I love a very well written and well described sci-fi that it's not info dump but that just gets you more interested in the story. Mixed in that the characters are older than your usual characters (with the younger one being in their 40s). Add also a murder mystery in a space station. And conspiracy?? Well, I'm in! What a ride. I loved all the characters and every second of this story. I was left wanting for more. Even another story set in the same universe. It was really interesting and entertaining.

This is author John Appel’s (https://www.aetherwatch.com) first novel. Assassin’s Orbit was published in 2021. It is the 7th book I completed reading in 2024.

Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own! Due to scenes of violence and mature language, I categorize this novel as R.

The planet Ileri is on the verge of a controversial referendum to join the Commonwealth. Violence has been instigated by those on both sides of the issue. When nine people are found brutally killed aboard the Ileri space station, tensions escalate. Among the nine are those assciated with the referendum.

For 64-year-old Private Investigator Noo Okereke, the most significant casualty of the shooting is Saed Tahir. He is the grandson of her longtime business partner. With the help of her friend, Detective Daniel Imoke, Okereke is allowd to participate in the hunt for the killer.

Police Commissioner Toiwa is against the involvement of Okereke and the PI firm. Reluctantly, Toiwa agrees to allow her to aid the investigation. Conceding that Okereke and her PI firm can more easily talk to some people than the police.

Blind and elderly Josephine Okafor is a cyber security expert brought in to help with the investigation. She discovers three different illicit data networks hiding within the station’s systems.

62-year-old Meiko Ogawa is recalled from a remote mission. While Ogawa is a career spy, she becomes part of the small team searching for the assassin. She sees this assignment as her last before she is forced to retire.

The search takes the small group throughout the station and down to the planet Ileri. They find themselves confronted with lethal opposition on more than one occasion. They also discover that strange kidnappings, with the victim’s memory of the event being wiped away, have been taking place. The most serious obstacle to their investigation is an armed uprising, with which they must struggle to simply survive.

I enjoyed the 9 hours I spent reading this 281-page science fiction novel. The novel seemed a little odd at first, but it settled down as I read further into the book. It made me feel like there was a prior book that I had missed, which set the stage. While this did not affect the plot, two things about the novel struck me as unusual. First, most of the important characters are women. Second, many of them are middle-aged or older women. I am not a fan of the chosen cover art. I give this novel a rating of 4.6 (rounded to 5) out of 5.

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What starts out as a simple detective case, soon becomes a lot bigger. And that leads to an action packed story.
Interesting characters and setting. A good story and some nice twists. I found there were too many perspectives, which made it hard to understand what happened in the beginning but a solid read.
Full review on YouTube

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me an advanced copy of this book to read and review.

This was a fast moving space adventure that managed to juggle a lot of different elements really well. The action was well paced and balanced the fine line between vivid descriptions of fights without going too overboard in lovingly narrating every blow and shot. The political elements are also effective although sometimes keeping everything straight can be a story in itself, but not to the detriment to the story. For me, the unique element of the book was the age of the main characters, it was lovely to see older characters who had lived their lives and were fully themselves for good or bad, but not necessarily defaulting to the Murtaugh from Lethal Weapon “I’m too old for this shit” mentality

I’m looking forward to seeing more from Appel in the future.

It took me way too long to read this book as it was unfortunately easy to put down. However I'm glad I made it through as it was an interesting book that turned into a fun read. I hope John Appel does more in this world.

I started reading this book and found that it was not for me. I didn't want to review a book that I didn't finish.

This wasn't unfortunately for me. It sounded much more like a mystery set in a space station than as if science fiction was its main genre. It had indeed a slow beginning with an investigation like the first book of The Expanse series.
The premise was interesting but the detailed descriptions, the slow plot development and the writing style didn't keep me hooked enough.
I believe this book will be much more interesting for mystery fans or people who liked the Expanse series slow development.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely enjoyed this murder mystery/political intrigue/space station story with a wonderfully diverse cast of characters. Recommended!

I thought that this must be book two of a series and I missed book one. Not so. It reads like a middle book with lots of action but no solutions. OK if you want action, not OK if you want to loose yourself in the plot. It did have interesting characters it just is not one I would recommend.

