The story had potential, but I struggled to connect deeply with the protagonist. The first-person narrative relied heavily on short, sharp sentences. At first, that gave the story a punchy rhythm, but over time, the repetition made the effect wear thin. It started to feel more like a stylistic habit than a deliberate choice.

I often found myself wanting more—more insight into the protagonist’s thoughts, more emotional depth, more understanding of their motivations. It felt like I was only scratching the surface of who they really were. The memories that were shared hinted at something deeper, but they weren’t fully explored. That could’ve been a powerful tool to bring out character development.

Maybe reading the first novel would have helped fill in some of those gaps. As it stands, I felt a little distanced from the character’s inner world. A stronger emotional thread or more introspection might have helped draw me in.

I appreciate the effort behind the book—there’s clearly a story worth telling here. I just wish I had been given more room to connect with the heart of it.

Thank you to BooksGoSocial and NetGalley for the free review copy of Daedalus. All opinions are completely my own.

Daedalus is the 2nd book in The Nabukko Trilogy and picks up pretty close to where the first book left off. I think I actually liked Daedalus even more than the first book. It continues the feeling of mystery, with a lot of questions still not answered by the end of the book. I definitely have some theories though, and there’s a lot of clues along the way, so it kept my interest well. This book adds in an element of adventure that I really enjoyed. There was plenty of action and drama leaving me on the edge of my seat. It made the book really hard to put down. I also enjoyed the relationships between characters. I’m looking forward to reading the next book and a bit bummed I’ll have to wait a while to see what happens next.

The first part left me with some reservations: I liked the world-building and the mystery, but the pacing felt off, with about half the page count devoted just to introducing people and their bickering with no real plot development. I mention this only to say that this one was much better in that regard! I was really invested and didn't want to leave the text for months :)

It picks up right where "Nabukko" left off, with the mysterious murders continuing to plague the camp, the crew falling into disarray, and Eff joining an exploratory mission to look for more artifacts in hopes of understanding their predicament (memory loss and being stranded on the unknown planet), as they have reason to believe that the time they have is ticking away.

There's a lot more going on here, and the stakes are much higher. That ending! - I am really looking forward to the concluding part, because I am curious how it will all turn out. And I still want to see if my initial hunch about one of the underlying mysteries that I had 10-15% into the first book is correct: we still don't know, but it looks like this part brought more evidence in its favor.

I still think the books (this one just like the previous) would benefit from being more concise. There are ways to convey all the same plot and relationship developments without some of the same repeated discussions. Keep in mind that these parts are not like separate novels in a cycle with their separate arcs, but more like parts of a longer novel with a single arc, each ending on a cliffhanger like a 19th century newspaper installment novel, making sure the reader wants to get to the next one.

I am grateful to the author for the review copy. The opinion above is my own.