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Booklist: Karen and Priya are out for a night on the town when Karen’s irrepressible curiosity gets them entangled with a pair of spiritualists, a stage illusionist, and a riled-up tommy-knocker kidnapped from its mine.

The spiritualist Arcade sisters start it off with a bit of table knocking, but it could be a real “haint”—there’s a story, Karen tells us, about a man returned from Alaska who murdered everyone in the place. Then again, it could just be a grift. Priya, more cautious, is having none of it—which leaves Karen in the hotel with the Arcade sisters and Mrs. Horner, the illusionist, when the hotel starts shaking. The Arcade sisters have gotten the attention of something much more dangerous with their tricks.

Karen is an affable narrator and an enthusiastic investigator, and the story is an excellent adventure as well as a genuinely touching narrative about relationships and compromise; Bear’s (The Stone in the Skull, 2017) narrative skill and flair for both plot and character continue to impress.

Tor.com: Martha Wells is an amazing writer, whose work I’ve generally loved since first encountering THE ELEMENT OF FIRE. When her novella ALL SYSTEMS RED came out last year from Tor.com Publishing, it was a delight to see Wells turn her considerable talents to original science fiction­ – space operatic science fiction with a sense of humour and a deep well of kindness. This year will see two sequels published, ARTIFICIAL CONDITION (May) and ROGUE PROTOCOL (August), and­—not a word of a lie—they’re both really good.

Wells brings a strong sense of character to Murderbot. Deeply socially anxious, immensely awkward about talking to Actual People, and constantly insisting that they don’t care (when it becomes obvious that they do), Murderbot is a very human sort of bot­—despite their occasional assertion that they’re not really a person.

Wells’ pacing is sharp, and the world of the Murderbot Diaries is atmospheric and filled with cool shit. And the individuals who appear on the pages of these stories, however briefly, all feel like fully-rounded people. These are delightful books, and I sincerely hope that Wells writes many more of them­—because I definitely want to find out what happens next.

Publishers Weekly: This enjoyable latest installment of the long-running Liaden space adventure saga, featuring the ever-resourceful Clan Korval and their eclectic allies, picks up on the simultaneous and parallel story lines of ALLIANCE OF EQUALS (2016) and THE GATHERING EDGE (2017)…

As always, this intelligent space opera focuses on matters of manners, honor, duty, and clever repartee; violence is rarely the solution, and subtlety wins out over overt force. For returning fans, it provides thoroughly satisfying progression or resolution for multiple threads and will feel comfortably familiar for fans of Korval’s escapades.