Floating Hotel

5 stars, no question, no notes. I have a lot to gush about though.

From the start I was taken with this book. At first, I thought it was a collection of stories, highlighting the blurb's "interweaving lives and interlocking mysteries" but as you read the whole picture starts to come together and you see where past and present join together. It's so smoothly done, you don't even realise it until the end when you're already in love with the characters and their stories.

I'm not a sci-fi person generally but Floating Hotel just goes beyond that category to tell a really beautifully woven story and it will definitely be on my re-read list many times over.

This book was both delightful, and simultaneously not what I was expecting. The intrigue and plot to ferret out a hidden revolutionary in the midst of genteel, decaying luxury led to interesting juxtapositions. Overall I liked this book a lot, and would recommend it, with a caveat about the slightly melancholy ending.

This was a really cool concept! I knew once I heard of a hotel with a bunch of characters I’d be intrigued and I was right! It was so good! I’m going to recommend this to everyone 😤

This cozy debut science fiction novel tells a story of misfits, rebels, found family—and a mystery that spans the stars.

So fun and cozy and queer! Loved it!

The Floating Hotel is a scifi mystery with shifting viewpoints. Despite my usual ambivalence about books that shift from one character's point of view to another, I loved the way each character only had one chapter. Each chapter revealed a little more of the story in a way that propelled me through the book. Initially its not clear where the mystery is but hang in there! Well worth the wait

Thanks to netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was hugely excited to read Floating Hotel after having already devoured this author's 2023 debut, Frontier, which was a brilliantly quirky space western romp with lesbian gunslingers and drug-smuggling tortoises.

But somehow, Curtis has surpassed herself with Floating Hotel.

Poignant yet funny, earnest and full of warmth but still with the sharp edge of pointed social commentary, Floating Hotel was everything I wanted in a contemporary scifi novel. Defying genre boundaries, it's a brilliant murder mystery intertwined with small moments and personal dramas, set aboard a roaming luxury hotel-spaceship (the Abeona, which is certainly a character in its own right). But the novel is also a series of intimate character studies weaving in and out of the backstories of the ensemble cast of characters.

Each character is written with depth and care, and even without the broader plot that draws them all together, I would have been content learning about them all and how they came to find a family and a home aboard this strange, wonderful ship. As I read Floating Hotel, I experienced the odd feeling of longing for a place I've never been.

I won't spoil the ending, but I closed the book with that familiar heartache that means the author did one hell of a job of making me care.

I'd highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys Becky Chambers (although Floating Hotel had more of an overarching plot than Chambers' more slice-of-life narratives), hopepunk, found families, and vividly imagined future worlds.