The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles

i loved this one, second in a series of novellas i hope will go on forever. Mossa is a detective, her close friend Pleiti a Scholar, and they have murder mysteries to solve. the setting is a university campus far future in which our Earth has been abandoned as unliveable, with a sidetrip to an Io colony from Jupiter. there are many trips on trains (ok, ok, but i love space railcars, so that detail would convince me to try it). our detectives are in peril not just because of the investigation, but also because they are both negotiating a new relationship and pondering how to organize all their various insights filtered through the theories of academic life at the same time. and they have kind of lovably inquiring minds; in fact i was show more enchanted both by the characters, and by the combination of all these aspects. one of the best sf detective stories ever, and two of my already-favourite partners, and you can come to it from the perspective of either genre, it works both ways. you can read this one standalone, but after you do you'll want to go read the first installment of this series. show less

Mossa returns to Valdegeld (on business, of course), which greatly pleases Pleiti. She’s investigating the fairly standard disappearance of a student when the two women discover it might be part of a larger pattern of missing academics. Is it coincidence? Conspiracy? A serial killer?

Not as thrilling as the first book but very enjoyable. On the mystery side I really appreciated that (spoilers for the ending) there was no evil murderer or great conspiracy, just some people who wanted to live their life differently. I liked learning more about the history of the colonization of Jupiter, and different people’s lives. It’s interesting to see how Pleiti’s perspective on her own academic field has changed since the events of the first show more book. On the relationship side, I think the reason why I love Mossa and Pleiti so much is that Pleiti overthinks their relationship, but it’s fine. So many books view overthinking things as something to be solved, but here it’s just part of her personality and not really a big deal. show less

Investigating one missing university student, Mossa schedules her arrival to spend time with Pleiti. Pleiti is not entirely comfortable or confident in her relationship with Mossa and goes through a bit more angst about it than I enjoyed. In what turns out to be over a dozen disappearances and eventually one murder, Pleiti works to give context and detail to what Mossa discovers, showing them to be a good team as well as an affectionate, if awkwardly so, pair.

Very consistent follow up to the first book -- a new and interesting mystery draws Mossa and Pleiti back together for more intensive time, and the University continues to be a backdrop for further investigations. I'm enjoying getting to know them a little bit better. I also like the linguistic additions -- slang that has survived, things that are new, call outs to current fiction in ways that imagine future incarnations. Continues to be a slow burn with awkward and endearing characters.

Advanced Reader's Copy provided by Edelweiss.

I received a copy of this book for free from Tor in exchange for my honest review.

This is a direct sequel to The Mimicking of Known Successes, though only a little of the plot relates to that of the first. The character relationships develop further though, while the two women work through solving a new mystery together. I would have liked to get a bit more info about the events related to book one, but now I'm guessing that maybe those events will be a larger plot that spans multiple books in the series.

The tone of this book did feel a little more pretentious to me - I noticed more unfamiliar words (which I assume were more in line with Victorian/Regency era vocab, but of course I didn't write them all down to look into later, so who show more really knows) that were pulling me out of the story as I came across them. That aside, I appreciated the deeper look into the relationships and world-building and I look forward to seeing where this series goes. I'd recommend this if you're looking for something a little low-key and almost cozy, for a sci-fi mystery. show less

I enjoyed parts of this! It's set in a weird post-apocalyptic WHY DID THEY PICK JUPITER cozy don't-look-too-closely world, and I found that fun. I liked Mossa a lot more in this one, where Older course-corrects on the cop aspect of her. (She doesn't leave any suspects chained up and alone in this one! And Older spends some time describing the organization she works for; it has a distinct "she's NOT a cop, you guys" tone to it.) I enjoyed the plot, such as it was; it's a very easily-solved mystery that I figured out as soon as the bad guy was introduced, but that allowed me to set the plot aside and focus on the vibes, so that was fine. It's an entirely readable, pleasant book.

But if I sound like I'm damning with faint praise there, show more it's because I kind of am. The book hits pleasant but misses actually good for me, in part because of the Mossa/Pleiti relationship. If I may use my elder lesbian voice for a minute: oh my god, Pleiti, USE YOUR DAMN WORDS. You know perfectly well that Mossa's bad at interpersonal stuff and yet you're expecting her to -- what, take the lead here? Sit you down and say, "Well, I am certainly ready to declare this relationship committed and long-term in whatever way is appropriate to our culture"? She's not going to do that! (She probably thinks she's already made her position clear.) If you want to know where you stand, you're going to have to take an ACTUAL STEP and speak USEFUL WORDS. Or you could just complain for two hundred pages, which is what you did, and which accomplishes absolutely nothing. That was deeply irritating. (I know, Malka. I know it's rough when you've gotten them together in the first novel and then you have to figure out how to keep it interesting in the second novel. But here's the thing: you absolutely didn't manage that. Try something else for book three. Ideally, the something should involve not just talking but communicating.)

(And, yes, I do get that Pleiti is still smarting from their college breakup, but you're not a kid anymore, Pleiti! Also, if you want a new pattern to the relationship, you have to make an actual effort to create that new pattern. Silent hopes are not gonna do it. And I also get that the relationship is supposed to reflect the mystery and the title, woo, a theme! But, look. Older is going to have to work a damn sight harder than this to get me to enjoy unnecessary (and pointless, and self-induced) obstacles in a wishy-washy relationship.)

Linguistically, this book was interesting. Older sprinkles the text with words in other languages, some of which I had to google; that was fun. I especially enjoyed the food descriptions, which struck me as a fairly realistic way to show a blended culture. I didn't love Older's use of old internet memes and argot -- I maintain that this stuff just won't last, and in fact most of it already sounds dated -- but, hey, I respect the commitment to the bit. I did actually break out laughing when Older identified her own book, Infomocracy, as something that endured so long they turned it into an opera that is regularly re-performed in this distant future. But, hey, she's writing this world. If she can have humans living on Jupiter, she can make her own work an eternal masterpiece. Why not?

Basically, where I ended up on this book was "Hey, fun story, OP! Do you accept constructive criticism?" I will read the next one. I'm not sorry I read this one. It's just -- not quite where I wanted it to be. show less

I greatly enjoyed this book—significantly more than book one! It has the same entertaining main characters as book one in the series, but this time they are more settled and established. While their relationship isn't a given thing, exactly, it's a lot more stable than it was in book one, and I enjoyed the exploration of the relationship as much as I enjoyed the mystery and denouement of the plot.

This is, in many ways, a cozy mystery SFF mash-up. It combines a lot of things I've been enjoying in my fiction right now: cozy vibes, a mystery to solve, Holmesian character connections, and an established relationship between the main characters. (Also first person single POV narration. I've been enjoying that lately.)