Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

After reading the award nominations and praise from various organizations, I had high hopes for this book. After reading it, I can only ask "what were they thinking?" I'll start with the good: it is well edited. OK, we got that out of the way. There is zero character development and I didn't find any of the characters likable or interesting. The principals don't have any character, chase the money and make excuses when something goes bad. They all care, so I guess there is that. Every romantic interest is cross species. One of the crew members is in love with the ship's AI and likes to take off his clothes, lean against the AI's processors and have "romantic" conversations. There is almost no science in this book and that is fine. Unfortunately there is a little bit. For instance, the ship is fueled by algae. If the ship's engines were made out of gingerbread I could go with the flow. In this case, just no. Spoilers follow. Read it anyway, you'll be glad you did. The protagonists crew a small ship that specializes in opening "tunnels" between star systems. The crew are all pacifists. They aren't pacifists who have taken a reasoned moral stance and stick to it despite the temptation to defend themselves. Nope, they are pacifists because guns are scary and its someone else's job to only send them to safe spaces. The captain's love interest is an alien. When he learns she used a gun to defend herself in a life or death situation, he encounters his biggest moral dilemma: is he bad because he is glad his lover defended herself"? The crew learns that there is a contract to open a "tunnel" connecting the rest of "civilized" space with an incredibly violent and genocidal species Torema) near the galactic center. There is lots of money at stake and the crew jumps at it. After a long journey filled with plenty of emotional chaos and not much action, they arrive at the star system of a Torema faction. The crew has been warned that each Torema faction only tolerates the beliefs held by that particular faction and does their best to exterminate anyone who doesn't hold those views. They also have incredibly acute hearing. Five of the crew (including Kizzy who has the impulse control of a 3 year old and has a habit of blurting out random and inappropriate comments) attend a meeting. What could go wrong? A few of the Torema show up and of course three of the crew (including Kizzy) decide the topic of conversation should be how they think having anything to do with the Torema (remember how they don't tolerate dissenting opinions) might be a bad idea. One of the Torema is on the edge, gets triggered and later fires on the crew's ship just as it is in the process of creating the new tunnel. The crew, oblivious feel good morons that they are, has absolutely no idea why a Torema would fire on them. Much later when the crew has returned to "civilization" and the captain is being debriefed, he is specifically asked if anyone on his crew might have said something to trigger the Torema. He answers "no", then remembers Kizzy was there and amends his answer to "I don't know but just because some people want to get rich off of trade with the Torema, they are too violent and we shouldn't have anything to do with them". The captain doesn't recognize the irony that he and his crew wanted to get rich off of opening the tunnel right up until they were personally affected by opening the tunnel. I'm guessing the author is also oblivious.