The premise of this book sounded so interesting. I love the Great British Bake Off and other cooking shows. And I love the idea of non-white characters being the main characters of the story. But I just struggled to get through it. The sci-fi aspect of it was jus too much. As someone who doesn't really read sci-fi, I just found the sci=fi aspects of it too intimidating to the point where I didn't enjoy reading it.
This could be a great read for someone who already is a big sci-fi fan.

I'm going to go straight in and say, I didn't love this book. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. It was sold to me as "Megachef in space" so I expect that to be the main setting, however I felt that the show aspect of the story was secondary, maybe even tertiary to the rest.

The writing style was tricky, sometimes I breezed through it with ease and others I was rereading entire paragraphs trying to work out exactly what had been said. I think that it mostly correlated to which character was in control of the chapter, this was often really jarring to me and took way from my enjoyment of the story.

The blurb told us this was a "fun and satirical, thought provoking novel" which for me, personally, was partially true. It was definitely satirical and political and I think would 100% be loved by people who enjoy the complex nuances in novels like this but when I see "fun and satirical" I expect easy, funny and sarcastic, poking fun and dry wit (which I love) this just left me often confused. The names of the characters didn't help this either, with 90% of the characters being named after one of the 9 principles, meaning they had very similar names. I had no idea who was who for half of the book. My favourite character from the whole book was Kili, both the angel and devil on Saraswatis shoulder, he provided the dry wit and lovable rogue I was expecting.

Having said all that I did enjoy elements of the novel and I'm definitely intrigued to see where the next book takes this plot. What I do love is that I can see that this story still has a long way to go, that there is still so many ways this story can be developed and directions it can take and I would definitely read the next book to see how it all plays out.

My thanks to Rebellion for the early access to this book.

This is a much more complex book than I expected going in which isn't bad but wasn't for me. I was overwhelmed with the world building and a lot had very little to do wih the story itself. The food stuff was inventive and interesting though.

Wow. I tried. This is why I don't read blurbs, bc if I hadn't, I might have actually enjoyed this one. But I did read the blurb, and that was the book I wanted to read.

Too many characters that all have very similar names (after one of the "nine virtues") made it very hard to follow who was doing what. And I'm not one to put something down bc I don't like the characters, but I didn't actually care about any of them OR what they were actually doing.

If you're going into this thinking it's going to be about a cooking competition in space, skip it.

I think that the marketing got this book to just the wrong people - I was expecting more of a cozy food eccentric cooking competition in space, and while yes that is happening isn't really the headline or main part of this book. It's more of a sci-fi political book which I think is a different set of readers with different preferences. The many POVs and info-dumping was also set up that made this difficult for me to get into, I felt lost or overwhelmed more often than I prefer. In the right hands I think that this book will have readers fall into it, but the set-up felt misleading.

DNF at 25%

The main characters were pleasant to read about... when they were present. There were just too many chapters that focussed on other parts of the galaxy. They were unnecessary side tangents that only added to the worldbuilding but didn't manage to properly support the plot or the characters. This made it hard to get a grasp of the world, as I became overloaded with information and became bored as I was waiting for the parts that I actually cared about.

And lastly, I was hoping to find Great British Bake Off vibes, but Interstellar Megachef is an American-style cooking show.

Thank you NetGalley and Solaris for giving me access to an e-arc for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Sci-fi lovers will perhaps enjoy this. I wasn't aware that this was going to be such a hardcore science fiction or wouldn't have requested it. Not being used to/not being the kind of reader who enjoys the genre that much, I had a hard time connecting to the characters and keeping track of the world. The cover and the blurb seen slightly misleading in the case of this book as it was because of them that I got the impression that this was going to use science only as a part of the story.

This is a hell of a great novel, and if there ends up being more from this series/world, I would love it. You get an examination of cultural hegemony and racism as seen through the food world and what it values, and how the idea of a naive desperate for positive attention fresh from college worker could potentially deeply fuck that. There's some threads here that seem to be waiting for another book to be picked up on, and hopefully this sells well enough that we get it. But Lakshminarayan's view of the things that happen in kitchens and behind shows, as well as the individual characters playing into these systems, and you have a hell of a great read. And it's queer to boot! Pick it up when it comes out.

I was extremely excited for this book and was psyched to receive an arc but I just couldn’t get on with it. The vibes weren’t what I expected from the cover and blurb and there was just a little too much going on for me. I found it hard to follow each characters arc and I think they might have been stronger in separate books. I really wanted to like this book so I’m hoping that if I come back to it later I might feel differently.

I've been waiting months to start reading this and maybe it was the heightened anticipation, or maybe it was my love for GBBO (mostly the earlier seasons) but this book was just, meh.

It is very busy, lots of world building, lots of new terminology, lots of characters, lots of secrets and maybe would have worked better as a second book, because I kept having to go back and re-read.

