Intstagram review:

Persephone Station by Stina Leicht is out today! This is a very queer and action-packed space opera that I maybe requested from netgalley (thank you Saga/Gallery for the approval) because of it's absolutely stunning cover.

But, be warned! While Leicht tries to use inclusive language and provide representation for a variety of gender identities, it can sometimes be a little iffy. If you want to read about it in detail, check out my blog for a full length review.

To summarize: characters often walk into a room and immediately know the genders of each person in that room without every having met, exchanged pronouns, or used a pre-established and explained cultural marker to denote their gender.

This happens a lot, we, as the reader, are introduced to a group of people who the POV character has not met and told there were five women, two men, and three non-binary individuals.

It's not a huuuuuge issue. But it is definitely something to keep in mind. It definitely didn't ruin my experience with the book by any degree, but I did notice and get annoyed by it every time it happened. You can't know someone's gender based in their presentation ✌️

While it was definitely an exciting romp with evil corporations, and secretly lawful good criminals, Persephone Station was, unfortunately, a bit of a failure for me. I enjoyed it more or less, but the writing felt amateur at times and I didn't really connect with any of the characters.

But, if you like flashy, queer space operas, this might be for you!

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Blog Review:

Persephone Station by Stina Liecht is a new action-packed space opera. And! it is out today!

I’ll say it straight up, I have some mixed feelings about Persephone Station. I picked it up from netgalley (thanks for the approval Sage/Gallery!) based almost entirely on the cover. This cover is so eyecatching, huge props to the illustrator Tomer Hanuka. Turns out, Persephone Station is also queer AF. But, that is where the issues came in.

While I am always on board for diverse space operas, Persephone Station fell flat for me for a few reasons. One of the biggest is that, while Stina Liecht is clearly trying to use inclusive language her attempts can sometimes be problematic or awkward. Inclusive language is great, especially when referring to the fact that not all women have uteri, and not all people with a uterus are women. But, I thought Leicht’s specific phrasing was awkward. I would have liked to see Leicht use them in a more effective way. I generally didn’t like Liecht’s prose, so maybe this wouldn’t be such a sticking point for others.

But, my biggest issue, from a representation standpoint was with regards to non-binary people. I’m non-binary. I’m not going to call myself some sort of expert in the variety of non-binary identities, presentations, and experiences. But, I can definitely speak to this more than someone cis.

Persephone Station is set on a queernorm world and has several major and minor non-binary characters. Throughout the story, whenever a character walks into a room they immediately know the genders of everyone present. And yes, non-binary folks want to be recognized as their gender IRL, but this is still problematic.

If I walk into a room where no one knows my gender, people are going to assume I’m a woman based on their preconceived notions of gender. Obviously, people shouldn’t assume anyone’s gender, but it is the basis of cisnormative culture. But in this book, which tries to be inclusive of different gender identities, the characters assume everyone’s gender upon meeting. Or they otherwise know the gender of other characters without ever having met, exchanged pronouns, or used a pre-established and explained cultural markers to determine their gender. Not all non-binary people are androgynous. You can’t necessarily know a person’s gender just by looking at them.

I’ve seen gender dealt with a variety of different ways in queernorm sci-fi and fantasy. In Winter’s Orbit, people express their gender by the materials of their jewelry, or the way they tie their scarves. There is a pre-established and explained cultural marker for recognizing a person’s gender.

But, Persephone Station doesn’t do that. In Persephone Station there is no explanation as to how to recognize different character’s genders, they just do. This isn’t a complete deal breaker for me, but it is definitely something that should be more openly discussed.

But, after a major, but important, diversion, on to the plot!

Persephone Station is a politically unimportant planet. But, a major corporation has taken interest in the planet for wonderfully exploitable secrets. Angel is an ex-marine and head of a mercenary group. She is the primary point of view character. We also see the perspectives of Rosie, the non-binary owner of a bar that covers for a criminal underground, and Kennedy, an AI currently in the possession of a human body.

