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A review by quadrille
The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older
4.0
A lovely little novella set on Jupiter, with a detective investigating the disappearance of a professor to decide whether it was suicide or murder; and enlisting her ex-girlfriend’s assistance in navigating the complications of university academia and its politics and society.
It’s a fun murder mystery, thick with academic intrigue and a Holmesian vibe to Investigator Mossa: her difficulties with people, her bluntly straightforward affect, the way she’s always working multiple angles and putting clues together without necessarily keeping her companion up-to-date. Their dynamic as bittersweet exes is great.
And most of all, I adored the worldbuilding: living in a city of artificial rings constructed around a gas giant, with the swirling inhospitable emptiness below. I love futuristic settings like this, where mankind ekes out an existence on the fringe, the way the people mourn for lost Earth and cherish it through the mausozooleum even if it’s impractical. Malka Older paints such a rich atmosphere, of comfortable little quarters and favourite foods and real everyday existence. It’s astonishingly cozy, for all that it’s set in such a strange and inhospitable environment; it feels properly lived-in.
It also asks a bit of the question: how much do we fixate on the past versus the future; how much do we try to recreate what we had and lost, versus trying to build something new?
Just a lot of stuff that I love. I think I was more into it for the world & characters & themes rather than the plot itself, but it was a great read, and I’ll absolutely pick up the sequel.
It’s a fun murder mystery, thick with academic intrigue and a Holmesian vibe to Investigator Mossa: her difficulties with people, her bluntly straightforward affect, the way she’s always working multiple angles and putting clues together without necessarily keeping her companion up-to-date. Their dynamic as bittersweet exes is great.
And most of all, I adored the worldbuilding: living in a city of artificial rings constructed around a gas giant, with the swirling inhospitable emptiness below. I love futuristic settings like this, where mankind ekes out an existence on the fringe, the way the people mourn for lost Earth and cherish it through the mausozooleum even if it’s impractical. Malka Older paints such a rich atmosphere, of comfortable little quarters and favourite foods and real everyday existence. It’s astonishingly cozy, for all that it’s set in such a strange and inhospitable environment; it feels properly lived-in.
It also asks a bit of the question: how much do we fixate on the past versus the future; how much do we try to recreate what we had and lost, versus trying to build something new?
Just a lot of stuff that I love. I think I was more into it for the world & characters & themes rather than the plot itself, but it was a great read, and I’ll absolutely pick up the sequel.