Persephone Station by Stina Leicht

 Multiple Award winning author Stina Leicht has been an author I have been meaning to read, for the last few years now. So when I got my hands on this "fiercely feminist" space-opera Persephone Station (Jan-2021) I was super excited to finally read her. 

Persephone Station unfortunately has been a mixed bag for me. Stina throws in a lot of things in here and I am not sure all of it sticks. The setting is a frontier theme, a wild wild west in the faraway out-back planet called Persephone, it's where crime-bosses and armed corporate syndicates rule the roost on the very few human settlements. There's corporate politics. There is a poignant first-contact story (shapeshifting intelligent aliens!) And there is also the whole artificial intelligence versus humans angle as well that is prominently present throughout the narrative. All of this in the backdrop of a hostile takeover situation that involves Giant Mecha-soldiers, rogue AI's and combat veterans in an explosive showdown. 

The novel starts off with a bang - a genocide set off by a power-hungry megalomaniac Vissia Corsini during her mission to this far-away station on the outer edges of the United Republic of World (URW) - where she has realized that the indigenous life (aka 'aliens' ) have access to superior technology that could help with life longevity. A corporate takeover is in effect, mediated by bullets and Vissia now covets the technology secrets that this planet has to offer. Like most humans, she believes it's her right to extract this and use it for her own good, however righteous be her reasons. 

Up against her - is a local bar owner Rosie, a non-binary female crime-boss who is sympathetic to the cause of the natives on the planet. Because the Emissaries as the natives are known as, had saved both Rosie and her friend Vissia ages ago in a colonization mission gone wrong. So Rosie takes it up as her mission to keep their need for isolation intact and hires up an ex-marine mercenary gang for this mission. This is where Angel De La Reza, Captain of this rag-tag mutinous bunch of these space-faring jar-heads ( this is a fun bunch - there is Sukyi, Angel's best friend from Earth who actually is dying due to exposure to a plague-virus. There is Enid, the sarcastic sharp-shooter. There is the bubbly over-active Lou who is an adrenaline-junkie and the pilot. And last but not the least, there is Kurosawa, the AGI battle-ship with some pointed observations on human behavior. How this team takes on the corporate fire-power that Vissia throws at them in her attempt to hijack the Emissary technology is the crux of the novel. 

Stina takes her time getting there, though. The first quarter of the book is very energetic as we rapidly go through the character introductions and their motivations in life. Angel's combat-readiness as we see her survive a murder attempt on her. We also are introduced to the team in a nicely set up assassination mission, which kind of goes wrong. I frankly was never connected enough to either Rosie with her heart of gold ( we don't get to see enough of this crime-boss actually!) or Angel, the combat veteran with her enhancements like Combat Assistant built into her that helps her readily assess tough situations and react with blinding fast responses. I immediately liked Lou with her affectations and her annoyingly bubbly self and also Enid, the sharp-talking sharp-shooter. 

Intertwined with this main plot is another sub-plot that involves this AGI called Kennedy Liu who's possibly the first AGI to take on a human form and is cycling through to understand the complex nuances of the human emotional spectrum. This was fun but again, with so much else happening, I don't think Stina truly explored this angle. I loved the mysterious Zhang vs Kennedy subplot as well on this same concept. 

With this boiling cauldron of plots meshed up, things unfortunately slow down heavily in the middle parts of the novel. There are a lot of conversations, plot set ups, hooks and discoveries and info-dumps till we are led firmly into the stand-off in the district Ugenth where the Emissaries live/hide out. There are dog fights (Lou vs Shrike!) and humans vs Mecha soldiers in an explosive show-down which was well down but by this time, I was feeling so distant from Angel or Rosie's mission to save the Emissaries that I couldn't care less. Stina's prose is unflinching and unpretentious and the worldbuilding is great, with a lot of potential for more stories. This story refused to connect to me at an emotional level unfortunately and left me a bit cold, despite some brilliance throughout. Her nod to the western genre with the names like Kurosawa, West Brynner was a touch of genius. 

Persephone Station has a lot going for it, but I don't think Stina does justice to so much that has been crammed in. I need to perhaps go back to her fantasy novels now.