Drunk on All Your Strange New Words

Closer to a 3.5 The twist was a cool one, and loved the character development of a particular figure, but the resolution at the end was a bit shaky and “so what?”

Lydia is a translator for an alien species that communicates telepathically. When translating, the process causes a kind of drunkenness to occur in the translator. As a result, Lydia wakes up one morning with no memory past a certain point in the night and a dead boss. Now the center of an intergalactic incident, and a suspect for murder, Lydia begins investigating on her own. Following leads she knows the police won't. All with the assistance of an unexpected ally. I loved the science fiction elements of this book. There was such a high degree of sci-fi, but it was never confusing. There were intricate details, but Robson managed to clearly convey them in a way that every scene painted a picture in my mind. The way the world had changed, the way investigations, shopping, the internet, housing, has all changed seemed so obvious. I would almost consider this a prophecy of the future. Something that could fit into one of the more believable Black Mirror episodes. One detail I had issue with was at one point he mentions that the elevator shaft had been removed to make room for more housing, causing everyone to use stairs. The way this was said so blaze as though this were typical of all apartments in the city in addition to the lack of disability evident, makes me winder if its implied disabled people don't exist, or if Robson simply didn't think of them as he was writing. As a disabled person, the absence was glaring. I do wonder if it was intentional or not. However, that was my only real caveat with the book. I was a little dissatisfied with the ending. The reveal was great, but I don't like when the murderer is just some random person that you've had no reason to suspect from the beginning, and the entire premise of the game really confused me. But I'm sure a secondary reading will absolve me of this issue. A second reading I very much intend to do.