This book is about what happens when a megalomaniacal centuries-old sentient prison ship comes on too strong. We’ve all been there.
The protagonist of this is a hacker named Murdock. She was keeping herself alive by scrounging and petty crimes on a run-down space station when she got noticed and recruited by a team of confidence scammers. But their string of successes has come to an end, and the book begins with Murdock & company being transferred to the prison ship Justice. Justice is a dreadnought from an empire that died 3 centuries previously; it maintains its existence by showing up at colony worlds and using its still-impressive arsenal to demand they hand over their criminals. Most of those onboard seem to be left to their own devices. Some live as gangs and scavengers, some have built enclave towns.
But there’s also those who are mind-linked to the central AI that runs the ship, and the ship wants Murdock herself to be one of them.
Murdock quickly finds herself separated from half of her crew, including the leader they all orbit around. She’s left trying to find her way back to them with the member of her crew she gets along with the least, with the ship and its agents dogging her steps and trying to convince her to join up (with the threat that it won’t be long before they stop asking).
The story this tells is great entertainment. It’s a very fun standalone, and I burned through it very quickly. It’s got twists and turns, and intrigues, and cleverness, and a romance I got very invested in very quickly. It’s not a book that will change my life, but it is a great book if you want to relax for a few hours and just enjoy a good story.
Trigger warning for sexual assault, kind of. There’s a scene where the ship has Murdock at its mercy; no SA happens, but Murdock’s feelings of powerlessness are definitely described in terms appropriate for SA.