Book: Kameron Hurley's "The Stars Are Legion"

Book number three of the year was an interesting read.  Kameron Hurley's "The Stars are Legion" is very different from most Sci-Fi I've read while being similar in other ways.

There are two things that stand out in the book.  The first is the world built by Hurley.  The book takes place on world-ships, large self contained biotech ships.  By biotech I mean that the ships, and most technology in the ships, are living organisms.  There are multiple worlds who are part of the legion.

The second thing is all characters in the book are female.  There are no males anywhere in the book.  This gives everything a different perspective.  To make things weird, the women inhabitants of the world spontaneously become pregnant, often carrying living biotech parts that the ship needs to repair itself.  It is confusing if the women are inhabitants of the ship or are they just components of the world-ships.

Part of the book has one of the main characters climbing up from the core of the world-ship facing obstacles with a team of women she picks up along the way - a very common theme of fantasy novels.  This felt very familiar to me and not very original.

I liked this book but there are holes in the world building.  I kept trying to wrap my mind around the universe created by Hurley but I just couldn't figure out the basic structures outside of the world-ships.  I was confused to the end.  I liked what I read but I needed a little more information.  What was the purpose of the legion?  Where was it located?  Were they in space or in a larger structure?  So many questions.

I gave this book four out of five stars on Goodreads because, while it felt original while having parts that weren't original or were missing altogether, I kept wanting to read more.