4 big fat stars and put this at the top of your ‘OTTER’ read list!! I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked this one up. First of all, it’s a novella of about 112 pages. I don’t read many novellas because I prefer a ‘meaty’ story, but this one surprised me. Yes, it’s short and the narrative is compact without all the lovely details of a longer book. But, it was SO GOOD! The plot is a combined cozy mystery and sci-fi with Dorothy as a detective on the HMS Fairweather; cozy mystery in space! The Fairweather is a luxuriously appointed generation ship making a thousands of year journey to colonize another planet in the human expansion out from ‘Old Earth’. The ships AI is also self aware and has its own agenda and opinions. It’s also hilarious!
The big twist is that as the residents/sailors?! age, they can put their minds into the library and rest for a while or for decades then just generate a new body and start all over. As they go about their lives on the Fairweather, they can build careers and businesses. Dorothy is sort of a ships investigator who awakens from her time in the library in a new body that isn’t hers and with a tricky little murder mystery to solve.
The story moves right along and gets the reader into the main story quickly with very little setup. This is good in a novella but left me wanting more. That is the only reason I didn’t give this 5 stars-I just wanted more. More details and more backstory. But that is on me, if you enjoy novellas and a quick read; Dorothy is perfect. This is titled as BOOK ONE so I am hoping we see more books in the series, and more full length books. I was given a copy to read/share my thoughts.