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 explosi...