The story follows a group of Catholic nuns on board of the Our Lady of Impossible Constelations. They are on their way to a small colony to perform a wedding and a baptism. Their ship is alive. Organic material breed for the purpose of space travel. Though not sentient the ship has organic needs. At some point the nuns debate whether to allow it to mate as it seems to be in heat. As the ship was consecrated, would it be a sin to allow it mate?
Some things have not changed much. I mean in terms of religious beliefs and customs. The ship is a convent in space, with a silent mother superior. We get to know some of the nuns, and their religious order. Of course being in space some of them are technicians and scientists. I enjoyed the description of live a board the ship, and the ship itself but I found something was lacking. There was hardly any internal conflicts depicted in the story. Those kinds of coflicts where science questions the existence of God. I sort of expected a bit of that being nuns in a bioship. There is one character though who questions her commitment to the order and her life as a nun. Not necessarily because she doubts her faith but because she is not sure she is cut out for the job anymore.
Sometime after the wedding and baptism, they receive a distress call from the same colony reporting an outbreak of a deadly disease. The nuns decide to go back and help. And here is when it gets exciting. The nuns switch to "hero" mode and at the same time dark secrets are revealed. There is some action which contrasts with the slow paced, convent-like atmosphere of the first part.
This was a fun read but I would have liked the author to provide more background (how the church and Vatican ended up sending nuns to space?) and explore the themes of religion v science much more.
An okay read.
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