Gretchen Rix

I think this story may have been written by a dog. I mean that in the best way possible. The story is full of smells, hearing sounds that may or may not be there, an ornery (even devilish) cat, and quick life-saving reactions. The scents were so descriptive and I kept hoping nasal fatigue would kick in for Joan as someone’s pomade kept distracting her, Running Wolf vomited, everyone’s body odor, and the musk of ticked off cat kept adding to the horrible situation. The Goodall has show more suffered a major catastrophe and now part of that ship holds a dozen or so crew plus one angry, uncooperative cat. Joan Chikage is deeply concerned that a mutiny occurred in the upper decks that led to this catastrophe but she has to set that aside while she deals with the remaining crew in her little bit of damaged ship. She’s the ranking officer, so it’s her responsibility to keep her crew alive.

Alas, Running Wolf has already perished, and not in a quick, clean way either. The crew is understandably spooked by the condition of Running Wolf’s body. As Joan and the others try to figure out what has happened and how to stay alive, more bodies add to the pile and things get weirder and weirder. The handsome, quick-witted Van der Ryn may be her ally, or not. Hadar seems reliable… but things could change. Tiberius the captain’s cat wishes they’d all leave him alone. Yet he may be their safety net, as Captain Carmady is very attached to that cat and Carmady still has a functional portion of The Goodall. Everywhere she turns, Joan isn’t sure if she’s made the right call. Cloud Eater, Leichter, Praetor, etc. Joan needs to bind the crew together if they are to make it out alive yet one of them is a murderer.
I would have liked another woman or two in the story, just to bring some gender balance. The only other female gets fridged and doesn’t add much to the story before that point. I really enjoyed the addition of the cat (because I’ve had ornery, naughty cats and I can just picture such a one on a damaged spaceship) and the beetles. Oh yay – even a dog would be disgusted by the beetles at a certain point in the story.
Throughout the tale, I couldn’t help wondering if Joan Chikage was an unreliable narrator. Things look all squirrely to her, but she was acting paranoid from the start of the story. A few times, her crew has to restrain her, knock some sense into her, get her to take in some oxygen. The story ends on such a note that this might be the case, but I won’t know for sure until I check out the sequel. The ending is a bit abrupt and while one major hurdle is said and done, now Joan faces even more challenges and has plenty of questions. 4/5 stars
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The Narration: Alexandra Haag was a very good Joan Chikage. She had distinct voices for all the characters and her male voices were believable. Haag did a great job with Chikage’s emotions and self-doubts. There were no technical issues with this recording. 5/5 stars show less