K.R. Gadeken

What a surprising little enigma of a novella. The titular Space Station exists only so much as a convenient setting for the almost mythical journey Gadeken's unnamed narrator undertakes. The reader is allowed to know that they are about to enter a vast series of spheres orbiting an anonymous star like our Sun. They are clearly traveling there on a ship, clearly with great anticipation, and fully disinclined to listen to any instructions.

The rest of the novella takes the narrator through show more these spheres, each one some sort of challenge that must be unlocked to reach the next. Each sphere is clearly tied to a stage and situation of life, and though the narrator seems to be a fully conscious adult participating intentionally, their mindset is shaped by their environment. The first sphere is described as a cartoon wonderland of infancy, with talking trees and friendly bugs. It is only exited when thoughts, "like snakes" (they come back later) start slithering from their mind into the world. The next sphere might be a school, but one where the narrator cannot understand anything that is said. She goes to spheres of addictive media, distorted self-image, and a handful of other metaphorical situations that track issues most of us face as we try to understand ourselves and our world. At several times, we get hints that there are other real people in the station with them, but the narrator seems almost disconnected from their previous self.

There aren't a lot of answers here. Is the space station... some sort of therapy program? A school? A test sent by an alien civilization to help humans realize their true selves? Was the narrator really a person before, or an intelligence only now being born? The best part are the questions. Gadeken has a wonderful eye for imagery. "There, not five feet away, stood an imposing metal door framed by nothing by sky and anxiety." I mean, what a line. That said, when the narrator talked to another entity, or to themselves, the dialog felt stilted and unconvincing. Worth it for the thinking it took, though. She finds a novel way of exploring the existential questioning we all face in one way or another. Alienation, self-idealization, the meaning of work and life...

Perhaps, we are each the Space Station...

Thank you, I'll see my own way out. Tip your server... show less

The main character has no memory of anything prior to three months ago, when she presumably arrived on this planet. She is alone and surviving in the wilderness when she is attacked by two humans. They take her to their camp, where Eff slowly learns more about herself and Nabukko camp's situation. Sometimes she is slow to uncover something the reader finds obvious, but I enjoyed discovering more about the world. Why are everyone's memories missing? Also, when she lived in the wilderness, Eff show more marked every supply container she encountered to keep track of her progress. But on a scouting expedition for Nabukko, they found dozens of her marks under the vines. Have they been on the planet for longer than three months? Who or what keeps resetting their memories? And why?

The characters are compelling, and the plot is engaging. I also enjoyed the author's use of imagery. "I could feel a grin stretching my lips almost unnaturally. And then, almost instantly, all of my budding happiness sapplings shriveled up and died when..." "Tears threatened the back of my eyes, but I mentally clamped down on the untapped salty springs."

I liked everything except the last chapter. Eff heard a scream and ran to the source to see a woman half-floating, face-down in the water. She pulled the victim out and told the other witness to get help. They were frozen in shock, so she started doing CPR. When others eventually arrived, Eff was labeled the prime suspect. (The characters were suspicious that she did CPR even though there was no pulse; but you never do CPR when there is a pulse, so this 'evidence' of Eff's guilt is invalid). As she waited to be questioned, she learned that this was the third murder in the colony. All of that would have been fine, but the next morning, the guard captain reasserted the claim that Eff was a spy, used her lost memory to proclaim "you don't deny being present in or near Nabukko [at the time of the other murders]." The actual leader of the colony was unconvinced by this proclamation, but she did nothing as Eff was taken to the brig and and sentenced her to death pending confirmation of her guilt. This final scene was a way for the author to build suspense and entice readers to purchase the second book in the trilogy, but that backfired. I'm not interested in more of this. I would be interested in reading a story that continued from the second to last chapter and investigated the cause of the colonists' memory loss without this nonsense. show less

Nabukko is the first book in an intended trilogy, and I found this to be really intriguing. I really enjoy science-fiction books that are more mystery-related rather than military (although I love those too!), and I especially love it when we have an unreliable narrator. Eff doesn't have memories of what happened three months prior and when she learns the other colonists are suffering from a similar fate, albeit not quite as severe as she, she undertakes to discover what is happening to her show more and to the others. There was a lot of mystery surrounding Nabukko and I love how the author doesn't just tell you everything, but you have to figure things out for yourself, like peeling away the layers of an onion.

First of all, it took me quite a while to realize how unreliable Eff was as the narrator. Once I started cluing in, I actually liked her a lot more as the tension kind of leveled up and I became invested in trying to figure out what was happening to her memories and what was happening around her. With little episodes of nightmares thrown into the mix, you start to get an eerie idea of what went down, but not all of the pieces fit at this point. Despite the fact that Eff is not always believable, I did like her character development and enjoyed her as a character. She was actually quite clever and quite uncanny, able to distinguish when someone was lying to her or withholding information. I enjoyed the friendships she formed and thought the relationships were quite interesting. The secondary characters were quite entertaining and added a lot of depth to the story as well as some much needed comic relief.

The plot is rather gripping and I didn't mind that it was a bit slow towards the beginning as the author used the time to set up characters as well as some intriguing plot points that would play a huge role later in the story. As I've mentioned, there are some pacing issues, but I didn't mind these too much as the strong world-building more than made up for the issues. There were quite a few twists and turns, some of which were predictable, some of which caught me off guard. And I was definitely not expecting that ending!

Verdict
Nabukko was a very entertaining science-fiction novel with great world-building, strong character development, and some interesting twists and turns. While the pacing had some issues, I was able to overlook that by focusing on the rather intriguing mystery of why Eff was on the planet and how the colonists figured into her problem. The secrets were revealed bit by bit and the author's style was to let the author figure things out, a style I really appreciated. I am looking forward to starting the next book soon. show less

Disclaimer: I received an early reader copy from LibraryThing in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.
I give this book 4.5 stars out of 5. I'm going to be honest, I was initially not looking forward to reading this book. I was in the middle of a reading slump and sci-fi just didn't sound good to me. We've all been there, feeling like a book you were looking forward to suddenly just seemed like it was too much work to read? That's where I was at, unfortunately. Let me tell you how show more glad I was to have received this as an Early Reader and that I had a deadline before which I needed to read and review it. This book grew on me really quickly. The author does a great job at building a world around you without info dumping on you. It almost felt like you were one of the characters, missing some memories but having knowledge of some standard information in the book universe. Things were explained as they needed to be and you had a pretty clear picture of how things operated in this universe without making you feel overwhelmed with every little detail. It gave off a feeling of cozy sci-fi mystery/who done it while giving you enough adventure to not get bored. The characters are all really well thought out, I like how brightly their individual personalities shine through the words the author puts to page. Excited to see how things turn out for Gia, Eff, Keir, and all the others. Who do we trust? Who's right, who's wrong? Who is the liar? What happened?I liked how the author had you questioning everything around every turn. I was on the edge of my seat, trying to figure out who was who and what exactly was happening. I have high expectations for the follow ups. I will warn that the book ends on a cliffhanger which about killed me. I am very impatiently waiting for book 2 and 3 and have no idea when they may be out given this was an ER for me.. The anticipation for the next books might kill me but I look forward to diving back into the world of Nabukko and Eff's situation as soon as possible. I'm already looking forward to pressing this book into other peoples hands. show less