A Blessing of Unicorns

Sub-Inspector Ferron Mysteries, Book 2

A new science fiction mystery featuring Sub-Inspector Ferrin, from two-time Hugo Award winner Elizabeth Bear.

A woman has vanished. She reported her disappearance in advance.

In the Bangalore, India, of the 2070s, a young woman who is internet-famous enters an empty police station and tells the virtual assistant that her life is in danger. When she disappears out of her own apartment, it's up to Police Sub-Inspector Ferron and her partner to determine whether a crime has even been committed. In a world of enhanced tech and extreme interconnectedness, can someone truly disappear?

To find the answers, Ferron will need to enter a braver, newer world of virtual reality - and deal with the small matter of a herd of tiny, vicious unicorns.

©2020 Sarah Wishnevsky-Lynch (P)2020 Audible Originals, LLC.

Very Enjoyable

I really enjoyed this unique story - well written, excellent narration. Wasn't sure what to expect - I found the story compelling from the beginning. Thanks much.

Ferron confronts a tricky mystery & her own issues

Sub-Inspector Ferron and her partner get a relatively rare summons to, not come to police headquarters, but to join an immersive virutal reality replay of a citizen's recent visit. A virtual reality influencer star came in to report that she is being stalked online by someone threatening her with death if she goes online. And if she doesn't go online, of course she can't do the influencer work that provides her livelihood. It's not just an empty threat; another influencer, her close friend, was getting similar threats and has now disappeared.

But by the time Ferron and her partner get back to the station, the woman who had originally accepted protective custody has changed her mind and left, believing the stalker could have hacked the police computer system. When they go looking for her, they find, instead, a herd of tiny, bio-printed unicorns.

When they go looking for the other missing young woman, they find another herd of tiny, bio-printed unicorns. Both herds have to be taken to the exotics section of Animal Control, and then they have to get back to figuring out the significant connections between the two young women, the connections that will lead to the person who has either killed or kidnapped them. It strikes Ferron that among all the different sponsorship items they had received to feature in their online activities, each of the women had received very expensive bioprinters. And a herd of tiny, bio-printed unicorns is about the same mass as an adult woman.

It's not long before she has a new line on the investigation, an unpleasant realization she'll have to venture into the artificial reality world of these young influencers, and an even more unpleasant new argument with her mother--whose high-quality archive of all her online AR adventures Ferron has stopped paying for because she simply couldn't afford it. The complications of her family life intertwine with her dislike of AR, her complicated relationship with her mother and with the rest of her family in the kin-block she lives in, and a painful encounter with her own weaknesses.

In two novellas, Ferron has done an impressive amount of character growth. It's an intriguing mystery, solid world-building, and solid character development, too.

Recommended.

I bought this audiobook.

A strange near future sci fi myatery novel.

It might not be my normal cup of tea, and I doubt a 50 plus white male reader is the demographic they were expecting, but I felt the premise and a few world building aspects of this story were excellent. I mostly lile a near future post apocolypse story that was optomistic. We survive a near end of the world in the near future. That was refreshing. Loved the tone and consiatancy of voice, there was all that internal identity conflict the regualr audience ans likely the author craves but annoys me but it didnt detract from the action and furthered character developement instead of being trite drivle. great job. will correct spelling on my computer when I get home.

Sci-fi murder mystery

Elizabeth Bear’s A Blessing of Unicorns is another short story sci-fi murder mystery. This time out, the young detective is faced with a bunch of artificially generated unicorns (a group of unicorns is referred to as a ‘blessing’). Her mother is lurking as well.

The narration is reasonable with decent character distinction. Pacing is smooth.

Well done

I very much enjoyed this science fiction novella and appreciate that it was one on the Audible “included with your subscription”titles. The story is refreshingly different and the main characters are well drawn. It piqued my interest in other titles in this series.