Saras wants to win the cooking competition Insterstellar Megachef - and also remain hidden as she navigates life in Primus and meets the badly misnamed Serenity Ko. Serenity has secrets of her own as she aims to become the queen of immersive reality. It's not going so well for her, though, but a chance meeting with Saras may give them both the lives they want.

The idea of GBBO in space was a great set up - but there is precious little of any food competition ambiance, and the interstellar part felt very surface-level, which making this setting that is thousands of years in the future feel very, very familiar.

I appreciated the diversity and representation - but that would be the one highlight. I didn't care for the characters, and when when that happens it's just downhill for me.

It was a ok read. I was expecting a food themed fun cozy sci-fi, but this just touched the bare minimum of all of those attributes. The setting is fine, but it felt very mundane and lacked the oomph of something sci-fi or special. The political elements took precedence over cooking, food and fun which though not bad wasn't what I expected. The focus on cultural expectations and difficulties around the same isn't really my cup of tea.

3.5 rounded up.
I really enjoyed this for the most part but, it’s definitely not what I was expecting from the cover. I was hoping for fun, cosy sci-fi with humour, instead I got a strange mix of politics, race relations and the development of cuisine and culture over the years. The food concepts were fun, and I liked the explanation for why things had developed that way, and I found the idea of simulated food fascinating. I enjoyed the side characters - especially Starlight Fantastic, mainly because they felt properly alien. I did like the alternating POV, it kept things fresh.
I didn’t like the naming system, it made character distinction really confusing, and the fact that most were human was annoying. I didn’t like that nearly all of the POV characters were so morally ambiguous. I also didn’t feel like the time scale for the future felt accurate, and there wasn’t enough of an explanation about Earth.
All in all, this was entertaining but definitely not as labelled.

The marketing is really misleading on this - the cover is fun and so is the description, both making you think that it'll be more focused on the cooking competition and even beyond that, looking at the far future of food in a satirical but lighthearted way.

It's not that at all. The cooking competition itself takes up maybe 10% of the book (both iterations of it), and the book is much more about food as a political vehicle, a tool for both empires and exclusion, while still being something primal and emotional, a way to connect with each other. The political state of humanity is a huge part of this, obviously, so anti-capitalist and anti-war in such a way that it's almost looped back on itself in the cyclical human desire to separate into "us" and "them", and food is such a vehicle for this.

So it's still very much a book about food, but it's not a /fun/ food book, certainly not the one the marketing might lead you to think it is. There's a cooking competition, there's queer women, and there's a lot of thoughts about the nature of food and culture and how tied we are to both. The one thing the marketing got right is that it's thought-provoking: the nature of technology and intent and who is using that technology and what for is forefront here. I think if you had less of an idea that it would be about the cooking competition itself and more about what it represents for humanity in the future, it would be better. I certainly had a hard time settling into it, but once I got a better handle on what was actually happening I really enjoyed it.

This is a very cool, fun and fresh satirical yet thought-provoking take on science fiction fantasy. I very much enjoyed and loved the LGBTQ+ representation. This is also a very fun cover! A donut?! Come on! I love it!

I struggled slightly with the vomit and retching descriptions, as I don't love when alcohol is introduced into a science fiction environment. I really enjoy when a new fun sort of drink is created, adding to the plot instead.

I also really struggled to keep track of the characters and the unusual punctuation was difficult for my brain to absorb in an ereader format, as it was not a typical experience. This may just be because it is the advanced reader copy.

Between the fun banter, humor, and important themes and gorgeous cover and wonderful queer representation, I just know this book is going to be successful and do well! I am rooting for the success of this wonderful read. Unfortunately, it simply was not for me? I think the humor being British likely contributed to this as I am located in Seattle, WA.

Thank you for allowing me to read this early and for free! This was an incredible privilege and I appreciate the opportunity to express my honest opinion.

A great premise and an author to watch, this unfortunately stumbled in the execution. Still a fun book and worth a read, especially for sci-fi readers looking for more stories in the vein of Becky Chambers, less space battles. I had very high hopes for an adult-level novel not far from Space Battle Lunchtime Vol. 1: Lights, Camera, Snacktion.

The narration is told party in first person, for the Earthling character, and partly in third person, for the computer programmer and everyone else. Third person throughout, or alternating first person accounts, would have made more sense.

This is not a space romance. There are some low-key mentions of both characters thinking the other is cute but a disaster; nothing like a romantic storyline develops until about 80-84% of the way through the book (according to my Kindle), so it was very rushed and felt unnecessary-- the story would have been a-ok to stick to a found-family story on a unique future planet.

The climax also feels a bit cheated. There's a lot of detail and day-to-day specificity as the character arrives from Earth and gets to know the planet. Once the characters really start to go full throttle on their joint project, though, the narration pulls back to a very vague descriptions, covering a span of a couple of weeks with a lot of handwaving. The head-to-head final battle also felt rather middle-school-ery with the main character standing up to a bully and proving her worth to herself. At the same time, several points about how the main character's parents engineered her prior success on earth and even at least 1 position on the new planet aren't in any way resolved.

