Second paragraph of third chapter:

It slid open with a quiet hiss, revealing the main corridor of the starboard passenger deck. Doors to passenger quarters (four bunks per room) lined either side of the corridor. Here and there men in Royal Castakaran Army fatigues lay slumped on the floor, unconscious from the gas. Malcolm saw no corpses and no sign of any possessed men.

I got this in 2016 out of admiration for the author’s decision to decline nomination for the Hugo Awards; his story had been boosted onto the final ballot by slating and he wanted very much to distance himself from it, and not only that, he kept quiet about it until the full results were announced. However it took me until now to get around to reading it. It’s a well-written enough story of horrors lurking between the stars, while humans fight the artificial intelligences they have created, with some interesting narrative twists. I’d still have voted for the winner of this category, “Folding Beijing”. You can get it here.

This was the shortest unread book that I acquired in 2016. Next is Zink, by David van Reybrouck.