The Mimicking of Known Successes
Ratings122
Average rating3.6
What a neat little story. An old school mystery (Sherlock and Agatha feels), with a chance of rekindling an old flame – and oh – it takes place on Jupiter! Literally, out of this world (Sorry for the dad jokes).
Here, you have the two main characters serving as the reincarnation of Holmes and Watson as Mossa and Pleiti — two, very socially awkward women. The (second chance) romance itself is soft and subtle. I found it rather sweet. Most of their communication happens without a single word being said, but rather based on actions and how well they know each other. This story made me think about how our reactions and responses to things change as we grow older, and how because of that, so will how you view actions within relationships. What once may have been dealbreaker before, you might actually have a better understanding for now.
The main focus of the story is the captivating mystery. There's a lot of running around and bouncing ideas off of each other. Truly fascinating world building in such a short time frame. You can knock this story out in an afternoon curled up on the couch with a pot of tea beside you. Ideas of Earth is still lingering in the background, and of what we left behind, but pointing towards the future and what we can create for ourselves.
I hope to meet Mossa and Pleiti again.
4.5
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for sharing this ARC with me in exchange for an honest review.
Oh my gosh, I like this book. I like this book so much.
I grabbed it from my library kind of on a whim. I can only borrow it as an audio book and this one is pretty short, so I thought it would work well to listen to while I was exercising and/or at work.
Honestly, I'm glad I had to listen to it instead of reading it, because the atmosphere would be quite a bit different, I think, as written word vs. audio. For me, listening to this book... It feels and reads to me like a Sherlock Holmes send up - if Sherlock and John had been two women living on a science fiction planet after earth had been basically destroyed by humans, and had dated in university, that is.
Mossa feels like she was inspired by the Holmes brand of investigators - not always the best with people, even dear friends, and a mind that is always working. Pleiti is brilliant as a Watson-esque assistant and firm, if sometimes frustrated, friend.
The little bits of world building are so much fun! They live on a planet called Giant and get around everywhere by railcars and all except the little ‘platforms' that people live on seems to be just this gaseous lump where if you fall in, you just keep falling, even after you die. There are plenty of mentions of sci-fi goodies, but the descriptions and the general feel of the book makes it feel like such a Victorian era story.
I would like to say that the mystery was one that I found interesting enough (though, admittedly, that's not why I was here). My feelings about the crime/s that were perpetrated and the reasons for it, however... I'll say that they are a great deal more pragmatic than anyone involved in the story. I do disagree with the criminal reasoning - but I disagree just as much if not more to how upset it made especially Pleiti.
HUGE PLOT SPOILERS!
You've never been to Earth. Likely your parents and grandparent and great grandparents have never been to Earth. Why are you so desperate to get back there? The bad guy's whole reason for what he did was to get to Earth. Pleiti got so upset at his disregard for the future (which I do agree that he disregarded everyone except himself) and that he was ruining their chance at Earth. (Which I also agree is likely true.) But my question is: what does it matter?Let's assume for a minute that he will be killed by the poison air. Why are you assuming that he has taken proper precautions - if, indeed, there even are those proper precautions to take - so the flora and fauna seeding that he intends to do will actually take? Even if it does and he so breaks the ecosystem that it looks nothing like old earth and it wrecks itself, why does it matter? What are the real chances of ever getting back to Earth? And why is Earth being held up as some promised land that you have to return to? This same work that Pleiti and all her cohorts are doing could easily be adapted for any alien planet. It's not wasted work like she decries it is.
That all being said, even if I strong disagree and don't really understand this being the thrust of the bad guys plans as well as Pleiti's ire, I did enjoy it. And it was fun for a change reading about other people getting worked up over something that honestly got a ‘what's the big deal' from me instead of wondering why no one else thinks something is as horrible as I do.
Started this book at least 3 times, I have just started a new job and maybe that’s why I struggled?
I wanted to really like this, murder mystery in space sounds like fun. Didn’t really connect to the characters and the mystery didn’t get to me either.
