Rosalyn Devar is on the run from her family, the bioengineering job she's come to hate, and her messed-up life. After too many mistakes on the job, she's given one last chance: take care of salvaging the Brigantine, a research vessel that has gone dark, with all crew aboard thought dead. But the Brigantine's crew are very much alive--if not entirely human.
The larger world of the novel is only hinted at as Rosalyn’s background is revealed, but the setting is a sound enough framework for this solid piece of survival horror in space. The tension and desperation of the situation meshes perfectly with the characters’ development as they struggle to stay themselves and survive.
... taut ... Scenes of violence are gory but not gratuitous, and Roux will leave readers wondering whether the real source of evil is in human minds and hearts. This entertaining, deeply disturbing, and clever story hits all the right notes for those who like a little horror with their SF.
Put Charlie Huston’s The Mystic Art of Erasing All Kinds of Death, Robert Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters, and the original Alien movie in a blender, water the mix down, and you’ll have this sci-fi thriller ... The answers aren’t much in doubt, and the conspiracy proves to be not too terribly complicated; either the author trusts readers to fill in the details or just couldn’t be bothered to take on the job herself. And it’s odd that Rosalyn, a former biochemist with a specialty in xenobiology, offers no real scientific speculations about Foxfire, leaving that to other characters; she does eventually come up with a way of combating the thing, but there’s no explanation of how she developed it, suggesting that the author didn't do much mushroom research of her own, either. Rosalyn is much more interesting as a troubled janitor than she is as a thriller heroine, and the tenuous attraction between her and Edison seems contrived. A story about her cleanup work could’ve been interesting, but the book heads toward the formulaic territory of alien threats and corrupt corporate shenanigans far too quickly ... Moderately entertaining at best.
