Summary:
Halley is on the run from an interplanetary political scandal that has put a huge target on her back. She heads for what seems like the perfect place to lay low: a gigantic space barge storing the cryogenically frozen bodies of Earth's most fortunate citizens from more than a century ago.
The cryo program created by trillionaire tech genius Zale Winfeld is long defunct, and the AI hologram "hosts", ghoulishly created in the likeness of Winfeld's three adult children, are glitchy. The ship feels like a crypt, and the isolation gets to Halley almost immediately. She starts to see figures crawling in the hallways, and there's a constant scraping, slithering, and rattling echoing in the vents.
It's not long before Halley realizes she may have gotten herself trapped in an even more dangerous situation than the one she was running from . . .
My Thoughts:
This was so good but too short. I wish some things were expanded on because a lot of it was intriguing.
Halley is on the run from her previous life as someone who helped a political candidate in their campaign. Her ex-boss used her as a scapegoat for the actions of an ex-employee, who started a riot to try to turn the public in their favor. Working on a ship full of bodies is a good way to hide - until it becomes clear that things are not what they seem. Celebrities' frozen bodies have been swapped out for lookalikes, and one of the AI hosts seems to be sentient and warning her to escape. But with a monster in the shadows and a boss that's all too eager to sacrifice her for his endgame, escaping seems impossible.
I do wish that we got more information on the history of the program's creator and his family. Other than a few descriptions of his actual life behind the public eye, we only know what the public knows. I think it would have been really interesting to explore more on the monster and how it came to be. Halley is a great character to root for, even though we don't know her full story in the beginning, and I do wish we got more about her life growing up (her family is part of what drove her to her previous job). The atmosphere was written very well to feel creepy and isolated.
My Rating: 5 stars