Queer female Sherlock and Watson on Jupiter.

Humanity has fled global warming and now lives in enclosed platforms on the gas giant. The survivors see their new home as temporary, and much of their intellectual and artistic endeavors center on recovering and preserving the remnants of Earth, and preparing to return to the planet once it has healed. Mossa is a government Investigator tracking down a possible murder, and she enlists the help of her ex-girlfriend, Pleiti, a scholar at the university.

Older's descriptions of the setting are evocative, and the book offers a thoughtful critique of humanity. However, the dialogue and characterization felt flat, and Mossa never really developed into more than yet another Sherlock Holmes variant. The plotting was fine—readers don't get enough information about the setting to solve the mystery themselves, but things do keep moving at a good pace.

If you want a relatively quick SF mystery with an autistic sapphic protagonist, definitely check this out. I liked it enough that I would probably read a sequel, but I'm not particularly excited about it.

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This was so much fun, the Holmes and Watson dynamic really worked, loved the Jupiter setting and overall was a great mystery novella. Really glad this a series, loved the slow burn between Mossa and Pleiti and looking forward to more adventures in this world.

(4.5 Stars)

"The Mimicking of Known Successes" is a surprisingly cozy mystery story! It’s able to establish high stakes right right away, but then the gradual unfolding of this really soft second-chance relationship provides a counterbalancing feeling of comfort.

I think the setting of this story is so perfect. Not only is it fascinating to discover more about this human outpost on Jupiter and how it works, but the remote location also heightens the mystery aspect, because there’s a hard limit to the parameters of this place. Not only is this human colony extremely remote, but Jupiter is also a fairly hostile and unlivable planet. So having those limitations makes the mystery more interesting, because it drastically reduces the possible outcomes to the case.

But my favorite part, by far, is the loveable duo at the center of this story.

I think “Holmesian,” as in being reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes, is the perfect descriptor for Mossa and Pleiti’s entire dynamic. Mossa is a diligent and sharp-eyed inspector who plays everything close to the chest, and Pleiti is an intuitive and observant academic who wears her heart on her sleeve much more than Mossa does. They really balance each other out in that sense. I love seeing how they combine their very different sets of expertise in order to puzzle out what’s happening in this case, and also how their research is a perfect excuse for them to slowly and subtly rekindle their romance.

There’s such a tenderness between them, and I think a perfect example of that is how a lot of their interactions revolve around food and meals they’re going to share together as they either process new information or just enjoy each other’s company and take a break. Mossa, especially, is known to neglect herself and run herself ragged until a case has been fully resolved, and Pleiti often uses food as a means of encouraging her to slow down, recharge, and refresh herself. I love how the story uses food as a conduit for showing care, nurturing, and even mindfulness, and how in that sense Pleiti is given that Watson-like role of observing the observer—seeing and tending to the human part of Mossa beneath the machine.

The title of the book is so incredibly smart as well, because it beautifully parallels with so many different things happening in the story. It reflects how humans are studying how to make Earth habitable again, it relates to aspects of this case and even the methodology of retracing your steps, and even how reigniting this relationship is a mimicking of a "known success."

The mystery is compelling, the characters are fantastic, and I love the slow-burn romance underlying the investigative process. This is definitely setting the stage for what could be a really wonderful series of books, and I cannot wait to read every single one.

My one note is that sometimes the plot skews itself a little bit too wide, especially in such a short space, and some of the world-building can be a bit difficult to visualize at times. But even so, this book is still utterly fantastic, and it's a unique sci-fi mystery that should absolutely be at the top of your list!

A man has gone missing on the colony around Jupiter, and Mossa is diligently on the case. Pleiti, an academic, reconnects with Mossa in service of thislmystery, and struggles to break through and digest their past relationship with Mossa, who is so single-minded in her work.