There are old rivalries, secret aliens, an empathetic AI, and a cast of misfits.

For me, the story started kind of slow, but the last 50% is essentially non-stop action. I thought the pacing could have used some work, but it did not really affect my reading process.

I can see how Persephone Station might be a great book to someone else, but, for me, it fell short. The writing felt amateur, I didn’t really enjoy most of the characters, and I couldn’t look past these issues.

It was still a mostly entertaining read. The problematic elements are, at least, the effort of someone trying to be inclusive and they don’t feel like an attack. So, if the gender stuff won’t make you too uncomfortable, give Persephone Station a try.

Persephone Station is a standalone sci-fi novel set on a planet of the same name, one by and large ignored on the galactic stage until a corporation takes a vested interest in exploiting the indigenous population for their knowledge. Pitched as The Mandalorian meets Cowboy Bebop, Persephone Station delivers the action packed romp the comparison promises but left me wanting so much more in other areas.

The most prominent characters being women or nonbinary folks was a delight to read, especially because it was all people being badass. If you’re looking for a very low romance read—romantic relationships are only mentioned in passing and in regards to secondary characters—this will be right up your alley. The most significant relationships are friendship and familial in Persephone Station, and I’ll always be a sucker for a ragtag group of washed up soldiers, assassins, and criminals with hearts of gold.

The Emissaries fascinated me but I wished we had seen more of them. By far their culture and society was more interesting to me than the dystopian city most of the cast lived in, and I feel like they were positioned more as an ideal the main characters were trying to save than a living, breathing society. I would read an entire novel about their history and what happened to them before or after the events of the novel.

One element I need to mention was the way nonbinary representation was handled in this novel. While appreciate the attempts at diversity that were made in the text (some successfully) and thought the nonbinary character Rosie was handled well, there were several circumstances where the notion you can “clock” someone’s gender on sight was reinforced. Multiple characters automatically know if someone is a man, woman, or nonbinary, which 1) reinforces the idea that nonbinary is just a third gender instead of a vast umbrella of experiences and 2) that someone’s gender can always be determined on sight by their gender expression. As a trans nonbinary person, it rubbed me the wrong way, though again I greatly appreciate the effort of inclusion.

There’s also SO much action in this novel to the detriment of character development and worldbuilding. It feels like easily half the novel is one prolonged action scene and little is done to maintain the tension. All the build up also leads to a climax that is abrupt, leaves several elements unexplored or unexplained, and provides an unsatisfactory resolution.

In short, though I liked Persephone Station and thought it was a fun read full of fierce women and giant mechs, it left too much to be desired to be a new favourite. I’d still recommend it to anyone looking for an action heavy, romance light space opera in a queernorm universe with entertaining character dynamics—if ones sometimes not quite represented as well as they could be.

Thank you to Gallery/Saga Press and NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Let me start by saying – THIS SHIT SLAPS!!! If you are not up to date with internet lingo (and I do not blame you AT ALL if you aren’t), that means – THIS BOOK IS AWESOME. I had SUCH a blast reading it, what a fun ride. There are spaceships, epic fights, badass women, queer protagonists, alien species, and! The best thing of all! FOUND FAMILY wweeeeeewwwwww. This was my first read of 2021 and lemme tell you, we are off to a great start babyyyyyy.

My Favorite Things
First of all the tagline is “Hugo award–nominated author Stina Leicht has created a take on space opera for fans of The Mandalorian and Cowboy Bebop in this high-stakes adventure.” And I LOVE THE MANDALORIAN so you know I had to do it. Of course it has a different vibe than Mando but like, still similar?? The main characters have hearts of gold but are also a little bit criminal, yknow? It’s that do what you gotta do to survive kinda thing that Mando also has going on.

One of the BEST things about this book is that it’s a fiercely feminist space opera adventure. Like, cishet male main characters?? We don’t know them. The main cast of characters consists of a ragtag crew of all women, a nonbinary crime boss, and a person who is kind of an AI in a human body. Pretty kickass if you ask me. And I guess that’s why you’re reading this review – you’re asking me hahaha. I loved every character, and how different each character was.

