Beautiful writing, elegant prose. I mean, I have no idea what’s going on in this book, but the writing is quite nice.

Normally I post some sort of synopsis, but this will have to do: I think the book’s something about aliens, but honestly I’m not sure. I wish I could say that the prose made me stick with it longer, but that’d be a lie. I burned out on this pretty quickly once I couldn’t find a plot. Not at first, not after 20%, not by the time I skimmed up to the halfway point. The world may have drunk me in, but the plot kept kicking me back out.

Let me be clear here—I’ve finally decided to DNF this after my fourth attempt at it. I really wanted to get into it, as there’s something to like about this book. The writing, as I said, is fantastic. The world itself is immersive, vibrant, and real. It’s not terribly difficult to imagine—the world drank me in early and could’ve kept me there had there been any story at all to follow.

The characters were inconsistent at best, with Pleo Tanza simply being made of two distinct minds. But the short and long of it was that I could just never care hard enough, long enough to get into any kind of a rhythm or routine.

I’d suggest skipping this—hopefully the author will deliver an excellent world AND an interesting story in their next effort.

I really, really tried with this story and in truth I am not giving completely up on it. Going in, I knew from previous reviews that this was a story with incredibly rich world-building and a plot that needed my complete focus. And in truth it was both of those. Eeleen Lee creates a world that is dense and fascinating. There is no single word within the story that was not used to its full potential to help create the political and personal complexities the narrative presents. But while I was trying to wrap my head around the political structure which is so integral to the overall story, I found it difficult to keep up with the story as it went back and forth through time. This was especially true if I had put the book down for a certain length of time. I am not completely giving up on the book. I hope one day to come back to it as I think it is a story worth reading.

I liked Liquid Crystal Nightingale's premise - sci-fi political thriller sounds like something I need.

Pleo is a survivor, and she dreams of a better life. When she's framed for murder, she has to find a way out of trouble. I liked her as a character. She's easy to like and root for.

I appreciate little subversions made by Eeleen Lee. In thrillers and murder mysteries, law enforcement is usually inept or corrupted. Not here, though. Dumortier and Nadir, two investigators, are highly competent and focused on their job.

That said, I'm not entirely sold on the structure of the novel - frequent jumps in time and flashbacks lacked smoothness. Not all of them, to be fair, just some. The story's resolution offered a closure but felt slightly vague.

In closing, a solid debut but not without minor flaws. I liked it but didn't love it.

Liquid Crystal Nightingale es una obra que parte de una premisa interesante, con bastantes buenas ideas pero que acaba resultando muy confusa, con una ejecución mejorable.

Aparte de cierta querencia en su nombre por la vocal e que ni Yennefer de Vengerberg, Eeleen Lee tiene varios relatos publicados, pero esta es su primera novela. Y como ya digo, esta bisoñez se nota en varios tramos de la lectura, cuando la acción se acelera y acaba resultando liosa, sin que quede claro ni los personajes implicados ni el resultado de cada situación.
Liquid Crystal Nightingale es una novela con toques cyberpunk, con sus modificaciones corporales habituales, pero también con el tono reivindicativo que ha caracterizado algunas novelas que se pueden englobar dentro de este subgénero. La elección por parte de la autora de ir mezclando dos líneas temporales de forma aleatoria tampoco favorece la claridad en la exposición, pero no es el principal inconveniente en la lectura. Lo peor, es que no sabemos dónde nos encontramos en cada momento.
Me gusta el tono reivindicativo de la historia, ese empeño en superar las desigualdades sociales que siguen aflorando en cualquier asentamiento humano. También el detalle de un nuevo arte marcial especialmente diseñado para su enseñanza en el centro politécnico que jugará un papel relevante en la trama y algunas otra ideas que mezclan mitología propia con otros relatos que nos resultarán algo más conocidos.
La trama detectivesca, no obstante, es bastante floja. Los detectives parece que no siguen pistas si no que se van topando con los detalles que harán avanzar su investigación. Son dos personajes que podrían haber tenido una química de contraste bastante interesante, pero su relación comienza a dar bandazos injustificados casi desde el comienzo.
A pesar de todas estas cualidades que se podrían extraer, el libro no termina de cuajar, seguramente por falta de experiencia por parte de la autora. Es por esto que no puedo recomendarlo.

This is quite good. Interesting setting and characters. along with some mystery. The story kept me engaged and is written in a nice style. Recommended for space opera fans.

Thanks very much for the review copy!!

Liquid Crystal Nightingale sounded interesting enough; it's basically a murder mystery with political underpinnings set in a space colony in the future. I wanted to devour it but found myself struggling to anchor myself in the story and the world. It didn't help that besides the very carefully structured and described advanced future on Chatoyance that hinged heavily on gemology (something I have no idea about), it also flipped back and forth in time with rampant flashbacks and scarce signposts of whether the thing happening was in the present or the recent past or actually a few years back by now.

This makes it sound like I hated the book. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. It just required too much effort at the initial level. I admit, I am a very lazy reader. I was planning to review this according to my normal schedule on Wednesday (I DID finish it by then), but decided bagi chance la and did a re-read. The second read-through flowed much better when I could orient myself properly.