It was good, took me some to get into but a lot of fun once I did. I like seeing older women represented in Fiction!

This was an action-packed space opera/mystery/science fiction adventure. It starts out by investigating the murder of a group of people on a space station, and branches from there - we see politics, history, gangsters, and a kick-ass group of protagonists, many of which are in their 60s (and I absolutely loved that).

Some of my favorite things:
The action sequences! There was a fantastic zero-gee chase scene, a planetary vehicle chase, an evac-suited attack, a space battle, and more. They were all well described and exciting.

The age, wisdom and humor of the various characters.

The plot - there was twists and turns as we discover what is really going on.

The only thing I struggled a bit with was the fact that there were so many characters and sometimes I had trouble remembering who was who. If I had to start over, I'd make a list with notes.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC, and to the author for the terrific story.

" Golden Girls meets The Expanse with a side of Babylon Five." loved this description of this. The book is exactly what I wanted from this book and it's description. It was a great scifi novel.

I decided to DNF this book, I just didn’t connect with the writing. It’s not a bad book, it just wasn’t for me. Thanks to the publisher for sending me this e-arc.

“Murder forces unlikely allies.”

When I saw the plot advertised (see quote above) as the search for an assassin on a space station with interplanetary consequences, some of my favourite science fiction stories came to mind, I was thinking Binti and Illuminae meets the Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. That was partly my mistake.

I came in expecting a very different plotline and struggled to get into the rhythm and context of the book. However, it was not helped by the lack of introduction, or at least that’s how it felt. The books starts action packed and fast paced but I had to constantly reread pages to get an idea what was going on. It felt like I was a tourist in this amazing new place that was busy and colourful and full of life, and I had no guidebook. Without really understanding a lot of what was going on, I was less invested in the characters and the overall plot.

Yet, I can appreciate this expansive world-building and it was great to see older women kicking ass and running the show. It also had a diverse cast, and I could see Appel had drawn inspiration from a range of cultures and places which I loved. I just couldn’t connect because they would mention technology and settings and I couldn’t picture it. I wouldn’t recommend this book for mainly that reason, I think there are better space opera’s to dig your teeth into.

Thank you so much Net Galley for the ARC.

Representation: Main characters are senior citizens and all women. Full BIPOC cast, multiple queer characters, use of neopronouns.

The planet Ileri is planning to vote on joining the Commonwealth, but a government minister is assassinated, which threatens everything that people have worked for. Private investigator Noo Okereke, spy Meiko Ogawa, and police chief Toiwa are forced to work together on the investigation. They discover a wide-spread political conspiracy, something that was thought to have been left behind in the past civilization, and tensions running through everything. What these three discover could spark a whole interplanetary war if the mystery isn’t solved.

Rating: 5/5 There is SOOOO much that I left out, because I don’t want to spoil anything, and I wouldn’t do it justice. This takes place mostly on a space station, with one brief trip planetside. All of our main characters are women and what we would consider senior citizens, which is great! This definitely changed how the story was told, because each of these characters have decades of experience and knowledge with them. This is basically a space opera, and damn, I loved it! There’s multiple queer characters, neopronouns are used, and all of them are BIPOC from what I can figure. One bit of note, there are a lot of characters, so it can sometimes be hard to keep track of who’s who, especially when the perspective’s changed between chapters. Just be aware of that going into this, but apart from this, I loved this book and would absolutely recommend for those who enjoy sci-fi, mysteries, thrillers, political intrigue.

Thanks to Netgalley for an e-ARC of this title. As another disclaimer, John Appel and I have overlapping social circles. I've played one-shot RPG sessions with him in the past. While that doesn't necessarily influence my impression of the story, it did prompt me to read it.

For what it is, Assassin's Orbit is a fun read. It's a space opera thriller about an older female crew of private investigators and mercenaries. There's a lot of action: space battles, shoot-outs, and criminal investigation abounds.

I love the representation that the book presents. There are numerous human cultures that have developed, and the reason for the exodus from Earth was well-conceived. Props to John for creating such a vibrant world!