The plot is a bit slow in the beginning but when it picks up, OH BOY does it pick up. There are a lot of elements at play in the story, and my favorite thing was the slow reveal of the personal motivations going on behind the larger political acts. I also love the anti-colonizer sentiments woven throughout the story. We respect indigenous cultures here (the alien civilization being the indigenous culture in this case).

I thoroughly enjoy the author’s writing style. She is great at weaving in dialogue and exposition in a way that always feels natural. I also really liked the points of conversation between one of the main characters, Angel, and the shipboard AI, Kurosawa. It’s really fun to be able to see lots of different kinds of conversation, as AIs are fundamentally different to humans. I feel like it lets you get a cool alternate perspective to learn more about the characters.

Small Improvement Areas
I mentioned earlier that the plot is a bit slow in the beginning. It did take me a little while to truly get hooked in because of that. There is a lot of information given really quickly, and it’s a bit difficult to figure out all the pieces.

Even though there is a lot of information given at the beginning, I feel like the world-building could have been more fleshed out. That seems contradictory, but I kinda felt like there were just a lot of pieces that needed more information to piece together. Obviously that requires even MORE, so it must be difficult to do. But yeah, I just want to know everything about this world/universe basically haha.

So my main wish for improvement – GIMME MORE BOOKS IN THIS UNIVERSE!!!!!! Hahahahaha.

Thank you netgalley for the chance to read Persephone Station. As soon as I saw this gorgeous cover, I had to read it!

This is a hard book to summarize as there is a lot going on. Primarily we follow Angel, an ex-marine and leader of a group of criminals and assassins, as she goes up against the Serrao-Orlov Corporation. It’s a bit of a space opera meets a Western.

While it sounds great, it was a bit of a miss for me. I loved that it was so heavily focused on girl power and the LGBTQ representation. However, I think Persephone Station was trying to do a little too much. There are a ton of characters to keep track of and there’s a lot of info-dumping happening in the beginning, which makes the book feel like it’s just dragging on. If you can manage to get through the first 250 pages, the second half is better.

Persephone station is an ambitious novel that builds a lot of intrigue and goes in a lot of different directions. It is at times a gritty noir investigation, a hopeless odds last stand, a treatise on artificial intelligence and it's relationship with humanity, a cautionary tale of corporate overreach, all explored from a feminist perspective, with a (nearly)all female cast. Leicht doesn't shy away from piling any classic sci-fi theme she can find into the novel, and at times it feels crowded. There was a lot that I liked about this book, and some things that I didn't. So lets start with the positives.

The strongest aspect of Persephone Station is it's feminism. This is a book about strong women, written for strong women, by a strong woman. But if you're a cis dude, like me, and just happen to be a big fan of strong women, you'll like this book too. Leicht's future is queer-normative and inclusive. She includes a broad spectrum of gender and sexual identities without falling into tokenism. Her characters all sing with their own voices. It's a refreshing change to a genre that has been traditionally dominated by strong men. Even in recent, more inclusive sci-fi queer characters often feel shoe-horned in, or like a novelty. Leicht's ladies are no Charlie's Angels. They own this novel and drive it from start to finish.

After reading some other reviews, it seems I'm in the minority opinion. I really liked the atmosphere building and the slow, gritty, investigation aspect of the first act. I loved Monk's Bar, a former cathedral turned gangster watering hole, and Rosie, it's non-binary, no nonsense proprietor. I liked all the references to the now irrelevant church, and how it's iconography still haunts Brynner, a city with a corporate shell and a criminal underbelly. I could have happily read a whole novel in this setting with this tone, but Leicht had other plans for me.

