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A review by mafiabadgers
The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older
1.0
First read 03/2025
I really struggled to get into this one. The book was terribly short on description. Regarding our protagonists, Mossa had short hair. That's all I got. The setting also needed a lot more. Jupiter has metal rings running around it that function like train tracks, and people build habitat bubbles at various points along them. So far so good, but these bubbles are called platforms, not to be confused with the platforms for the trains, which are still called platforms, and the word is frequently used in both senses. The rings apparently intersect, but if I've got this right, the same two rings can intersect at enough points that it's difficult to predict another person's route? Either I'm imagining this wrong, or that's not how rings work. Putting a diagram at the front would have laid so, so much of the groundwork for this book. Don't get me wrong, I think trains are great, and writers should put more of them in space, but not like this. We never even learn what they look like on the outside. I don't think there was anything in this book I managed to visualise easily.
The only point where I felt the sci-fi element was handled well was in the off-the-cuff mentions of atmoscarfs and atmoshields: items familiar enough, and names evocative enough, to render explanation unnecessary. It took me a while to figure out exactly what the blurb meant when it described the book as "Holmesian"—wouldn't Doylist be more appropriate? But I eventually cottoned on to the fact that this is mediocre fanfiction about a gender-swapped, gay Holmes and Watson, who happen to be in space.
First things first, it's necessary to think of these characters as Holmes and Watson, because they don't hold up on their own. Mossa is ostensibly part of an organised, official investigative force (essentially space cops), but seems to do whatever she wants, with no oversight. This isn't treated as loose cannon behaviour, it's just taken for granted. When she arrests someone, she ties them up and leaves them lying on the floor of her house. Do they not have cells? Protocols for proper treatment of prisoners? I sense a lawsuit coming up. It's a private detective's approach to investigation, not that of someone with legally granted and curbed powers, and it's very jarring.
Secondly, the approach to writing relationships is right out of a fanfiction. When treating each other's wounds, characters may be overwhelmed by moments of skin-to-skin contact, rather than, I don't know, focusing on providing medical attention. It's not a plausible human reaction, but it's great if you want to play up a burgeoning relationship. Also, Pleiti blushes constantly, even though she's a professional academic instead of a hormonal teenager. I think writers should only be allowed to use the formulation "face heat" once per book. Even that may be excessive.
And third, these aren't characters who are organic products of their setting. Pleiti apparently has the leisure to walk away from her academic job to tag along on a murder investigation whenever she wishes, and Mossa's investigative approach I mentioned above. Even the setting isn't an organic product of the setting! The book is very clear that it's set in a future following on from our own, but Older's attempt to mimic Victorian language (invariably a doomed project for American writers) has convinced her shecan't cannot use contractions, which is jarring in a futuristic setting. Also, "Radiation and recombinants!" is a terrible curse, and yes, I'm nitpicking now, but hey, it annoyed me.
And my complaints are not merely technical, but political also! For starters, our academic protagonist gets called a conservative at one point, and whenever she remembers this she has to try very hard not to cry, even though she's essentially doing conservation work and the term is not inaccurate. She even refers to this as the "c-word". It comes across as an attempt to satirise overly sensitive academics who are excessively proud of the leftist credentials... or it would if the protagonist wasn't otherwise depicted sympathetically. It's baffling and bizarre and out of keeping with the rest of the book's tone. In addition to this, the argument that we cannot return to a halcyon golden age but must ceaselessly strive to build a better and different future, an argument typically used to critique reactionary politics, is principally voiced by a man who kills others who get in the way of him living the sort of life he wants to live. Yes, the protagonist grudgingly admits that the argument has its merits, but it's a disturbing framing nonetheless.
Anyway, I could have overlooked the lack of skill that went into this one. I might have been able to overlook the politics. But what I cannot overlook is the horrendous ending. Imagine reading a bog standard Sherlock Holmes mystery and then at the end, Watson says, 'I've just realised that the bad guy's going to release a virus that will kill half the world's population! We'd better get there in time to stop him.' And then they don't get there in time to stop him. Supposedly this has been set up because Watson is a doctor, so, you know, it's not completely out of nowhere, right?