I did have some difficulty reading through the book: and mainly that was because of misleading marketing. If you look at the Simon and Schuster page for the book, the hook line is: "Golden Girls meets The Expanse with a side of Babylon Five." I really dug that description! It gives a really particular, character-centric vibe.

I loved the idea of Dorothy, Rose, and Blanche kvetching with G’Kar and Mollari in the Rocinante's galley. To me, it sounds like a Becky Chambers novel with a bit more conflict in the plot. Similar to what Vivian Shaw did for urban fantasy in her Greta Van Helsing series.

There are great moments of characterization, and even a few humourous moments squeezed into the descriptive language. But it's not at the level of expectation that tag line gave. Marketing matters.

In an interview, Appel is asked to describe the book in five words. His description is a bang-up summarization: "Old women space competence porn." That gives me a much better idea of what the book is, and I still would've gone for it.

Assassin's Orbit is a mixture of space opera and detective/spy thriller which has a number of interesting wrinkles. Set in a future breakaway system of Earth settled planets (people escaping an AI based war), it sets up an intriguing political scenario, and unusually for the genre, a set of quite grizzled and long in the tooth heroines to try and solve the problems. Protagonist age is an interesting issue in science fiction, where often characters may be of artificially lengthened age spans and the writers just chalk a bit of extra experience up to them but never the pressures of old age. These characters aren't creaking, but they are looking at their future, the last promotion, or retirement. And what does job security look like when people live longer?

Its the only really notable feature of Assassin's Orbit, which otherwise plays its rebellion, revolution and counter revolution pretty much by the book. We have characters with varying loyalties who eventually pull int he same direction, and there is a secret at the heart of everything which feels like this is set-up for more in the series. That would be fine, and there is enough here to make me return, but I did find a lot of the middle section a minor slog and the characters - though initially defined pretty well, to slowly start to seep into each other. The strong last third unpicks this and so perhaps its just a matter of "stuff happening" to bridge setup and endgame.

Appel has set up an intriguing little universe here and i liked his choice of characters and where it was going, but if there are to be more books in this series (which is unclear), I would want to move further on to the hidden threat that is slowly uncovered here.

ASSASSIN’S ORBIT by John Appel
Solaris, 2021. $14.99 and $6.99 in paperback and ebook.

On one hand, I enjoyed this romp through outer space. John Appel’s new novel mixes mystery, space opera, and interstellar intrigue into a fast, dangerous, flying trip through the complicated relations amongst the Commonwealth, the Ileri, and Saljuans. On the other hand, the very speed with which the plot pulled me from beginning to end left me no opportunity for reflection or for savoring the characters, who are mature adults (over forty years old), not of European Christian origin, and not all straight, cisgendered men, and the culture that produced these characters. Furthermore, the structure of the novel is unbalanced, creating something of an identity crisis for the novel. Is it a murder mystery or is it an espionage thriller? It’s stronger on the intrigue, and the murder gets rather short shrift.

Appel plays to his strengths. He spent twenty years in information security and is now a technology risk manager. The technology he emphasizes in ASSASSIN’S ORBIT is believable, even dazzling. Much of it is in its infancy right now—augmented reality, virtual reality, nanotech, space travel that does not invoke FTL, and space elevators for literal and figurative connection to the planet. Nanotech is something of a villain in the story, with very strict limits set upon it; nanosurgeons are good; mind control via nanotech is not. Space travel is described in terms of acceleration, which will remind people of THE EXPANSE. The most creative usage of technology (or at least the naming of tech) is the ‘djinn’. It is a personal assistant, an augmented reality companion that presents a public identity, lets a person access all their feeds, send and receive messages (almost like thinking aloud), and share data with a shake of head or the wave of a hand. A person’s djinn pops up to provide all sorts of information and has a person’s back in so many ways was. Given Appel’s background, the understanding of where technology may go and its potential harms comes as no surprise and makes for an intelligent read.