The world-building is well done. Chatoyance and its related space colonies feel fully-formed with interesting histories and backstories; the Tiers, the mining industries, the Artisans, the underworld and their religions. There are so many layers to the world that it has a life of its own--though that might have been its own downfall; the multi-layered complexity may have been what confused me (I don't do very well following real-life political intrigue either). I think it would appeal very much to more science-y types (or actual gemologists!) and those who like layers upon layers of political conspiracy.

The ending feels a little like an Inspector Rebus book: the mystery has been solved and the perpetrators caught, but the actual conclusion is still slightly vague. You have to read between the lines (a few times) to figure out what the perpetrators have admitted to and are being arrested for. There's a sort-of satisfaction to this, I guess.

Eelleen Lee's debut Liquid Crystal Nightingale opens intriguingly. She quickly establishes her main character of Pleo, still reeling after her twin sister's death and soon goes back in time a little to reveal the layers of tragedy that Pleo is dealing with. At the same time, Lee introduces a couple of other characters in brief point of view chapters.. But despite a fair amount of world building, Liquid Crystal Nightingale goes nowhere for along time, Pleo, if anything, becomes less interesting, and the narrative shifts to a host of other characters and then a murder mystery of sorts.
Liquid Crystal Nightingale is a book where world building has trumped everything else. While the mining colony setting and rich/poor dynamics are interesting, it takes too long for any type of plot to kick into gear and the characters are not in themselves interesting or relatable enough to carry readers to that plot or be invested in the outcome when it does finally arrive..

I have a feeling Liquid Crystal Nightingale is going to be one of those books that other people rave about but that leaves me cold - it's not badly written, it just didn't really do anything for me and I ended up skimming the last quarter of it to see if anything actually got resolved (which it didn't, as far as I could see).

It's written from three points of view, the first being that of Pleo, who is the child of the only survivor of a mining accident, who ends up being framed for the murder of her much-wealthier classmate. Our second point of view is that of Marsh and, to be honest, I wasn't 100% sure what he was up to even by the end of the book - he may have been a revolutionary of some kind, I'm not really certain. Our third point of view character is the man tasked with investigating the crime of which Pleo is accused and he has his own issues with the bureaucracy within which he functions and where he remains still an outsider.

All of this is set in a very hierarchical society and the blurb says that this murder/accident, depending on whose perspective you go from, sets off a chain of events that threatens this. The only problem is that (unless I'm missing the end of the book) it doesn't really seem to do that at all - the storyline just stops with what appears to be a terrorist attack on the head of one of these powerful families.

Part of the problem was that I didn't really give a damn about any of these characters and so their survival (or otherwise) failed to move me. If I hadn't been looking to review this book, I'm not completely certain I would have read it through to the end and it just didn't engage me in any meaningful way. Disappointing, considering that the author can apparently string a good sentence together, to see such possibility ending up a bit half-baked.

Wow - reading Liquid Crystal Nightingale feels a little bit like the first time you read Snow Crash or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - things are happening, you're doing your best to keep up, you start to understand that you won't understand everything, and by the time you realize how invested you are the finale, it's over. Lee does a remarkable job at tossing you into a fully formed world, where bits and pieces of the history of Chatoyance and the Tanza family come at you in fleeting comments, and everyone has a history and backstory. I enjoyed how Lee was able to create a story that felt complete without needing to answer every question she posed; not everything needs to be tied up in a bow. I look forward to seeing what else Lee writes, especially if she continues to explore the universe she has masterfully created.

This was an interesting murder mystery set in the future. I enjoyed the unique setting and plot. The characters were interesting and pulled you into novel.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Liquid Crystal Nightingale defied my expectations, doing something I hadn’t expected: being utterly unique. I am often bothered by the repetitive nature of science fiction, and while some of the tropes were familiar the backdrop of the story was cutting-edge (yes, Geology pun intended).

Most of my difficulties stem from the rapid pace of the world-building and the amount of trust in the author required of the reader early on. The worldbuilding was fantastic but dense, and requires the reader to be comfortable being confused. I can foresee people becoming frustrated with the lack of information presented at the beginning, but things become clear over time. While I was comfortable puzzling things out, I do admit that trying to piece together the world took me out of the story at times. Furthermore, the perspective jumped around to suit the plot and less so to develop character. I felt like I got to know Pleo, Marsh, and Dumorier, but the rest of the perspectives felt hazy, including Saurebaras’, which was a shame because she had a lot to offer when she did control the narrative.

Still, despite my occasional frustration, overall I thought the novel was absolutely singular, and a refreshing breath of fresh air that stood out as compared to much of contemporary science fiction. The worldbuilding was unparalleled, and I was instantly immersed, wanting to know as much as possible about the city and the characters. The meld of geology and political space opera—two things I would have never connected— made for a unique backdrop for the world.

One of my regrets was that the relationships were not developed more thoroughly. While the characters were well rounded and introspective, there was a significant lack of connection between them. While our principal characters brushed up against each they didn’t form meaningful connections, which surprised me. The exception to this was the relationship between Marsh and Setona, which I loved, employer and employee evolving into a kind of friendship and kinship. Also, THE DISPLAY LEOPARD!!!! Absolutely what could be better than that.

A thrilling space opera ride, Liquid Crystal Nightingale follows Pleo Tanza as she attempts to clear her name of murder. With vivid world building and atmospheric writing, this novel is a wild ride from start to finish! Pleo is a sympathetic protagonist, and I was constantly on the edge of my seat throughout her race against time. I highly recommend this novel for fans of epic sci-fi such as The Expanse series.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.