While The Immortality Thief frequently gets described as sci-fi horror, it surprisingly felt kind of cozy to me despite a large number of things attempting to kill the main character. The story follows a group of criminals who've been coerced into infiltrating an abandoned alien space station in search of massively important data that several rival groups would really like to get their hands on. Where it feels the most like horror is the creatures on that ship and the attempts to survive them as they try to get the data. But overall the story has a lot more hope and a weird kind of coziness that I found myself really enjoying, which I didn't really expect.

First off, I'll say that the main character, Sean, is absolutely my kind of character and if you don't enjoy a sort of flippant rogue with a heart of gold who also just absolutely cannot resist mouthing off at the worst times, you probably won't enjoy this book. While I enjoyed learning about the world and the various aliens and creatures that Sean encounters, it was mostly because I enjoyed Sean's outlook and humor and was willing to be along for the ride with him even when he did things that were frankly not the best choice.

I also enjoyed the side characters and I felt like I got to know them as they worked with or against Sean, so neither felt stereotypical even if they started that way. The only character-related gripe I have is kind of spoilery so I'll put that here: I really wish Benny had been a bit more nuanced. I liked him as a foil for Sean, someone who'd been through a similar situation of losing literally everything but instead of trying to help others, was focused inward and became selfish and paranoid. But it started to drift into less nuanced with Sean being the absolute good boy who saves everyone and Benny being the selfish prick. If it had been handled more delicately, this might have been more like 5 stars for me.

The plot is probably going to be the deciding factor on whether you like this book. If you're at all familiar with space horror, it quickly falls into a recognizable pattern and it's not terribly difficult to predict what's going to happen. I'm not sure it really justifies its length and I suspect more plot-driven readers will get annoyed by the repetition. But as someone who was just enjoying the ride with the characters and the propulsive action of the short chapters, I honestly didn't mind. Part of that may have been the audiobook narration, which I had a great time with. Although I still don't understand making the Republic have thick Southern accents. It's like watching Aliens and all of a sudden all the soldiers have this thick drawl.

Overall, I'd say that if you enjoy stories in space with creepy creatures on an abandoned spaceship but honestly minimal gore and a sort of roguish found family vibe and can have patience for some of the repetition, it's well worth picking up. I had a really fun time just listening to it while playing cozy games and I'll certainly be picking up the next one!