I liked the concept of the science mission, it was an interesting choice to go with. A crew that visits other worlds to help their corporations lay claim to them. I was intrigued early about the main character early on, Ophelia, and was more curious than anything to see where the psychologist thread would go, but I wasn’t a fan of her at the start. That actually held true for at least half of the book. That changed around half way through, but I really disliked her at first.
That said, this is more of a slow burner. It started off slow for me, the way I feel a good original non-canned sci-fi should.
After we get some of Ophelia’s backstory, why she’s taken a job with a competing company, and what the competition most likely looks to gain from her presence, things start to open up a bit more. While underway she figures out pretty quick that none of the crew really want her there, partly due to her job, and mostly due to who she is. Then things start to pick up a little.
From there, it felt like the story started to slowly speed up, and the final 30% or so (sorry, kept the kindle on % instead of pages since I swap from phone to tablet a lot) really picked up. The tension really rose more and more as the last 3rd of the book progressed.
Without heavy spoilers, I wish there was more explanation for some of the very odd/tense things to happen. That flows to the ending for me as well. I feel like the ending is a victim of the pacing earlier on, and maybe that’s why it felt clipped or far too easily explained/closed.
I do have to praise the character building. I felt like I knew someone just a particular crew member, which made me dislike him in the story even more. He had to be based off of someone Barnes knew.
Overall, I liked it and give it between a 3.5 and 4 stars, so I’ll bump it up to 4 simply due to the character building she did with some of Ophelia’s crew. It reminded me of Event Horizon in terms of building style and horror without copying that formula.