The new planet's food culture is heavily documented, but it doesn't do a good job of making sense. A main point is that Earth-culture cooking is wasteful because it relies on whole ingredients, while alien-planet cooking sucks compounds out of fruits and vegetables, theoretically producing less waste. But the food still has to be grown and harvested first, the compounds aren't harvested while the plant is still alive to make more. And it's never clarified if, for example, one fruit that could feed one human could provide extracted products to feed multiple humans. This aspect had great potential but was poorly-realized.

This would still be a fun read, if expectations were managed better. Or, check out what this author does in 3-5 years. eARC from NetGalley.

DNFing this book because it isn’t really as advertised. It’s not very much about queerness or a cooking show, which is what it really seemed like it was supposed to be about. That said, I do think this book could be interesting enough as an audiobook so I’ll try it in that format!

Admittedly, this is not the fairest review - I am putting this book down at 37% and will not be finishing it.

The pitch and premise of this book really drew me in. Sci-fi is my favorite genre, I love cooking shows, and sapphic romance is great. However, the actual story barely touches on these selling points. It’s also described as “fun” and “satirical,” but those aspects are both missing for me.

Instead, what you find here is a story full of political and cultural commentary, focusing on xenophobia, cultural conformity, and supremacy. I found the world-building to be unnecessarily complicated, and at times, it reads like a textbook. I also found one of the main POV characters to be extremely unlikable. With all of this combined, I have no interest in finishing the story.

Overall, the marketing just feels misleading. This doesn’t make it a bad book - it’s just not what I signed up for.

Thank you to Net Galley and Solaris for the ARC. This was an absolutely amazing read! I am mind blown! The world building was amazing, and I love how well integrated it was with the themes of the story and the plot. I loved how food was explored in this novel, as something that brings people together, but also something that can be used to enforce cultural hegemony. I also loved the exploration of the soft power of culture in spreading and enforcing political ideals. Also, the exploration of technology in terms of replacing artists was really well done. I loved the characters in this book - they all had so much depth and the different POVs were all so interesting. I loved Saraswati, her journey of trying to prove that even people from Earth can cook. I also loved Serentiy Ko's character and her journey with her career and her invention. Optimism Mahd'vi's chapters were so interesting, I loved the scheming. Kili was so cute. I also loved the POV from the twins Pavi and Amol who are immigrants originally from Earth that are trying to fit in Primian food culture. The food descriptions in this book were stellar, if you read this make sure you have a snack because this book makes you so hungry. Also I desperately need the next book, this was so good.

Before I go further, 3 stars but by the time I got to the end I realised I really do want to see where this series goes. I liked the idea of this story. The premise from the description is there, in this somewhat futuristic fantasy. In some ways it lived up to that maybe less, more and bigger. I know that’s clumsy I’ll try to explain.
Less: this has the behind the scenes cook show contest bitchy, one up manship, self conceited Diva, balanced with camaraderie and cooking skill. Yet as I’ve said this is only a small part.
More: the story is so much bigger than a cook show contest, and that surprised me as this isn’t suggested in anyway in the book cover description. Politics and political correctness, feuds and universal conquest play a big part. Some of the story line didn’t make sense until I was well into the book, and some parts suggest explanations and expansion coming, I think, in later books.
Bigger: the story includes many issues that should be debated. Read the book and open some conversations to the betterment of chefs and everyone.
Likes: by the end I liked the whole. Humour, it’s there; revenge, it’s there; sapphic,it’s there but in the background, not the major focus nor thrown in your face. I liked the feel of ‘It’s just a natural thing, so let’s not make a whole big thing about it’.
Dislike: the author seemed to try to hard to be futuristic in the naming of characters. The names are interesting (the why of them is not explained, which might have been nice), yet for a while they got in my way as my brain kept pausing to understand their meaning and context in a sentence each time I read a name when there was none.
One confusion for me still to be worked out - how can you have memories of food to relive, if you’ve never eaten the food in the first place?
Thank you to Rebellion and NetGalley for the ARC. The views expressed are all mine, freely given.

I think there is a little bit of false advertising that's happening with the pitch of the book. I imagined I was picking something like Space Opera, which was pitched as Eurovision in space and was, essentally an extremely overrought and verbose but execution of an intergalactic ESC. That was the whole set up and structure of the book. It's not the case with Interstellar MegaChef: it won't follow the beats of a cooking show, because it's more interested in painting the society at large, and interplay of the cultures (with especial interest in metropoly-colony and general immigration themes). The choice to have a focus on that didn't bother me, but the execution was uneven: too on the nose sometimes. On the plus side: pet robot companions! queers! and some cooking.

3.5 rounded up to 4