra historia con estos tendría una buena acogida.

This was the most enjoyable, least sad/depressing Sci-Fi novel I’ve read in years. I enjoyed the concept, the diverse characters, the well-crafted battle scenes, and most of all, the humor. There are scenes of loss and grief, but Leicht does a great job of interspersing those heavy, emotional moments with humor, to give the reader space to breathe. After several dark, sad reads, I appreciated the levity and the joy. It really feels like Leicht had fun writing this. I look forward to what she does next.

There were so many things that I liked about this book but there were also areas where I thought it felt flat.
I really loved that we had a female-driven cast. But we were also in a normalized queer world so nonbinary characters, and mentions of same-sex romances, were also the norm. I love a world, especially in sci-fi, where being queer is not out of the ordinary.
We also had 'aliens.' Although since humans live on their planet, I guess we are the aliens. And AI!

However, I felt like the author tried to add too much to the story and so I was always wanting these elements to be more fleshed out. Besides one non-binary side character who I really liked, other instances of non-binary characters seemed like throw-aways. We would be informed that there were men, women, and non-binary people in the group without a real introduction to them and so it felt like the characters were judging gender based on appearances.

I wanted to know more about the AI as well. I felt like we got surface-level info and backstory on the main AI, but no other characters really got to know them as a person, and so I didn't either.
I also really wanted to know more about Angel's past. The bits and pieces that we got about her time in the military were so intriguing since it seemed like they had lots of world-building and technological advancements within it. But we never got more than mentions of her past.

I also really liked the action sequences, but I felt that the ending was too abrupt. How did it all come together? I truly couldn't tell you. It just ended.

I really did like the writing style of the book, but I didn't feel like I got to connect to the story and characters as much as I would have hoped.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing the E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Persephone Station by Stina Leicht is a dark queer space opera that will appeal to Firefly fans. The story has that same sort of found family/mercenaries type vibe. Stina Leicht, known for her short story work and The Fey and the Fallen and the series The Malrum Gates, brings us her first full science fiction novel in Persephone Station.

"Why do you think, bitch?" His accent was pure West Brynner. A local. That could mean many things. "If you're here for a robbery, you picked the wrong damned apartment, asshole. Drop the knife."

The story stars Angel de la Reza, an ex-marine thrice revived head of a band of criminals for hire. Reza is a deep and sympathetic character. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, there are certain Firefly tones to this story. Angel reminds me a bit like Malcolm Reynolds. She is gruff, gritty, with a complicated backstory, who once adopts you into her motley crew, you become family. Angel and her team take a job and are framed for an assassination that they don't do. They may steal from you, kill you if you look at them wrong, but assassination something they won't do.

Angel, as well as her crew, are forced to flee the station. Rosie, a sympathetic crime lord, has a different idea for them. Protect the planet from another from the Serrao-Orlov corporation that is a front for another crime lord. Things get complicated as they meet the indigenous people of the planet and find out that this isn't just a protection job, but they will have to fight an army of mechs, drones, and other ships. There are quite a few shooting, explosions, and battle scenes to balance the dialog and quieter moments.

"The question was rhetorical. They knew why it had been done. Intimidation. But they had a powerful need to verbalize even a small piece of outrage. It was like puking up the tiniest bit of poison. The end was inevitable—the toxin had done its work, but the impulse was unstoppable nonetheless."

This book is full of wonderful space opera moments. The plot is very character-driven. The cast of characters is almost entirely female, non-binary, or gender-neutral. As someone who reads a ton of space opera, I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to see BIPOC or non-binary individuals as strong characters.

The world-building in Persephone Station is unique. It has the feel of an old west frontier but in space. There is an outlaw type feel over all of the descriptions. The planet that Angel's team works to protect seems very Earth-like; however, the indigenous people and creatures are very imaginative. Especially the aliens and how they communicate. It reminded me a bit like Adrian Tchaikovski's Children of Time series, where the spiders rely heavily on scent as a means of communication.

"Rage, pride, and avarice, Rosie thought. Three of the seven deadly sins. A great fall after such an auspicious start."

The pacing was uneven in the story, and that is my only complaint. The beginning of the story had some exciting fight scenes. They were exceptionally well done, with a little bit of gore. However, the pacing slowed down a bit. The middle portion of the story seemed to be holding its breath before the big finale. I would have liked a bit more transition between the beginning and the end. But, once you got to the last part of the book, everything came together beautifully. The different characters' perspectives made sense, and the ending had an unexpected twist, which was fun.

Persephone Station was a great read. From beginning to end, even with the plot slowing down a bit, I still couldn't put the book down. The characters are dynamic, and the found family trope is always excellent, and that cover was gorgeous. If that cover doesn't make you want to read this book, the opening two chapters will. If you are looking for a space opera with BIPOC and queer representation, this is your book. Check it out!

