Malka Older’s The Mimicking of Known Successes is a lovely cozy mystery and sapphic romance in a tonally nearish-future SF setting. If, like me, you struggled a bit with author Malka Older’s Centenal Cycle trilogy (I admit I haven’t made it past the first book, Infomocracy), please consider giving this novella a try. It was one of my favorite things to read this year.
One of the reasons I had stumbled during Infomocracy was the multiple characters and POVs – sometimes I’m good with that, but I started reading it in 2019, not a great year for me to be challenging myself during leisure time. But TMoKS starts with a tight-focus third-person narrative focused on Mossa, a professional detective, and switches to a first-person narrative from Pleiti, a scholar, so it’s a lot easier to track what’s happening (although intentions and motivations aren’t revealed for quite a while).
Also helping with the ease of reading is that although this is science fiction, the tone feels like gaslamp Victorian/Edwardian-style fiction, minus the racism and sexism (there’s still some degree of classism, though, at least with some characters being arrogant about their academic status). Humanity has moved to Jupiter after wrecking the Earth’s environment, with a series of platforms in the upper atmosphere of the gas giant that are connected via a rail system. So as Mossa and Pleiti follow leads from platform to platform, it reminds me a lot of various Sherlock Holmes mysteries where he and Dr. Watson move about tEngland via rail. Also, Pleiti’s university quarters provide tea and scones by the fireside as a welcome warm-up for the pair in Chapter 1, so the mystery is literally cozy.
It is also pretty hot in places! Mossa and Pleiti are ex-flames from college, who had a bad breakup. The two have very different interests, competencies, and personalities, but the heat is still there; at least we see that on Pleiti’s side before too long. And when one of them is injured, the other helps bathe the wound clean and has to struggle to keep her mind, emotions and voice under control… Fortunately, frustrations are eventually resolved satisfyingly – but I definitely want to see this relationship continue to progress in future stories.
As for the mystery, I love how it spins up step by step (with a few twists and turns along the way) from a missing person to a case with much broader implications. Some SF mysteries are basically just present-day puzzles with a technological gloss, but the futuristic setting here is integral to the mystery and to people’s motivations, and the complex details of the worldbuilding (from simple elements like an atmoscarf that helps one breathe outside, to vital plot-spoilery ones) really immerse the reader into the story.
Incidentally, the title comes from humans on Jupiter trying to figure out how to recreate Earth’s environment – Pleiti’s Classics discipline actually centers not so much on interpreting literature as on using literature to infer whole working ecologies, such as cataloging plant life in (implied) Watership Down. It’s certainly not cozy to imagine the devastated Earth, but I’ve been reading some other “cozy catastrophes” lately, where the coziness lies in survivors starting small and building futures together, and this fits that description.
Older has said that she set out to write a comfort read, and I believe she succeeded masterfully. Worldbuilding, mystery, characters and romance combine delightfully in this novella. I eagerly await the sequel in February 2024, and, fortified by this lovely story, I may even return to the Centenary Cycle.
The Mimicking of Known Successes, available here from Barnes & Noble, has a sort of subtitle these days: “The Investigations of Mossa and Pleiti Book 1.” Yes, that means there is a follow-up coming! The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles is available now for preorder. I am definitely looking forward to reading that!
Content warnings: Violence, death, past background environmental catastrophe, sexy scenes (not graphic).
Comparisons: C.L. Polk’s Even Though I Knew the End (noirish f/f romance-fantasy-mystery), Everina Maxwell’s Winter’s Orbit (mostly cozy m/m romance-SF with some mystery), P. Djeli Clark’s A Master of Djinn (steampunk-mystery with f/f romance).
Disclaimers: I received a free ARC of this novella from NetGalley. IIRC, I may have had a few very brief exchanges with Older on social media.
