A species that has no word for murder has a murderer aboard their spaceship!New York Times bestselling romantic comedy author Gail Carriger (writing as G.L. Carriger) brings you a light-hearted science fiction mystery featuring an adorable lavender alien and his human crush.ALIENTristol lives in exile. But he’s built a life for himself aboard a massive space station. He’s even begun to understand … himself aboard a massive space station. He’s even begun to understand the complex nuances of human courting rituals. Detective Hastion is finally flirting back!
MURDER
Except that Tristol’s beloved adopted home is unexpectedly contacted by the galoi – a xenophobic species with five genders, purple skin, and serious attitude. They need the help of a detective because there’s a murderer aboard their spaceship. Murder is so rare, the galoi don’t even have a word for it. Tristol knows this because he is galoi.
ROMANCE
Which means that he and Detective Hastion are on the case… together.
“This is a fun, funny, sexy book, and I’m so happy it exists. It hits you in the feels, makes you laugh and cry, and makes you think about matters of family, kin, and the heart.” ~ Bookriot
Delicate Sensibilities?
Contains men who love other men in graphic detail, regardless of gender, biology, or skin color… and lots of emotively sweet tentacle hair. Perfect for fans of Lesli Richardson, Becky Chambers, or Lyn Gala.
Want more adorable awkward gay boys and hot sex cleverly disguising social commentary? Try Carriger’s San Andreas Shifters series.
Also by G L Carriger
The San Andreas Shifter series (start with The Sumage Solution)
As Gail Carriger
The Curious Case of the Werewolf that Wasn’t
The Finishing School series (start with Etiquette & Espionage)
The Delightfully Deadly novellas
The Parasol Protectorate series (start with Soulless)
The Supernatural Society novellas
The Custard Protocol series (start with Prudence)
The Claw & Courtship novellas
Crudrat
more
Simply marvelous!
I’m a big fan of Gail Carriger, loving her steampunk series most of all, so i was slower to read the scifi, The 5th Gender. Big mistake. Huge! LOL. What a total delight. Her alien creation, Tristol, is one of the most charming scifi heroes ever. You want to read about him no matter what he’s doing — baby sitting cats or solving mysteries. Detective Hastion is a perfect foil – -a total straightman to the enchanting Tris. The mystery in the story is fairly transparent, but still bends your heart. Since it’s really a romcom/mystery/steamy romance/ space opera/tear jerker, it’s hard to know how to approach the book — but it doesn’t matter. Just dive in!
I’ve just reread this book, and I have to say it’s my favorite of Carriger’s books to date. It’s delightful, upbeat, intriguing, unusual, and brimming with Carriger’s trademark quirkiness. I love her lavender hero (Tris), and her space station, and her five-gendered alien race that has no concept of murder. She has a wonderful imagination! With the exception of the ‘crime’ itself, which is desperately sad, the book is overflowing with humor and whimsy. I really hope Carriger continues this series because I’d love to spend more time with Tris and Drey.
Unique and well written. On my Keeper shelf to re-read.
I loved this book. It kept me turning the pages right up to the end. I loved the aliens and their culture was fascinating. I would love to see more from this world. There were some difficult themes tackled related to the mystery and overall it was handled well, on the surface the book and characters felt very light and sweet so it was an interesting contrast with finding out there was some deeper underlying conflict related to Tris and his past. Great read.
Fans of DS9 will smile fondly at the idea of a space station that people have turned into their home and their neighborhood; a friendly community complete with a bazaar, a crotchety neighbor, and everything that makes a truly vibrant neighborhood worth living in. This multi-species community gets along quite well about ninety percent of the time, running like clockwork…and like clockwork, some parts occasionally go a little haywire.
The discussion of inter-cultural connection and diplomacy was tastefully done, and managed one of the most difficult feats in multi-culture sci-fi: telling a story where each culture has its own beauties and its own tragedies, but no culture has ‘got it wrong’ and no culture has ‘got it right’. Add to that a very deftly handled exploration of diplomatic posturing and inter-departmental turf disagreements, and you have a living, breathing multicultural society.