This took me a while to get into. It's truly a Sherlock Holmes-esque story, written in that style, in space and queer. Once I got used to the writing style, I started to enjoy it more. It is a novella, so there is a certain amount of science to the science fiction that isn't totally clear. But once the mystery starts unfolding I was definitely invested in the outcome. I also liked the more philosophical questions around what the right actions for the scientists to take was. I would've liked to see the relationship develop a bit more and/or get both Mossa's and Pleiti's POV. But I hope that it will begin to feel a bit more organic in the coming novellas. To be honest, I think the style made it hard for me to love it, but it will definitely appeal to many readers and I would recommend.

Thank you so much to Tor Dot Com Pub for partnering with B2Weird and the gifted copy of the book!!

I am a fan of novellas of all genres, but science fiction novellas are by far my favorite! I love the snatches of other worlds you can get by reading a short sci-fi story!

One sci-fi novella that I am particularly excited about right now is The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older! Today is my stop on @turnthepagetours’ bookstagram tour for The Mimicking of Known Successes, which will be out in March of this year!

Here’s a Synopsis of Mimicking of Known Successes-
A cozy gaslamp murder mystery and sapphic romance, set on Jupiter, by the author of the critically-acclaimed Centenal Cycle.

On a remote, gas-wreathed outpost of a human colony on Jupiter, a man goes missing. The enigmatic Investigator Mossa follows his trail to Valdegeld, home to the colony’s erudite university—and Mossa’s former girlfriend, a scholar of Earth’s pre-collapse ecosystems.

Pleiti has dedicated her research and her career to aiding the larger effort towards a possible return to Earth. When Mossa unexpectedly arrives and requests Pleiti’s assistance in her latest investigation, the two of them embark on a twisting path in which the future of life on Earth is at stake—and, perhaps, their futures, together.

The Mimicking of Known Successes jumped straight to the top of my TBR list when I read that synopsis! I can’t wait to start reading it!

Early reviews of this book were so promising, but I did not enjoy it. I think that I could not wrap my head around the world that was built. I don't think it was poorly done, but it was not for me. I also kept waiting for the chemistry between the two main characters to get interesting and for me it never felt real. I did finish it, but it was perhaps the biggest dud of the year so far. Perhaps someone who reads more sci fi that I do would find it more compelling.

It feels appropriate to be talking about this book (again, following one of my Nerds of a Feather colleagues, this time Arturo) at a point when many of the genre fans I know are grappling with the definitions and purpose of "cosy" fiction. Perhaps this will become an essay for another time, if this fan ever gets her proverbial shit together. The Mimicking of Known Successes, billed as cosy Holmesian fiction, divides much of its time between university campuses and windswept train platforms and comfy carriages, but perhaps not in the location you'd expect: this is the human settlement on Jupiter, to which the survivors of humanity fled after Earth became uninhabitable, with habitats floating in the, uh, clouds of our biggest planetary neighbour and connected by a planet-spanning train network. We follow Mossa, an investigator looking for a missing academic, and her ex-girlfriend and classical geographer Pleiti, who Mossa approaches to help with the investigation into her colleague. Together, the two uncover a deeper conspiracy surrounding this disappearance, with implications for Earth's future and the people who get to decide on it.

Part of the cosiness here is aesthetic: Older does a fantastic job of creating a colony that seems comfortable and interesting and dynamic, even as we see characters grapple with the historic loss of Earth and the limitations of their current home. The novella opens in a remote settlement at the end of the railway line which Mossa refers to as a "piece of grit", but it's a piece of grit with a surprisingly nice pub and pleasant residents, not some desperate, impoverished outpost. People are doing OK for themselves, and for each other, on Jupiter, even if some are more OK than others, and it makes for a very different atmosphere than the gritty "everyone is one step away from a cold, unpleasant death" aesthetic that pervades most colonisation stories.

