Floating Hotel

Floating Hotel
By Grace Curtis

The luxury hotel has long been the setting for telling stories of imperial decadence, from Vicki Baum’s 1929 novel Grand Hotel (Menschen im Hotel) and the 1932 film adaptation of the same, up to Wes Anderson’s 2014 effort The Grand Budapest Hotel and the HBO series The White Lotus (the last mentioned being very much a tale of the American empire in decline).

Grace Curtis’s tale of the Grand Abeona Hotel, a galaxy-roaming space station full of old-school analog charm that caters to the whims of the richest citizens of a fading Empire, is the latest expression of this same trope. There’s no single story being told but rather a collection of goings-on, full of romance and mystery, and each centered on a different character, from the manager to the engineer, the concierge, the cook, and even some of the guests. The crew in particular are cast-offs and misfits who have found a new sense of family at the hotel, which is a theme that’s become prevalent in a lot of recent SF.

Given the nature of the narrative, and the Abeona’s itinerary, it’s not a novel that ever feels like it’s going anywhere, but the floating hotel makes for a nice (the directed adjective is “cozy”) place to stay and meet some interesting people.