Really liked the idea and would like to know more of the world.
Setting: Gas giant in space, after humans destroyed earth. University town.
Language: a bit formal and the use of some obscure words, mostly to have fun so not too hard.
Story: It is a cozy yes, but it has murder and a bit of mayhem. Also a love story, a good one but it is a bit secondary?
Character: Holmes and Watson but this time, they are women and in love.
When a 160 page book feels too wordy, you know there's some issues.
A mystery with no real twists or false turns, a very unoriginal spin on Holmes and Watson, and a somewhat half-hearted plot (though I liked the concept) and the characters were pretty flat and predictable.
I liked the setting though! A great take on outer-planet living, and I thought the logic behind the technology being Victorian-esque was very well executed. That vision of Jupiter was just great!
But the narration style was horrible! I get why it was written that way, but it was just so unpleasant for me. Adverbs are to be used sparingly!! I wouldn't have finished it, but it was only a 4 hour audiobook so I suffered through.
The basic story is a “Holmesian murder mystery” which takes place in a rather odd future setting. The Holmes and Watson parts are taken by an investigator (Mossa) and an academic (Pleiti). They know each other from University days. Their relationship seems rather tense at first due go past baggage, but they have to get past that to solve the mystery.
The story has a definite steampunkish feel to it even though it is set rather far in the future. That pushed my WSoD pretty hard a few times, but happily I pushed on past and things were eventually made clear.
Pretty good story and a quick read. 3.5+ stars rounded up
Imagine Sherlock and Watson. Now change them in to women. Now, imagine them in the far future....living on Jupiter. Oh, also, they are in love. Now you're pretty much in the right mindset for this book. And it's great! It is a short, fast read (I think probably more of a novella than a novel) but there is a lot of story packed into the pages. While trying to solve the mystery at the core of the book, the reader also gets to learn a lot about this future life on a faraway planet.There is a second book coming out soon and I'm looking forward to reading it.
4
I liked it but it wasn't that interesting.
There are 3 main stories in this.
The romance one was pleasant and had a good ending.
The Holmseian mystery was well done and the Holmes and Watson analogs were believable
and clever
The SF part of the book was less satisfying.
It took too long for the structure of the world and how it came to be to be explained.
And the events at the end seemed to be very important and bad for the characters but I couldn't see what the problem was.
So while I liked it and people should take a look at it, I don't think I'll be reading any others if they come along.
This is a quick story that feels more like a mystery set in space than a science fiction novel. That said, the setting seems well thought out and viable setting for living in Jupiter's atmosphere. Like Holmes, the lead detective has great confidence and a wealth of knowledge, pairing with the lead character who is a step behind and the narrator for the reader.
What I liked about this one is the way the author shows a world that is already built. It is complex enough to engage the imagination without belaboring the reader with the world building. The same is true of the characters. They know who they are when we join the story and they are revealed to us mainly through solving the mystery. There is a little bit of a romance element here, but is only referred to occasionally creating an uncertain tension between the characters. I found this to be a fun mystery on another planet that doesn't require an extensive investment from the reader to enjoy.
This is not for those who are looking for a deep dive into a character or a detailed world building.
This book was okay, but I think in the grand scheme of things, I'm going to forget it. It's a romance, sci-fi, mystery, and that's a lot of genres to juggle. I think if the order was a mystery, sci-fi, romance, I might have liked it more. As it was, I found it taking me an extraordinarily long time to finish such a short book because I just didn't engage with the romance or the mystery parts at all. It wasn't bad, per se, but I don't think it's going to stick with me.
Book Club for November. I did not like this book, I thought it was boring and slow as molasses. This should have been a Novella.
Humanity wrecks Earth and decides to live on platforms around a moon of Jupiter (or something), we follow Mossa and her ex-girlfriend (whose name I can't remember, and she's kind of the main character) as they try to solve the mystery of a dead or disappeared scholar.
