This book attempted to throw every single sci-fi horror trope at the wall and when I logged it after my last commute I could not believe that I was STILL ONLY HALF WAY THROUGH. So much happened. So much! And yet nothing at all! I had to throw in the towel at 55% into the audiobook, for a number of reasons.

1. The narration. Because this was an audiobook review copy from NetGalley, I'll put narration here at the top as the thing that I disliked the most. The narrator was fine, when it was actual story narrative. However, the moment she does a character's voice, no matter which character, it fell apart for me. She can't act. She just can't. Every character voice sounded like she was TRYING to be emotional or witty or scared as the story called for, but it grated at me. All the choices she made for inflection, cadence, emotion, every single one felt wrong.

2. The characters. This book didn't entire fail for me just because of the narration, however. By the 30% mark I was eye rolling at every single decision Petrova made. Actually, scratch that. I eye rolled HARD at the stupid fucking decision she makes in the SCENE THAT INTRODUCES US TO HER. She does the awful "go after a suspect who she just KNOOOWWWWWSSSS is guilty despite being commanded to stand down and ignoring direct orders just to fuck it all up" trope and it's a tired cliche in cop dramas and it's a tired cliche here. Every character in this feels like a trope to fill up a sci-fi story. We have a detective being ousted for a bad call. A pilot thinking this is his big chance. (These two characters had a brief romantic rendezvous years earlier and their reunion was so weird.) A doctor with a gruesome backstory that causes him to have PTSD and feels like he's coded as neurodivergent. A robot, because we always need a quirky robot friend, right? And of course there's ship AI all over the place being crazy, because we always need crazy AI in a sci-fi story, right?

3. The story. By the time I was half way through I really thought we were somewhere near the end of rising action. So much had happened to all the characters, big reveals were happening that felt like pieces of the story were finally locking into place - but its only halfway through? What the hell else can happen? In 50% of this book we had: the characters fighting to stay alive after the ship is damaged, which is a massive part of the opening action; the characters figuring out each others backstories and learning to work together; figuring out why another ship is targeting attacks at them; going to that ship only to find a crazy AI and cannibal zombie-esque crew; and they're that way because some kind of disease is infecting AI and humans alike; one character has major, major injury done to them; they get back to their ship with a "cure" for the disease so they can fix their own ship AI; a big secret is revealed about one of the characters, changing the perspective of just about everything that has happened between them all so far. AND THERE WAS STILL MORE STORY TO GO???? I looked at some reviews after I decided to DNF, and it appears that I just had a lot more story repetition and a terrible ending to look forward to, so I'll consider this a bullet dodged.

4. The writing. Of all the downsides this book had for me in the half of it I read, the writing was not one of them. Wellington can write in a way that is very compelling, and is very easy to read. If I hadn't been listening to the audiobook, I would have sped through this a lot faster. The chapters are short, propelling you through the story at a breakneck pace. One thing I disliked was the repetition; characters shrug a lot. Like, a LOT. Even the robot does "an approximation of a shrug" half a dozen times in random weird bodies it can't even shrug in.

I hate DNFing something that is this long, but at 55% of this, I listened to the equivalent of 300+ pages of the book. I hated the characters and the plot beats were making no damn sense. I knew I just had to give up on finishing this despite it being a NetGalley review copy when I was even ranting to my husband, and realized I'd only be exposing him to more ranting if I kept going and I love him too much to keep doing that.

LONG - And Still Only Tells One Part Of The Story. The biggest thing I was left with at the end of this book was whether I was satisfied with the tale here - and thus the book should get the full 5* rating- or whether I thought it was a cash-grab that only told one part of the story and demands money to get the rest of the story (which I've seen in other books and written about in other reviews, though I note here that neither of these refer to books from this author) and thus should get a star deduction. Obviously, I ultimately sided with it being a complete tale *so far as it goes*, and I personally would love a sequel that picks up moments after this book leaves off.

As to the tale itself, think "Dead Space" or maybe a touch of the Suicide Mission in Mass Effect 2 or any number of other movies / tv shows / games / book / etc where our main characters wake up already in a survival situation... and things only get more horrific from there. Here though, we also get almost disaster movie type setup with a bit of the "normal life" of each of our crew members before they are sent on this particular mission, and this both helps ground the characters and serves as a touch of foreshadowing of how the tale plays out. The horror is real and visceral, but of a type that if you have your internal "blood filters" set, you may envision at least somewhat less carnage than others who envision the more complete "Mortal Kombat experience". And as horrific as the physical horror is, the psychological horror here could be said to be even worse - yes, this book goes *that* deep. Ultimately, if you like any of the franchises I've named here - and I'll even drop in the original, space based, Aliens movies here - you're likely going to enjoy this book. If you like visceral survival / horror type space tales, you're going to like this book. Again, I truly do want a sequel here, so I'm hoping either Wellington is already planning that or sales/ outcry is enough that we get one. Very much recommended.

**I was provided an electronic ARC by the publisher through NetGalley.**

DNF @34%

This is absolutely a case of not the book for me. As such, I am not assigning a rating. The writing is not bad in the slightest.

I simply do not care. I have been falling asleep while reading, not due to any personal exhaustion. The pace is painfully slow, particularly considering the nature of the genre and type of book it is shaping up to be. We have spent this long waking from cryosleep, attempting to recover from the ship being attacked, and have only just begun investigating the source. Nothing for me to invest in at this pace, though I'm sure the bones of something good are there. Rapscallion was a glimmer of hope for a time.

Wouldn't get higher than 3 stars even if I continued. Too long, so cutting my losses here. It has taken me 14 days to reach this point; I read 50 books in February alone.