Older expects me to believe thata small-scale murder mystery (working theory is that it's a land swindle) is actually part of a conspiracy to change the course of history. A conspiracy that can acquire and prep a rocket for launch. A conspiracy that can manufacture and install a theoretical nose cone design. A conspiracy that can clear out everyone who usually works at the rocket launch pads. A conspiracy consisting entirely of... three guys? I suppose it's not too implausible, given that prepping the rocket to launch consists of tapping buttons on a console that sits on the launch pad, right next to the rocket. Once you're done, you can just climb aboard and blast off in ten minutes! It feels like a film that ran out of budget and put the final sequence on an implausibly small set with a conspicuous lack of extras.
Full marks to Christine Foltzer for that cover design, though.
I really struggled to get into this one. The book was terribly short on description. Regarding our protagonists, Mossa had short hair. That's all I got. The setting also needed a lot more. Jupiter has metal rings running around it that function like train tracks, and people build habitat bubbles at various points along them. So far so good, but these bubbles are called platforms, not to be confused with the platforms for the trains, which are still called platforms, and the word is frequently used in both senses. The rings apparently intersect, but if I've got this right, the same two rings can intersect at enough points that it's difficult to predict another person's route? Either I'm imagining this wrong, or that's not how rings work. Putting a diagram at the front would have laid so, so much of the groundwork for this book. Don't get me wrong, I think trains are great, and writers should put more of them in space, but not like this. We never even learn what they look like on the outside. I don't think there was anything in this book I managed to visualise easily.
The only point where I felt the sci-fi element was handled well was in the off-the-cuff mentions of atmoscarfs and atmoshields: items familiar enough, and names evocative enough, to render explanation unnecessary. It took me a while to figure out exactly what the blurb meant when it described the book as "Holmesian"—wouldn't Doylist be more appropriate? But I eventually cottoned on to the fact that this is mediocre fanfiction about a gender-swapped, gay Holmes and Watson, who happen to be in space.
First things first, it's necessary to think of these characters as Holmes and Watson, because they don't hold up on their own. Mossa is ostensibly part of an organised, official investigative force (essentially space cops), but seems to do whatever she wants, with no oversight. This isn't treated as loose cannon behaviour, it's just taken for granted. When she arrests someone, she ties them up and leaves them lying on the floor of her house. Do they not have cells? Protocols for proper treatment of prisoners? I sense a lawsuit coming up. It's a private detective's approach to investigation, not that of someone with legally granted and curbed powers, and it's very jarring.
Secondly, the approach to writing relationships is right out of a fanfiction. When treating each other's wounds, characters may be overwhelmed by moments of skin-to-skin contact, rather than, I don't know, focusing on providing medical attention. It's not a plausible human reaction, but it's great if you want to play up a burgeoning relationship. Also, Pleiti blushes constantly, even though she's a professional academic instead of a hormonal teenager. I think writers should only be allowed to use the formulation "face heat" once per book. Even that may be excessive.
And third, these aren't characters who are organic products of their setting. Pleiti apparently has the leisure to walk away from her academic job to tag along on a murder investigation whenever she wishes, and Mossa's investigative approach I mentioned above. Even the setting isn't an organic product of the setting! The book is very clear that it's set in a future following on from our own, but Older's attempt to mimic Victorian language (invariably a doomed project for American writers) has convinced her she
And my complaints are not merely technical, but political also! For starters, our academic protagonist gets called a conservative at one point, and whenever she remembers this she has to try very hard not to cry, even though she's essentially doing conservation work and the term is not inaccurate. She even refers to this as the "c-word". It comes across as an attempt to satirise overly sensitive academics who are excessively proud of the leftist credentials... or it would if the protagonist wasn't otherwise depicted sympathetically. It's baffling and bizarre and out of keeping with the rest of the book's tone. In addition to this, the argument that we cannot return to a halcyon golden age but must ceaselessly strive to build a better and different future, an argument typically used to critique reactionary politics, is principally voiced by a man who kills others who get in the way of him living the sort of life he wants to live. Yes, the protagonist grudgingly admits that the argument has its merits, but it's a disturbing framing nonetheless.
Anyway, I could have overlooked the lack of skill that went into this one. I might have been able to overlook the politics. But what I cannot overlook is the horrendous ending. Imagine reading a bog standard Sherlock Holmes mystery and then at the end, Watson says, 'I've just realised that the bad guy's going to release a virus that will kill half the world's population! We'd better get there in time to stop him.' And then they don't get there in time to stop him. Supposedly this has been set up because Watson is a doctor, so, you know, it's not completely out of nowhere, right?
Older expects me to believe that
Full marks to Christine Foltzer for that cover design, though.