Space opera set on a backwater, mostly ignored planet with all sorts of secrets and corporate exploitation. Add in a cast of criminals and mercenaries and all sorts of characters that don’t get overmuch representation in the Sci-Fi of old (Lesbian, bi, and non-binary, oh my. And honestly, a cast of entirely women in the first place). And more than a touch of an exploration of Artificial General Intelligence–possible even more relevant with the current scope and expansion of LLMs–and you have quite a story.

I enjoyed it. It’s a mix of older tropes and newer characters. For the most part, the story went as I was expecting, but that’s not a bad thing. And it was a fun listen.

I think my biggest pain point is that if anything, Persephone Station tries to do too much. I particularly like books exploring truly alien aliens and machine minds–and comparing and contrasting how they think and how we think about them thinking. There are hints of that here, but it could have been so much more!

In any case, I enjoyed it and think it worth a listen. Onward!