Beyond that, though, The Mimicking of Known Successes provides a perfect mix of personal stakes with wider implications for humanity's future, with Pleiti and Mossa rekindling their relationship and grappling with what this case means for their respective careers while also piecing together the answer to the mystery, and its full stakes. At the heart of those stakes is the academic debate for Earth's future, which is introduced to us as an interdepartmental war between different geography disciplines (finally, geography gets the respect and centrality it deserves!), and effectively revolves whether recolonisation of Earth should take place with full understanding of Earth's former ecosystem and its recreation, or whether humanity should be trying to build something new and adjust as they go along. I would read an entire Mars Trilogy-style doorstopper featuring characters arguing about the ins and outs of terraforming along these lines, but here it's just one strand in a much shorter narrative. Moreover, it's inextricably tied to Pleiti's position as a classicist (the "understand everything first" position) working in an academic institution alongside colleagues who, for various reasons (such as "being men") do not give her views the respect she feels they deserve.

Mimicking of Known Successes has a great ending to its mystery and its romance, but it also leaves the door open for more stories in this world - which we are getting! I, for one, am very excited.

While the writing style was a little distancing, I found the story still pretty propulsive and the mystery and world of the story interesting.

I enjoyed Older’s Centenal Cycle, and so I was excited to get approved for this novella!

I did not know that I needed a Sherlock Holmes type mystery, but set in space and sapphic. But now that I have it in my life, I immediately need six sequels, an animated adaptation, and maybe a computer game.

This short novella tells the story of Mossa, an Investigator on Jupiter tasked with discovering why an academic would throw himself from a rail car platform. It’s also the story of her reuniting with a lost love who helps her investigate the mystery.

This was a freaking delight to read. We get an immediate sense of who these characters are, and their relationship with each other, past and present. The decision for Mossa’s chapters to be in third person, but Pleiti’s in first was a genius choice.

The world building of humans on Jupiter was just tantalizing enough to make me want an entire novel about it, without any of it getting info dumped. And we get bits and pieces of why humanity was forced to leave Earth.

The mystery itself was fascinating and kept me guessing until the end. And Pleiti gets her Watson moment where she’s able to put a crucial piece of information together.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan/Tor for this advance reader’s copy!

This is a cute science fiction mystery with a sapphic romance that takes place on one of the moons of Jupiter. I love how the world-building has been woven in through the narration. While I felt slightly lost at the beginning, it was not in a disorienting way. By the end of the novel, I felt grounded in the world.

The book is written in a way that is reminiscent of the 1800 murder mysteries. On the one hand, I really enjoyed this type of novel. However, it also left me feeling a lack of diversity in the novel. It felt like nothing had changed since the colonial period. However, I know that is not the case because the world was queer accepting. It just did not show through in other areas of the novel.

Still a very enjoyable read, and I will check out more by this author.

A very charming lesbian sherlock holmes story in space, where after a disappearance of a man presumed dead from one of the terraformed rail stations 'on' Jupiter, an investigator returns to her ex (the man's colleague at the university) for help. The story itself is a lovely and interesting take on a post-apocalyptic scenario, where the man's disappearance is deeply tied into the university's efforts to determine an ideal ecosystem to build to revitalize earth. The mystery has just enough twists and turns to always stay one step ahead of the reader, and the worldbuilding is great.

I liked the main characters, but I felt like I needed a little more to really understand what they were feeling and genuinely buy into the second chance romance. Even with a first person POV, I felt on the outside of that. But it didn't detract from my reading experience, just was a nice-to-have.

Thank you to NetGalley for an e-ARC of this title.

Between this and the Locked Tomb series I'm beginning to wonder if Space Lesbians is even really my thing. This book desperately wants to be lesbian Sherlock Holmes in space but forgoes any world building or character development to achieve this aim.

It's fine.