The story opens with the proverbial bang—the murder of nine people on Ileri Station. The nine were killed with projectile weapons, something almost unthinkable on a space station. One of the dead is a private security operative and the grandson of the former partner of Noo Okereke, a sixty-two year-old private investigator. Not only does the investigation become personal for Okereke, it puts her in direct conflict with the hard-charging, reforming Commissioner of the Constabulary, Nnenna Toiwa. Officially, Toiwa wants to keep civilians out of police business; personally, she and Okereke loathe each other. Altho’ they don’t trust each other, they will be forced to work together because two of the victims were an Ileri trade delegate and the Commonwealth Consul. The latter death makes this murder an interstellar incident.

Meiko Ogawa, a planetary surveyor according to her djinn, is actually a Commonwealth spy looking to revive her flagging career. She doesn’t quite dodge a flashmob protest of One Worlders who fear the upcoming referendum on admission to the Commonwealth. When she Is made and then attacked by assailants unknown after fruitful contact with a member of the Fingers criminal organization, she is saved by Okereke and her current partner and outed to Toiwa by Ileri intelligence. Ogawa agrees to work with Okereke and others in pursuit of the killers. The trail takes them to the planet surface.

At approximately the same moment, a Saljuan ship, SDV Iwan Goleslaw, appears on the scene, demanding to deploy a team of investigators under the Accords.The Saljuan minister believes that they will find the Ileri government working with forbidden nanotech related to the Unity Plague, which forced the ancestors to flee Earth and enter Exile.

The appearance of the Saljuan ship acts as a catalyst for a well-executed rebellion against the legitimate Ileri government. Neither the reader nor the characters really have a clue that something this big is on the horizon, as they’ve not taken the xenophobic One Worlders seriously. Nor is it particularly clear why it happens, something with which the characters also grapple. The rebels are nominally headed by the leader of the One World party, and they take out much of the government. Unfortunately for them, Commissioner of the Constabulary Toiwa and Defense Minister Vega are alive and well. At this point, it becomes a quest to survive, take back control of the station and the planet, find out what the hell is really behind both the One Worlders rebellion and the Saljuans’ presence.

Appel’s background also includes writing role playing games, and I think that accounts for the relentlessness of the plot with little time to show the inner life of some of the characters. One might argue there are too many characters doing too much; the reader does not get enough time to identify with the principals, of which there are five. And that’s a pity because they have real potential. If Appel had only taken the time to open up his narrative, to have given it more emotional depth, to have slowed down the plot, then the characters, like Noo Okereke and Nnenna Toiwa would’ve been more fully human and less predictable. When the characters have to make big decisions, they make the expected decision with little agonizing over it. Nnenna Toiwa should’ve worked harder or just been more stubbornly unwilling to soil her hands working with Pericles Loh.

The other thing the tight, relentless plot sacrifices is suspense. A murder investigation and an interstellar intrigue are subsets of the wide mystery genre. There should be elements of both mystery (seeing the investigation) and suspense to create the thrills. Because the action is so relentless and, again, so tightly written, there is little room for suspense. Furthermore, the “red shirts” are obvious, even if they aren’t the usual no-name security personnel. If Appel had let this story breathe, the tension, the suspense would’ve been genuine and gripping. As it is, it is too compressed to be really scary. I’m never really worried about any of the principal characters.

I usually say that a novel needs to a be about one hundred pages shorter. That is not the case here. This novel genuinely needs to be a hundred pages longer. The world building could be a little better fleshed out, so that readers understand the relationships amongst the political polities. What are the Accords? Where did the One Worlders come from and what motivates them? There is precious little backstory, but more could have been seeded throughout the narrative to provide context (and suspense) for the Unity Plague as well as the cultures that developed on the various worlds after Exile. And what about Lost Earth? Aside from the suggestion that kleptocrats and Evangelicals created a hell on Earth, there’s not much else said about the old homeworld. I suspect some of this will be answered in the sequel that the ending of ASSASSIN’S ORBIT promises. More of it here could have been used here to create a fuller, more robust novel.



ARC obtained from Net Galley

This was an interesting murder mystery set in space. I liked the characters, the dialogue, the settings were well described.