The second act takes you from film-noir to the Wild West, where Angel and her gang must survive against all odds in an invasion where they are outmanned and outgunned. The pace of the novel picks up considerably, but perhaps to the detriment of atmosphere. This part of the book had a lot of moralizing, and I always find it disingenuous when gritty gangsters suddenly care a lot about innocent people and develop a conscience overnight, like Jimminy Cricket has just started singing in their ear. Still, the whole last stand shootout was a lot of fun to read and the things Angel and her gang encounter remind the reader that this is an alien planet, and not just New York in the far future.

The third act, for me was the least interesting and a weak finish. Throughout the book, there are interlude type chapters where an AI with a fully human body, and developed human emotions flirts with the edges of Angel's predicaments. Her story felt like such a small side-plot throughout that I was disappointed when she was in the center of the big finish. This seemed like mostly a story about Angel and her gang, fighting against the Serrao-Orlov Corporation, but when the climax came it was about something else. I thought the AI chapters could have stayed tangential to the rest of the plot and set up a sequel where AI's relationship with humanity was a stronger theme.

There was one huge plot hole that constantly broke my immersion, and it's just a little bit spoilery, so proceed reading with caution. There's only one city on the planet Persephone, and the rest of the planet is uninhabitable. The flora and fauna, from the microscopic level up to the apex predator level seem to be made for killing humans. Brynner, Persephone's only city, has been artificially cleared out and created by Serrao-Orlov for the purpose of resource extraction. Fine. Except the rest of the planet is not actually uninhabitable. It's already inhabited by a sentient species who Serrao-Orlov is exploiting and repressing for profit reasons. Ok, I'm still with you. Except we're deep into the space age. I have trouble accepting that Serrao-Orlov can keep a living society and active cities (or at least one) from being observed by any other factors. There's a whole space station orbiting Persephone where corporate contractors and private citizens alike work and live. I had trouble believing that between the city of Brynner and Persephone station, no one was ever able to uncover the native people's existence. I'm not buying it.

I liked this book. It felt a little overambitious for a single volume, and there were things that I didn't like. I would have liked to see more of West Brynner and less of Persephone Station. But overall this was a fun read and I recommend it to anyone who is pining for good a sci-fi thrill ride without being bogged down by those troublesome men.

I will be honest - I rarely read sci-fi books. However, one look at the cover of 'Persephone Station' and I knew this was one of those few I wanted to get my hands on.

Sadly, this was just an overall "okay" read for me. It wasn't bad! I feel there are going to be a lot of people who truly fall in love with this novel, with the characters and the story and the worldbuilding (or is it universe building in this case?). Unfortunately, I just wasn't one. I didn't hate this book. In fact, there were a lot of things I enjoyed about it especially the action and the fact that there are gay, lesbian, bisexual and non-binary characters throughout the entire book. I will say that I might pick this book up again later on to see if my initial reaction changes at all.

I don’t often read military sci-fi, but this was such an intriguing story, I’m glad I took a chance on it. I was immediately drawn into the story, eager to learn more about this world and these characters, whether human, alien, or AI. Even the ships have interesting personalities. The plot offers plenty of action and excitement, but mostly I just wanted to spend time with these characters. It was wonderful to see so many strong female and nonbinary characters, each principled, quirky, and amazing in their own way.

I love Stina Leicht’s writing. Her dialog is amusing yet feels realistic. She is so descriptive, it was easy for me to imagine myself in each scene. As an example, here’s the first part of her description of a pilot’s apartment: “The interior of Lou’s apartment was a cross between an explosion in a vintage clothing store for well-traveled music fans and a decommissioned military-equipment depot. It smelled of day-old pizza and heavy-duty axle grease.”

My only frustration with this book is that, after so much time spent in the big fight, the story wraps up too quickly without nearly as much detail about what happens to the characters as I would have liked. I am hoping the author will write more about this world and these characters.

Be aware that this book contains many scenes of violence and frequent swearing, as you would expect in a book featuring former military personnel in a combat situation. Animals, children, and characters you care about may die.

Thanks to Gallery Books and Saga Press for providing me with an ARC through NetGalley, which I volunteered to review.

