Something is happening on Jax’ space station. Strange sounds. Blood-stained rags. Shadows in the corner of the eye.
Worst of all, people are trying to talk to her. Especially her colleague, Saunders.
It wasn’t that Jax was in love with her Space Station. It was more that she felt connected with it on a deeply personal, emotional level.
“Malfunction detected, Level 1.”
This is A.Z. Roskillis’ Space Station X: a lesbian romance on a deep, deep space station, with psychos and bugs and everything!
Despite the horror trappings, Space Station X really is a romance story at heart. Jax, the station engineer, is a misanthrope’s misanthrope, using her station as the next best thing to becoming a hermit. The only other living thing she even tolerates is the single houseplant she keeps in her quarters. She treats the station as her love in ways that Captain James T. Kirk would find a little obsessive. Something in her past has driven her to these extremes, something she’s been running from for a long time.
And then, there’s Saunders. Saunders is the station’s security officer (and the only other crew besides Jax herself), a well-muscled blonde who took up her position straight out of the Space Marines. She’s cheerful, genuine with people, and not a little lonely. Friends have described me as “the world’s most cheerful battering ram” and that’s exactly what Saunders is to Jax, trying bit by bit to find out what’s under that thick shell. But she came out to the station for her own good reasons, reasons that hide behind that easy smile.
What I liked best about Space Station X is how human it is. Even when the horror is ratcheted up to delirious levels, Jax and Saunders remain very plain and very real. Either of them could be someone you meet on the street, or have to try to reach at the office, and they retain that humanity in the face of the worst the station has to throw at them. And, almost in contrast to the rising terror, they become more real and more well-rounded as we slowly find out more and more about the station’s two crewmates.
I’ve been developing a taste for queer romance lately, and I loved how easy it was to join Jax and Saunders, walk besides them on their station. I was taken aback when the book finished. If there’s more out there like Space Station X, I’m going to be a happy reader. And if there’s more Roskillis to be had, I’m going to be a very happy reader.
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