Persephone Station
Stina Leicht, 2021
New Release! A digital copy of this book was provided by Netgalley for the purpose of review.

Premise: There's only one human settlement on the planet Persephone, but there's a secret outside the city that some would kill to possess and some would die to protect.

This is one of those books that I regret to say was only fine. The cast has a great level of diversity in race, gender expression, and sexual orientation. However, the book is no more than an okay sci-fi action caper.

The first chapter is really a prologue, but because it wasn't marked as such, I was confused when we never returned to following that character. (They do show up as a minor character much later, but by that point, I'd forgotten which character that was.) The secondary protagonist is the subject of the second chapter, and we finally meet the main character in chapter 3. She's fine, but nothing really stands out about her.

That feeling was my main problem with the book - that there's a promising premise, but everything is underwhelming in execution. The mercenary characters help protect an alien city, but the action is nothing special. The aliens are implied to be special in lots of mysterious ways, but all we learn by the end is that they have advanced medicine, talk with smell, and are shapeshifters. It's neat, but it's not unique or dealt with in enough depth to be engrossing.

There's a lot of references to the criminal underworld of the main human city, but we don't really see anything else in human society, so it just seems like a generic cyberpunk tone. There's another plot following an AI character, but we barely return to her perspective once her plot line coincides with the others. Overall the ending is unsatisfying; the intended emotional payoffs don't quite land. There are so many characters that I never felt compelled by any of them. The book is called "Persephone Station," but we never hear anything about the station until it's suddenly the setting for the final climax.

Overall it's a decent read, I swear it is, but I wish it were more than that.

2 Stars - An Okay Book (although I'm tempted to give it a bonus star for doing a decent job with the challenge of writing a character who uses they/them pronouns)

(P.S. I really REALLY hope that the "uncorrected proof" warning was true for this book. I got an advance copy, and there were an unusual number of typos, even for an advance copy.)

I’ve been working on a backlog of Hugo Award Winners to see the pinnacle of Sci-fi each year. While the storytelling has been inventive, generally speaking it’s a boys only club. Leicht flips this standard on its head with an all female mercenary crew, tasked with saving a native race from a enterprising corporation bent on their destruction.

Set in world with constant Seattle-style rainstorms, we follow Angel as she and her crew take out a mob boss. This routine hit sets off a chain of events which has the crew running for their lives. This book has all the spectacular otherworldly tension with mysterious backstories, lost honor and deep loyalty. I liked Leicht’s modernization - having characters be aware of pronouns, discussions on agency, artificial intelligence and women having a family and a career.

Despite the updated characters, aspects of the plotting and backgrounds were clunky. Angel’s backstory reveal was covered too quickly to hit any emotional depth. And there were flipping loyalties mid-battle which didn’t get a thorough explanation. The planet’s native race was fascinating, and I wanted to learn more about them. At points, this book felt like the second installment in a trilogy rather than a stand alone novel.

Overall, this was a fun space romp with delightfully strong women. Despite a few bumps, it’s worth the trip.

Persephone Station is a solid 3 out of 5 stars, meaning I enjoyed it overall, but there were some issues. For the first 35%-ish of the book, I was moreover confused by some of the world-building and character development. This is longer than it usually takes me to make connections within a new world (whether that’s science fiction or fantasy) and I had to take lots of notes. Around the 40% mark is where the plot really started to take off and make more sense. If you can get through the slog of the beginning, you will be rewarded with some very fast paced and interesting developments and action.

I really enjoyed the main story line and main group of characters. I feel like the author took her time in creating the characters are really developing unique personalities for all of them that do come through in the writing. We also have a lot of diversity in gender, sexuality, and ethnicity in the story. The one complaint I have with the characters is there is one in particular where her story arc doesn’t seem to fit and is at times confusing or needed to be more fleshed out until the very end when it finally connected. I feel like upon re-reading, I may rate this higher knowing this and being less confused throughout the novel.

All in all, I did enjoy this. The world was unique and interesting. I feel life fans of Martha Well’s Murderbot Diaries may enjoy this one.

The premise and amazing cover art drew me to this book.

It was definitely a slow starter and rewarded patients. Lots of set up and back story.

All in all it was a fun space opera that tackled social issues of today.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC for an honest review.

When I read the synopsis of Persephone Station, I was automatically hooked. A science fiction space opera with an all female crew? Heck yes! It took me a minute to get to the book, but I was excited nonetheless once I started.

The first 1/3 of the book was a slog to get through. We're being introduced to the characters, the planet of Persephone, and some world building. For a book that introduced a brand new planet with its own indigenous people, there appeared to be very little world building around Persephone as a whole. We also got very little history on the government of the book and how politics play a role in everything. Everything was just there and we were supposed to accept what we were given as readers.