Rating: 3 out of 5.
Release date: 5 January 2021
Publisher: Saga/Gallery
# of Pages: 512
Do I recommend it: I don’t not?
Persephone Station is a standalone science fiction novel by Stina Leicht. The eponymous setting is a planet with a human settlement. However, there is an indigenous community of “aliens” called Emissaries that most humans don’t know about. An exception to this rule is the Serrao-Orlov corporation, who has been exploiting the planet and this particular population’s special technology for years. Corporations gotta corporation. Meanwhile, the humans aren’t exactly immune to corporation bullshit. The reader follows three main point of view characters: Angel de la Reza (a mercenary starship captain), Rosie (a crime boss), and Kennedy (an AI who lives in a human body). Sooner or later, they all get embroiled in this corporation’s bullshit, and decide to use their various skills to protect the indigenous population and make sure that the corporation can’t come back.

There were elements of this book I liked. I think there were about three named male characters who didn’t start off the story dead. One of the point of view characters (Rosie) is nonbinary, and the whole world treats being queer as if it’s no big deal. Additionally, books that treat corporations as essentially evil organizations are never wrong.

However, I found that the parts didn’t make for a satisfactory whole. Persephone Station was 512 pages long, but it wasn’t exactly jam-packed with plot or with character development. It also didn’t have a main point of view from any of the indigenous “aliens,” which could have improved the reader’s perspective on the crisis. I probably just didn’t vibe with it, but it feels so ephemeral, even though I just finished it like an hour ago (as of this writing).

Leicht technically leaves the door open for a sequel, but there are few novels that you can say don’t. However, expanding the universe found in Persephone Station may actually improve it.

I received this title from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

If you want, you can buy Persephone Station from Bookshop or your local bookstore.

I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Here for violence? This book will deliver. Here for transgender, female, power? This book has it. Here for a cast that is as varied as the real world we live in, both in race and sexuality or, in relationships and circumstances? You will get it here.

At first, yes it was a little hard to follow. There was crazy amount of information regarding each character and their background, and then too little information on the world around them or AI. The balance sometimes had be turning back a few pages to see if I misunderstood the information. The characters, and how hard they kick ass, is what drives the story though. Their relationship isn't that hard-to-believe-because-they're-BFF that some all-female cast stories are guilty of, but varied from a distrustful friendship, to lovers, to unbreakable friendships. They feel real, and I'll miss them all.

I think my main issue with this novel is that there is not enough time spent on worldbuilding. The novel started out with so much promise, but quickly had me feeling lost and confused. There is no real clue when exactly in the future this story takes place. Despite being set on an alien planet, there are far too many similarities to Earth, that I feel like you could just replace Persephone with Earth and nothing would feel too alien or out of place. There were no unique aspects to the world, other than one alien race and an alien species. This novel also needed a lot more character building. The only introduction we get to who these characters really are, is when one character does an informational background check, and this information is relayed to the reader. This style of character building just didn't give me enough to really care about these characters, and the one character I found myself interested in had the least amount of screen time. While this novel had so much promise before I started, I felt rather disappointed by the conclusion which is a shame because it has a strong storyline but could have just used more finesse in its construction.

Thanks to Gallery/Saga Press for an advance NetGalley of this title, which is coming out tomorrow--Jan 5, 2021--

I haven't been to a seedy dive in almost a year due to the pandemic, so I'm a bit nostalgic for a place like Monk's Bar. Monk's is run by Rosie--a confident crime boss and nonbinary badass--and is located on the nondescript planet Persephone Station. Then the Serrao-Orlov Corporation moves in, and more and more of the planet becomes a company town. Behind the scenes, Rosie runs a back bar at Monk's, where criminals can be hired out for less than legal contract jobs.

