Genre: Sci-Fi, Colonization
Reviewer: Scott
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About The Book
Murder has found its way to the colony of Edge.
Ash doesn’t want anything to do with tracking down a killer. She doesn’t want to delve into the anger and darkness that caused such a horrible event. It frightens her deep down into the core of her being.
But.
Well, it’s just that she’s curious. More so when she discovers the killer might not even be from Edge. Was this the murder of an innocent scientist, or an attack from a neighboring colony? Is this the culmination of a bitter personal dispute, or is this the start of a war?
To uncover the truth, Ash needs to become the greatest detective Edge has ever seen.
It’s not like there’s a lot of competition.
She can probably hit the top five, at least.
The Review
I just finished the second book in Anthony Eichenlaub’s “Colony of Edge” series, Upon Another Edge Broken. It’s a colonization story, set after a generation ship arrives at the world called Sky.
The ship orbits above the world, run by an artificial intelligence called Traverse. Traverse is supposed to have the welfare of the colony and colonists at heart, but often makes decisions based on the long-term survival versus the actual individuals involved, including euthanizing people when there are too many for the colony to support.
In the first book, Of a Strange World Made, biologist Ash Morgan discovered the duplicitous nature of Traverse. Book two opens with a murder investigation, as Paige, one of the other colonists, is found dead outside during a blossom storm. Blossom storms occur when some of the life forms that Ash released in the first book to start terraforming Sky go through a change in their lifecycle, and let fall the debris as a smelly, sludgy rain.
Ash and Del jump into to the case, using investigative techniques they learned watching old Earth entertainment shows, as well as advanced equipment Ash has in her lab. They uncover a number of strange things, including a possible connection to the other colony on Sky, the one they are never supposed to contact, on pain of death.
When another body turns up, they have to determine if they are dealing with more than one murderer. Is this all part of Traverse’s game?
This is an intriguing tale. Ash is a bit of an unreliable narrator, and not a particularly good sleuth, finding something suspicious in just about everyone she interviews. She’s also dealing with trauma from the events of the first book. As a result, she pushes Hector, her love interest, away.
I enjoyed the placing of a murder mystery in a Science Fiction setting, And Ash, although she comes across as a bit ditzy at times, Is an engaging character. It’s fun to watch her as she works out what’s going on in the colony.
One small complaint. I would like a little more worldbuilding – more coloring in of the actual world the story is set in. I get a sense of it, but I don’t really know how many people are in the colony or the overall layout of it – how everything fits together.
But that’s a minor quibble. This is a fun sci-fi murder mystery that sets up things nicely for the next book to come. Highly recommended.
The Reviewer
Scott is the founder of Queer Sci Fi, and a fantasy and sci fi writer in his own right, with more than 30 published short stories, novellas and novels to his credit, including two trilogies.