There’s a playful, organic nature to the scene-setting and design that allows the characters plenty of room to live. It’s a world I was quite happy to inhabit as a reader.
Carriger’s style is always joyfully alive, sweetly snarky and well-written. It is here. Puns, silly situations, plays on words and a lot of fluff lie over some integral truths about autonomy, humanity, and love.
My only true quibble as a reader was in the speed of the romantic element to the plot. I was a bit thrown when, after several pages of being told that Drey was aloof and hard to please, I’m suddenly seeing all his walls–and his pants ;)–come down. The critical side to my mind stuck in its oar and complained that this happened too fast and didn’t allow for enough building in the narrative. But the rest of my mind was having such fun that the critic sat in the corner and shut up.
Beyond the romance, this was a truly powerful and well-wrought plotline, doing the narrative equivalent of walking the high-wire: creating a powerful story with no antagonists. There are no enemies here. Just well meaning people who got it wrong, and regret the mistakes they learn that they’ve made.
A favorite…more, please!
I only like well written, entertaining, amusing SciFi with characters I can care about.
Ta-da! Here it is.
I read through this at quite a clip because I was enjoying it so much and wanted to see how it would finish.
And I figured out one thing that was revealed ahead of the characters.
Anemone like hair? Too wonderful!
Wow, this book is something else! I don’t normally like cute but Tristol won me over. He is such a charmer! I loved his sweet nature and how he tried to understand humans. There were so many hilarious and adorable situations. Drey despite his alpha like nature was so understanding and gentle with Tris. The best part was how both man and galoi accepted each others quirks and uniqueness.
The case and its subsequent solution were heartbreaking and subtly spoke about complex societal issues that are very relevant today. It was so well written without sounding patronizing or preaching. I honestly didn’t want the story to end. It was an absolute joy to read this book. It was steadily paced, absolutely enchanting with likable MCs, laced with humor and a whole lot of heart. I liked the author’s writing style and will definitely check out their other works. Very good book. Highly recommend it!
I’m amazed by how much I love this book. I went into it without knowing anything and ended up totally loving it. Tris is adorable and the way his mind works is such a delight! It’s hilarious and cute and you can’t help but love Tris, our friendly and uterrly charming purple lavender alien.
Drey and Tris are so perfect and swoony. Drey is the epitome of gentle giant. Their romance is everything! And I love Tris’s hair. It emotes!! And so many other uses too!
The world building is spectacular and I’m super fascinated by galoi. It’s so well written and I’m amazed by the details. The mystery was interesting too. The culture is really different and I’m glad we got to see a different point of view. I highly recommend it.
“To pause one’s life for another was a profound gesture of caring. What greater gift can one give another person but time?”
~Tris
Aaaaaaaaaall the squeeeeeeeeeeees! I laughed, I cried, I made noodles. Oh yes, a food craving warning This book will make you want to eat noodles. Like, real bad. Basically, I love everything about this book. The characters are all fun, the world building is BRILLIANT! Give me all the sci-fi, Star Trekky (DS9 specifically) vibes! And the romance, Whew, y’all, it was gooooood. I don’t like the “will they/won’t they” thing a lot of times, and this book handled that perfectly for me (no spoilers). But there’s so much more too. It handles gender and sexuality so well, looking at what could be in a better type of a society and not shying away from the darker side of associated struggles. Level upon level of goodness is in this book. I cannot recommend it enough. Favorite part: we see characters that don’t want kids because, and I cannot stress how much I loved this detail, they don’t. That’s it. There’s no deeper pathological reason for them not wanting kids. They just don’t want them because they don’t and they know it and it’s cool. I feel like I NEVER see that, not even in my beloved Brooklyn 99. I feel like so often, when characters talk about this, they always kind of leave the door open with a wavering “well, maybe, one day…” and it makes me a little crazy. So YAY! Finally, I can see that part of myself in characters. Here’s the book’s official tagline: A species that has no word for murder, has a murderer aboard their spaceship. End fangirl session here .