I really, really wanted to like this book. The concept is interesting and the voice was 100% true to academia! But it's a very unemotional book with low stakes until it's suddenly SUPER HIGH STAKES without much emotional involvement from me, or even for the characters. I also think I'm supposed to find the villain VERY TERRIBLE, YIKES, CAN YOU BELIEVE HE SAID THAT, but also... he made some good points? I kind of agreed with him? He's a very mustache-twirly villain but... yeah. I don't think he's all that wrong. I'm interested in this author, and while this book didn't connect with me, I'll definitely check out her other stuff.

(I got a free advanced reading copy from NetGalley in exchange for my obviously honest review.)

Surprised by how charming this sci-fi mystery novella is-the population of Earth now lives on platforms on Jupiter because Earth is not habitable. Scientists and scholars are working to try and figure out the best foundational ecosystem they could create by raising animals in a zoo and studying books like Watership Down. When an Investigator is called to the fartherest platform to look into a suicide, she is suspicious and decides to dig further, ending up on the same platform as her Alma mater and reconnecting with her university girlfriend (who is now one of those aforementioned scholars). The investigation continues, including visiting the mauzooleum (get it?) consulting with scholars, and eating quite a few scones. Throw in another trip to the edge of nowhere and a second dead body.

🚃 With honest to goodness railway cars, gasses swirling in the atmosphere, college that feels like Oxford, and more, this book is both future looking and calling back to Victorian England. I agree with the reviewer who hoped this serves as the first in a series.

I'm not sure the mystery was breadcrumbed thoroughly enough throughout the text, but I honestly didn't mind - I enjoyed the world, the atmosphere (heh), the Sherlockian game of it too much. Just delightful.

DNF at 56%

I was intrigued and fascinated by the prologue of this book. It had smooth world building and cool details and I was excited to learn more.

And then it shifted from third person in the prologue to first person POV of a different character with no notice in chapter 1, and it was downhill from there.

Major problems:

The stilted, excessively stuffy and big word style of writing. I assume it’s because the character POV is an ivory tower academic, but it quickly grated on me. It also made me feel really distant from the story and characters.

The characters themselves were flat and cardboard to me. I never felt like they had true emotions, and I certainly did not buy into their romance (alleged past romance??) - if it hadn’t been insisted on constantly by the POV character, I would never have guessed it was a thing.

There were a lot of characters for a novella. Maybe this is my fault for zoning out, but I got lost trying to remember who was who and who lied and whatever. Kind of ruins the mystery when I’m drowning in misc characters.

I wish there’d been more time spent on developing the world - the sci fi part was really neat. There was a bit too much time spent on mentioning the gas and the fog and that got annoying. 


It shouldn’t have been such a struggle to read a novella. Giving up halfway through since it clearly was not improving.

Maybe it’ll work for other people, but for me I found it fell short on all counts.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

I love the mash up of Western and Sci Fi when it comes to this murder mystery. The world building was good, and the characters felt fleshed out, especially for this quick read. I'm curious to see what happens in the next book.

This was an interesting read. Creative setting as humans settle on a gas giant after destroying the Earth. A space investigator (Mossa) and her ex-gf "Earth" professor (Pleiti) investigated a series of strange and suspicious events together as they may be kindling their relationship.
The concept and setting were fascinating. The book is written from Pleiti's POV. I'm looking forward to the second book in the series to see how Mossa and Pleiti proceed with their relationship.

Overall 3.5/5

The Watson-esque scholar Pleiti definitely loves the Holmesian detective Mossa, in this queer academic cozy mystery-romance(?) set on a post-Earth-catastrophe resettlement around the planet Jupiter. I found this genre blend of cozy mystery, Conan Doyle whodunnit, and almost Ian M. Banks/Connie Willis style academic sci-fi delightful.

Started slowly and never really picked up enough to make it interesting, at least for me. It could be because I didn't care about any of the characters.

This worked well. The riddle a piece of the secret meets up pleasantly eventually, enveloped by what appear to be irrelevant strands of story to assist with settling things. Additionally, the atmospheric details are exquisite. However, the character growth is odd. I'm unsure if the characters' lack of character development was intentional or a stylistic choice.