I think this would have been better pitched as a series of interrelated short stories, because as a novel, it left a lot to be desired.

Roughly, there is a fancy space hotel, which has seen better days. All the staff are misfits, one way or another, and there’s a great big space empire (with a seemingly mad emperor at the helm). That does sound interesting, but that’s about as deep as the plot gets. Each chapter, is just a slice of one of the members of the hotel staff (or a guest) and what they are up to. Maybe a tiny bit of plot moves along in one of them, but more often than not, it’s just another character.

I was almost 200 pages into the book and YET MORE CHARACTERS ARE INTRODUCED. Needless to say, this wasn’t my favourite read. You don’t get enough time with the characters to like them, before you are shoved off to yet another character. So you just feel like you are skimming the surface of this entire universe, waiting for a more-than-threadbare plot to emerge. There were tantalising glimpses into some political intrigue, but they are just glimpses in the endless merry-go-round of random characters. The thinnest of plot lines get us to the end, but they are so ridiculously disconnected because there’s no connecting glue.

As a result, I found the ending very annoying. It just felt un-earned, sudden, and disappointing. You wanted the misfits to succeed and yet, they just have to abandon ship. It just felt like there were better endings and a better story there.

Anyway, might intrigue you if you like characters more than stories. But definitely not my cup of tea.