This wants to be Holmes & Watson so fucking bad but it's such a shoddy interpretation. If I don't have a chance at solving the mystery by the halfway point, you've done it wrong. Period. Not that I was even trying to solve it by then because the “sexual tension,” if you can even call it that, is basically what dominates the early portions of this book. The romance subplot was at the border between overdone or underdone; a little more and it would have been compelling, and a little less and this would have been a proper mystery book.
I vividly recall putting this down maybe 20 pages in and thinking, “I bet Mossa wears a silly hat”. Then I glanced at the cover.
The setting was novel if maybe a little blurry on purpose. It's gaslamps and mist, it's on Jupiter, but this is just Baker Street. This book is trying to be cozy, but I didn't find a cold and foggy setting super cozy. The prose was blah, I've been spoiled lately and this read as if a high school student wrote it. Actually, it read like everyone was doing their best to talk like David Attenborough and I mean that in the least flattering way.
The Audiobook wasn't Paul Giamatti that's for sure, Lindsey Dorcus tries her best but it wasn't an enjoyable listen.
TL;DR: Sherlock Holmes but female, on Jupiter, with none of the charm or the fun.
I'm not interested in murder mysteries so I didn't find this book enjoyable. And it's short! Only 4 hours.
Not quite Holmesian” as it lacks that structure, and also a slight miss on the SciFi side as it presents potentially interesting topics but does not really develop them. I enjoyed the story but felt it could be more.
Some of my favorite authors (KJ Charles, Alexis Hall) raved about this book, but I was completely underwhelmed. World-building was distinctive and I guess the mystery was okay, but the “second chance at love” relationship between Mossa and Pleiti was flat and unsatisfying. YMMV if you're more invested in the sci-fi and mystery genres than I was.
A very good Holmsian detective story with an feminine twist and sci-fi setting. I wouldn't describe this as hard sci-fi; a lot of the science doesn't really stand up to scrutiny, but that is a minor complaint. Fun and fast-paced; a quick read.
“The comfort of it was sweeter than her kisses had been, and that was very sweet indeed.”
A sci-fi/mystery/romance all rolled up in a ~160 page novella. If you are a fan of “Even Though I Knew the End” like I was you will like this story. Pleiti and Mossa team up on Jupiter's colony to solve a murder while trying to figure out how it pieces back together with Pleiti's profession as a “Classicist” (studying Earth as the Classic in this case). Reading about the Jupiter colony was just as interesting as the story for me. While it was like the novella mentioned earlier it did not feel as full as it and the romance seemed like it was missing some life. Overall a good read.
3.5
A cute second-chance love story with a murder mystery set on Jupiter in a post-apocalypse. The pacing was a bit slow for a novella but it didn't bother me that much. I can't wait to meet Mossa & Pleiti again in the sequel ????????????
As soon as I read the blurb that this is gonna be a Holmesian f/f mystery, I knew I was gonna read it. And this was a quick delight.
This is a story that's taking place in a far future on Jupiter, so the author drops a lot of information about this world and how humans came to be here from earth at various moments in the narrative, so it never felt info dumpy but we also only get little necessary information that moves the plot. The pacing was pretty quick and I really thought I was on the verge figuring it out all out when the final twist came completely out of left field, which was a fun surprise.
But the beauty of this book is definitely the two main characters. Mossa and Pliete are such a contrast to each other - Mossa being an investigator, definitely a more reserved workaholic, while Pliete is a bit more impulsive and livelier Classics scholar - but theirs is a very interesting dynamic. The initial hesitation and discomfort because they are meeting after many years but then the easy camaraderie and trust that gradually seeps is very well depicted and I loved their deepening intimacy as the story goes.
Overall, this was a very fun and entertaining murder mystery in a still developing sci-fi world, and some very sweet sapphic romance in the making. I finished it in one sitting and now I'm even more excited because this is gonna be a series. I can't wait to meet our couple again.
I reviewed this book for the Hugo-winning blog Nerds of a Feather:
http://www.nerds-feather.com/2023/02/review-mimicking-of-known-successes-by.html