This book hooked me right in. A salvage crew is working on a wreck in orbit around a planet and they find something that gets right into their minds. Only later do we find out the truth. The main character is a non-citizen, an indenture, working to free herself to become a free citizen, but she has a terminal illness that she is trying to hide from her captain and crew, but it might be too late.
On top of this there is the treat of war/combat with the seemingly overpowering alien race the Vai. They are not well understood or explained which adds to the fear of them. It is made clear fairly early on that they kill themselves rather than be captured, so there is some realism to the fear of the unknown. There is also a lot going on behind the scenes that isn’t revealed until later, and some of it was lost on me. I can’t really go into it without spoiling it, but there are wheels within wheels, and I got a little lost. But this was a real page turner and I really wanted to know how it ended. The ending clearly sets up a sequel which is out and I have it on my TBR pile.
I really liked the world Osborne created about corporations in control of the future–rampant capitalism. I saw her speak at a workshop and remember her (or the other panelists) discussing unchecked capitalism, and this book definitely has corporate citizens running amok. It was a nice world building angle that I haven’t seen before, or at least don’t remember. We never see the ships travel so I don’t know their FTL tech.. but overall this story reads as pretty realistic “hard” SF to me, but with the larger expanse of a big universe. Hard to classify.
Overall I liked the general flow and language of the book, the strong female characters, the weird alien tech that we don’t fully understand until the end game, and the implications of that alien tech on the plot and backstory, but like I said, I wasn’t always following it clearly and had to reread some sections to fully grasp what was going on. So I’ll take away one star. I like this world!