We also get very little backstory of the characters. The only two characters we get extensive backstory are Rosie and Kennedy. A little bit of Vissia as well since her storyline intertwines with Rosie's but other than that, we know little about Angel, Enid, and Lou except that they were in the military together. I don't remember why Angel was every exiled from her home planet, but I believe that's because it was never said. It was just part of Angel's history. Lou and Enid were even worse. They had no backstory at all, and this made it really hard to get invested into the characters. It didn't mean that I wasn't rooting for them, but I found myself uncaring if they survived or not.

Once we get through all the setting up of the plot and the action, it was a pretty quick read from there. I really did like Angel as a character, and the comradery between her and the others reminded me very much of the characters in Firefly. I actually got a lot of Firefly vibes, minus the inherent sexism, racism, and Jane's boner for guns. The characters themselves were pretty diverse regarding race, ethnicity, gender identify, and sexual orientation. The beautiful thing about this book was that none of it mattered. These people were more than their sexual identities and gender identity and the author didn't let all of that bog the story down.

I enjoyed the book, and it was a pretty fun and easy read. The ending was a bit anti-climatic especially for the lead up to that pivotal moment, and I kind of hate that we didn't get Kennedy's POV during that moment since she was the integral in that scene. It wasn't enough to lower the score for me, but I did hope for more. If you like SF stuff with a kickass all women crew, this book is for you.

Persephone Station is an often overlooked planet that has suddenly come to the attention of a large corporation. It turns out that there are natural resources that have only recently been discovered. Rosie owns Monk's Bar in the corporate town. This bar is frequented by criminals and their ilk. Rosie asks Angel, the head of a group of assorted outcasts, mercenaries etc. to do a job for them. This group uncovers secrets about Persephone Station and in turn decide to do what they can to protect the planet from the intentions of the big corporation. Like a lot of other sci-fi & space operas, there are AIs with attitudes and AIs longing to be human.

So, this is a space opera with a large cast of mostly female or gender non-binary characters (yay!). There is also a lot of cultural representation here (yay!). There are themes about protecting indigenous residents. There is so much here that I should love. However, this book didn't quite click with me. There was almost a bit too much going on for me. There were a lot of characters to keep track of and despite the length of the book, I don't feel like I was given enough info to really get to know them. The writing was good, and there was lots of action, I just personally would've loved more character development.

This is a book about power and corporate colonialism with a lot of backwater planet, less-than-legal activities and squads, an AI, and secretive aliens. Rosie is a lot time bar-owner and leader of one of the controlling criminal bands in the Persephone's single human settlement. We quickly learn that they may be hiding something and are involved in a lot that a simple bar owner wouldn't typically be. Angel is a ex-soldier and a leader of a small band of criminals for hire. When Rosie hires them to do a job, things quickly spiral out of control.

This is a fun read. It's being compared to a romp similar to Firefly and the Mandalorian. And if you go in with that mindset, it's definitely good. There is a lot going on in this book and there are so many hints to a vibrant wider world, despite being focused pretty narrowly around our characters. There is a lot of action, some cool scifi elements, aliens, space station, an artificial intelligence. There is a definitely some info-dumping, sometimes it's hard to follow what's happening due to the writing style, but this is definitely a fun action-y one.

This book is also full of women and non-binary folks! While the representation wasn't perfectly done, its nice to see an attempt. Looking forward to more.

Thank you to @gallerybooks @sagasff and @netgalley for an e-copy of this book in exchange for a review!

I must say that what pulled me on this originally was that cover! Kudos to that desing. Now sci-fi books ussually are not my cup of tea, *but* I really enjoyed this one!

I was provided an advanced digital copy of the book from the publisher via Netgalley for review purposes, all opinions are my own.

Persephone Station was a fast-paced book filled with action-packed sequences and a diverse cast of characters. I enjoyed most of the book, but the pacing was too slow for my liking. Additionally, the novel included so many storylines that I could not keep up with all the characters. This, coupled with the slow pacing made it difficult for me to engage with the content.
However, I did like the world-building. It was complex and I could visualize each scene play out in my mind clearly. The cast of characters was my favorite part of the novel. They were all diverse and I loved the non-binary rep. Each character was complex and despite them being morally ambiguous, I was really rooting for them.

Overall, this was a solid read and I will be looking out for more of Leicht's future projects.

It's not that this was a poorly written book, it's just that it didn't meet the description or held up to the excitement that it promised. Mandolorian + Firefly? Not quite. Just a bit of a mess and long. I think there's some hope there, but it was a bit of a struggle for me to get through. There is hope there, though. I believe that Leicht has the chops to be great.