Blue Silence

Michelle Marquardt 2002 Buy from Amazon.com

This is Michelle Marquardt’s first novel, and I was fairly impressed with it. It flows well, has interesting characters and doesn’t info-dump, which would have been an easy trap to fall into in this style of novel. The setting is a space station which is in the middle of negotiations with another space station over water supplies. Obviously this is quite important, and provides the motivation behind a lot of the events in the story.

Maya Russini is a politician, and she is also an empath. Her psychic abilities are a secret that she cannot share with even her closest friends, all psychics are must register when they become adult and either leave the station or be ostracised by all. When a mysterious ship arrives at the station, she is delegated to lead the boarding party.

There are creatures aboard which may be either alien or human, some of whom seem to be very dangerous. As they are integrated into the station’s population, problems arise. Injuries occur, a psychic who arrives to assist may discover Maya’s abilities and her best friend Ienne seems determined to destroy the water treaty at any cost.

This could have been a story about trying to find out about the aliens, but instead it becomes a story about people. The two most prominent alien characters are almost human, but jarringly different. Ienne is engagingly arrogant and even the security officer Christen has his own complex background.

There is a great deal of politics, but it never becomes too tangled to follow. Even though the story takes place over a matter of days, there is plenty of action and time for developments to occur. In the end the origin of the spaceship is hinted at but never confirmed, setting the story up nicely for a sequel which I hope the author follows through with. Even though the mystery isn’t solved, the novel doesn’t feel unfinished and I look forward to seeing further work from Michelle Marquardt.

Awards:

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