Angel is one of these criminals--an exiled former soldier in a horrifying unit, where deceased troops are "revivified," or brought back to life, to continue fighting. Now, she runs an all-female squad of outcasts, including the charismatic pilot Lou; the steely sniper Enid; and the dangerous mercenary Sukyi, who will take care of dirty work for good pay. But when Rosie hires the team for an important job, they end up getting way more than they bargained for: turns out, the Serrao-Orlov Corp has been lying about their reasons for investing in the planet, and many things Angel and her group believe about Persephone Station are complete lies. Throw in a powerful sentient AI occupying a vat-grown body, a shapeshifting nonviolent indigenous species that communicates through scent, a ruthless company head who will go to extreme lengths to get what she wants, and fight scenes between human-operated mechs and alien bears, and you have the fun adventure-and-action-packed read that is Stina Leicht's Persephone Station.

Leicht's book is not only a blast, but it takes a hard look at serious questions (How far would you go to save your child? How far would you go to lengthen your life span?) and themes (the consequences of the technological singularity and the ravages of colonialism). Besides some awkwardness managing dialogue/dialogue tags among so many characters, I really enjoyed this science fiction novel for its diverse inclusivity and smart storytelling. Plus, that Tomer Hanuka cover art is gorgeous.

3.5

This gay-friendly "gals with guns" space opera hangs on a fast-paced plot that is currently pretty popular in the SF field, the evil corporations masking their power grabs as AI entities explore various ways of being sentient. Add in mostly female characters, with non-binary ones present and up front, and jack up the pacing all the way to the poignant resolution.

The narrative, with its fast pace, also brings home how much the English language is lagging behind social evolution: specifically the use of "They" for non-binary characters. The problem isn't the pronoun so much as the verbs around it, specifically the plural. I found myself thrown out of the story frequently when I couldn't figure out who, or how many, given pronouns were modifying.

It's still a fun read, and I really enjoyed most of the action parts handed to females. Woo!

The thing about Stina Leicht's latest novel, Persephone Station, is that it's remarkable not for what it does but for what it is. The story itself is bog standard: a ragtag group of misfits is hired to defend an outpost of innocents against a group of corporate marauders whose vengeful leader has complicated reasons for the attack. In space! There are a few interesting twists and turns, but the pacing served to kill all suspense for me as we rocketed along to the ending. It's a perfectly serviceable, perfectly fine space Western/opera with several cool but hardly groundbreaking ideas about sentience and aliens and what the future might look like.

What sets PS apart from the rest of its sci-fi brethren tho is how the vast majority of characters are female or nonbinary. It's not merely a gender swapped sort of story, tho it certainly prompts the reader to consider how men are usually the default in, not just books like these, but most adventure stories. Each woman or nonbinary person is a whole character with an agenda, back story and motivations that make sense for them, and they're created with such a decisive female-centered gaze that you almost forget most books aren't like this. It's really weirdly refreshing. It's not that the gender roles are reversed, or that men are diminished or nonexistent: it's just a tale of female and nonbinary adventurers fighting and/or protecting each other, kicking ass and taking names. Men exist in this universe, but in this tale, they're supporting characters who are peripheral to the storylines, as Ms Leicht deliberately focuses on everyone else.

I'm not saying that this is the kind of book I want to read all the time, but I did enjoy how quietly subversive it is for a space Western/opera to remind readers that you don't need guys to make for an interesting story. It's okay to not have guys be a motivator or otherwise important part of a narrative, fictional or otherwise. It's okay for them to shush so that everyone else gets a turn to be the hero or bad guy or best friend or secretive boss. Even the male love interests are only on for a few pages so we can get back to the meat of the story. And it's all dealt with so matter-of-factly that you probably wouldn't even notice how few guys there are till the end, and you likely wouldn't care.

PS is a nice way to reset one's reading in this new year of 2021, to gently expand your frame of reference to include women and nonbinary people as capable of playing all roles in a story. Bonus for that story being a rollicking space opera, hardly the most female-dominated field.

Persephone Station by Stina Leicht will be published tomorrow January 5th, 2021 by Saga Press and is available for pre-order from all good booksellers, including <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/15382/9781534414587">Bookshop!</a> Want it now? For the Kindle version, <a href="https://amzn.to/3rEGHOK">click here</a>.

