Lively, remarkable characters invigorate this measured story set among the stars.
Murray’s SF sequel follows a hyperspace pilot on a perilous mission with companions who are deceiving her.
Following a near-fatal accident, Polla Ottrava winds up on the same spaceship as the nearly dead Ledas Starfire. Ledas, a powerful Kamen (one who wields a telekinetic ability), once created a supernova out of binary suns, destroying three planets and effectively ending a war. She apparently dies on the ship, but Polla lives on. She reluctantly joins a mission to kill Illcord Natoth, Ledas’ widower, who’s unleashed “krov,” a shape-shifting biophage that causes entire planets to lose all technology and mutates their inhabitants. The mission is spearheaded by Davad, brother of Kamen lords Mureen and Ledas. They haven’t exactly been forthcoming with Polla, who eventually learns that a part of her post-accident body once belonged to Ledas—the replacement was made to allow Polla to pilot Ledas’ living ship, Bedalia, for the mission. Polla has some loyal allies, including Second, her navigational symbiote (or “navvy,” a symbiote that’s like an AI assistant that she hears in her head), and co-pilot Lt. Rathe Sai, whom she may be falling for. The group travels to assorted star systems and trading stations, getting caught in the midst of a krov invasion on the way. Someone tries to assassinate Polla; when she starts to suspect that even Rathe is lying to her, or at least withholding pertinent information, Polla despairs that there’s no one she can trust. As sightings of both Ledas and Natoth pop up around the galaxy, Polla wonders what her companions might have in store for her.
Murray’s follow-up to Navvy Dreams (2024) opens with a concise recap that accommodates new and returning readers and picks up on the mysteries introduced in the preceding installment, including the presence of a second Polla Ottrava, located on the planet Feldelroy, who’s married and later arrested for alleged terrorism. Like the previous book, this sequel is primarily devoted to building its massive world as the author details interplanetary colonization, the militaristic Unity Fleet, and the Kamen, whose abilities were spawned from the tech of a completely unknown alien species. As such, the mission to take out Natoth feels rather unhurried. Still, Polla has a lot to contend with: Everyone seems to be spying for someone else, her “kiss” (a feeding shunt) appears to be infected, and she’s surrounded by people who’ll likely betray her. The gathering of so many dubious figures makes for a terrific cast: Mureen and Davad aren’t blatantly villainous, and perhaps there’s no malevolence behind their deceit. Second is a welcome reprieve from the humans—its exchanges with Polla somehow exhibit both snarkiness (“Your thoughts are too many”) and naïveté (“What is a lie?”). It’s often—but not always—reliable; it can interact with Rathe’s navvy, as well as “Lia” (the living ship), and relay their messages to Polla. The mystery in this novel becomes progressively clearer (Murray drops enough clues to let observant readers work it out for themselves) and culminates in a gratifying final act that paves the way for the planned third installment.
Lively, remarkable characters invigorate this measured story set among the stars.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9798990429840
Page Count: 542
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
One small step, no giant leaps.
Weir (The Martian, 2014) returns with another off-world tale, this time set on a lunar colony several decades in the future.
Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara is a 20-something deliveryperson, or “porter,” whose welder father brought her up on Artemis, a small multidomed city on Earth’s moon. She has dreams of becoming a member of the Extravehicular Activity Guild so she’ll be able to get better work, such as leading tours on the moon’s surface, and pay off a substantial personal debt. For now, though, she has a thriving side business procuring low-end black-market items to people in the colony. One of her best customers is Trond Landvik, a wealthy businessman who, one day, offers her a lucrative deal to sabotage some of Sanchez Aluminum’s automated lunar-mining equipment. Jazz agrees and comes up with a complicated scheme that involves an extended outing on the lunar surface. Things don’t go as planned, though, and afterward, she finds Landvik murdered. Soon, Jazz is in the middle of a conspiracy involving a Brazilian crime syndicate and revolutionary technology. Only by teaming up with friends and family, including electronics scientist Martin Svoboda, EVA expert Dale Shapiro, and her father, will she be able to finish the job she started. Readers expecting The Martian’s smart math-and-science problem-solving will only find a smattering here, as when Jazz figures out how to ignite an acetylene torch during a moonwalk. Strip away the sci-fi trappings, though, and this is a by-the-numbers caper novel with predictable beats and little suspense. The worldbuilding is mostly bland and unimaginative (Artemis apartments are cramped; everyone uses smartphonelike “Gizmos”), although intriguing elements—such as the fact that space travel is controlled by Kenya instead of the United States or Russia—do show up occasionally. In the acknowledgements, Weir thanks six women, including his publisher and U.K. editor, “for helping me tackle the challenge of writing a female narrator”—as if women were an alien species. Even so, Jazz is given such forced lines as “I giggled like a little girl. Hey, I’m a girl, so I’m allowed.”
One small step, no giant leaps.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-44812-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
An unforgettable story of survival and the power of friendship—nothing short of a science-fiction masterwork.
Weir’s latest is a page-turning interstellar thrill ride that follows a junior high school teacher–turned–reluctant astronaut at the center of a desperate mission to save humankind from a looming extinction event.
Ryland Grace was a once-promising molecular biologist who wrote a controversial academic paper contesting the assumption that life requires liquid water. Now disgraced, he works as a junior high science teacher in San Francisco. His previous theories, however, make him the perfect researcher for a multinational task force that's trying to understand how and why the sun is suddenly dimming at an alarming rate. A barely detectable line of light that rises from the sun’s north pole and curves toward Venus is inexplicably draining the star of power. According to scientists, an “instant ice age” is all but inevitable within a few decades. All the other stars in proximity to the sun seem to be suffering with the same affliction—except Tau Ceti. An unwilling last-minute replacement as part of a three-person mission heading to Tau Ceti in hopes of finding an answer, Ryland finds himself awakening from an induced coma on the spaceship with two dead crewmates and a spotty memory. With time running out for humankind, he discovers an alien spacecraft in the vicinity of his ship with a strange traveler on a similar quest. Although hard scientific speculation fuels the storyline, the real power lies in the many jaw-dropping plot twists, the relentless tension, and the extraordinary dynamic between Ryland and the alien (whom he nicknames Rocky because of its carapace of oxidized minerals and metallic alloy bones). Readers may find themselves consuming this emotionally intense and thematically profound novel in one stay-up-all-night-until-your-eyes-bleed sitting.
An unforgettable story of survival and the power of friendship—nothing short of a science-fiction masterwork.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-13520-4
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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