Nuns in space! There is no better tagline

Cool English Edition.

Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather.

The nuns in space catchphrase is read in my head with a retro movie narration and at a first instance was hard to take it seriously, but at reading it, hell… it takes itself seriously and so do you.

The worldbuilding was the most interesting thing about it. It is tremendously solid and promising, you have the ever living and present catholic church in the far away future, active in live spaceships or bioships (very cool concept!) that house orders of nuns to do god´s work in the vastness of space. A very brave premise carefully balanced, the details and characterization are topnotch also. For example, what could scream catholic more than the church and nuns thoroughly discussing, with ultimate seriousness, if a liveship that also mates and reproduce with other liveships has a soul or not. Oh, no! I am cracking up! And it is so well made, Lina Rather is brilliant.

The nuns are well fleshed, with individual motivations and expectations on that life, fitting nicely in the plot. And when the disruptor arrives it is also… so catholic, and you feel for them and their future.

It is a very impressive effort to mix all these elements seamlessly in such length (it is a novella) and maybe it wavers a bit in the final arc, but mainly because there are many things you wish could be explored more, that it could be so neat to expand, and I hope there is that chance to have more stories in this universe.

Quick note. If you are catholic, fear not! Maybe I am, but the book isn’t disrespectful at all, I would say is cleverly critical.