I haven't read as much of Leicht's work as I would like, but I made sure to read this pretty soon after getting the DRC. I'm glad I did - it's an imaginative take on space opera, featuring interesting and engaging characters and a cool SF setting. It did take me a little while to get situated and familiar with the setting, but a little perseverance pays off. The blurb compared it to The Mandalorian and Cowboy Bebop, which I can kind of see and agree with.

Persephone Station offers a new, interesting, and well-done take on the "backwater planet that-vs-voracious intergalactic corporation" tale. The main characters are well-drawn, readers will quickly come to care about them and their fates.

Not the smoothest entry into a series, but a very good one. I'm looking forward to reading more by the author.

A different take on the space opera format of big corporations vs the backwater planet and the interests of its inhabitants. I was reminded of some of Cherryh's writings. It did take me some time to become centered.

A Gallery Books ARC via NetGalley

I'm a little sad to be giving this book only a forward-leaning 3.5 stars.
Mainly because there is so much awesome worldbuilding in it that it seems a shame to not celebrate it more, yet I just couldn't get past the fact that it sometimes suffers from a lack of exposition for the strange world the reader is suddenly thrust into. I get slowly revealing details about the world and characters, but I constantly felt like I was supposed to have knowledge I didn't have.
Ignoring the author's apparently too high expectations when it comes to me being able to figure out elements of this unknown world on my own, there is so much to explore and enjoy about the characters and the situation they find themselves in. Angel is a great character to guide a reader through the plot because she knows some things but is almost as ignorant as the reader of others. It works perfectly in setting up explanations and plot elements. Add in the quirkiness and uniqueness of the other characters that drive the plot, and you've got yourself an empathetic storyline.
There really is a lot to enjoy here. Just come into it with a very open mind and a willingness to ignore a desire to understand how things work in this unexplained world.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Saga Press for the early read!

It took me a while to get into this book. I had problems with the info-dumping and confusing who was who. Once you get the characters straight the book finds its groove about half-way through. I’ve seen people compare it to The Magnificent Seven and I agree with this. I would say stick with this book for the battle scenes and the female crew.

Shades of the Mandalorian in this space opera on a far off, vaguely “old west” set story where technology exists but the power structure that makes the rules is too far away. Angel and her crew of bad ass women are brought into a fight they didn’t know about but do all they can to help.

I received an ARC for an honest review but I loved this story and would like more in this universe.

3 stars

You can read all of my reviews at Nerd Girl Loves Books.

For me, this science fiction book is a miss. I just couldn't get into it. It is well-written and packed with action, but it just didn't interest me.

Persephone Station is backwater planet that the Serrao-Orlov Corporation has taken an intense interest in. The people that run the corporation know the planet's secrets, and want to exploit them. Rosie owns a bar that criminals, and those that want to hire them, come to do business. Rosie hires a group of mercenaries led by Angel to do a job for her that pits them against Serrao-Orlov Corporation. The odds are not in Angel's favor, but she will do everything she can to win.

There is very little world building or character development, which is a shame because most of the characters are female (Girl Power, yay!), and there is gay, lesbian, bisexual and non-binary characters in the book. It would have been nice to delve more into these characters before all of the fighting started. Most of the focus is on describing the surroundings and the enormous amount of fighting that goes on in the book. There is nothing wrong with a lot of action, and I like reading it. But, without fleshing out more about why the conflict is happening, and making the characters more accessible so that I want to invest in them, I had a hard time wanting to finish the book. I may be in the minority. There may be a lot of people that will like this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery/Saga Press for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

PERSEPHONE STATION is a stunning feminist, divergent, Science Fiction work capably coping with issues of corporate greed, institutionalized deception, denial of indigenous sentient species, and inextricably, one of my favorite SF exploratory themes: Sentient Artificial Intelligence. Lately it seems no matter what title I choose, A.I. is present, with all the questions, concerns, hopes, and dread that poses. Author Stina Leicht delivers superbly. This is my first 2021 read, and it's a champion. I predict an Award (s) winner here!