Sam Weber
I usually don’t have much time for reflection, but lately I seem to have nothing but time, and I find myself wondering – what sort of killer am I?
Technically I qualify as a serial killer, because I have been killing for many years. I probably also qualify as a mass murderer, because once I killed twenty-six people within a five-hour period.
Oichi Angelis is a worm. That is a very low manual labourer in the generation starship Olympia. But that changes after the ruling elite kills her. Whether she survives or not she is officially dead.
In the two books of the Medusa Cycle – Medusa Uploaded and Medusa in the Graveyard – Oichi wants a better life for herself and people like her, and to get that she has to kill the leaders of the ruling class. She gets help from Medusa, who is not human – and Oichi’s long and difficult road towards freedom starts.
Emily Devenport’s first novels in more than fifteen years are very welcome. This is Space Opera that we did not know we missed, until these books came along.
The books are page turners with a well defined and likeable protagonist, AI’s of different kinds, bio-constructs, huge generation spaceships, power plays, murders and all the twists, complications and surprises you could want.
Excellent world building, characters that are living, loving, adorable or scheming, cold and power hungry – and lots of things in between. In other words they are alive!
The Medusa Cycle has a satisfying ending in book two – but that does not mean that Emily Devenport cannot write more books in this universe, should she want to. I kind of hope she does.