The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older (Mossa & Pleiti #1)

Reviewed by Sam!

What I drank prior: So a while back i got word that I’d gotten a promotion that I’d been working towards for a while. Like a long while. I was soooooo happy. I had several reviews come out of that happiness. But then… the delays started. April 1? May 1? Who knows. I certainly don’t. So because of that, I’ve been incredibly unmotivated, which leads to days where like today i get the sads and drink with my best friend. So I’ve had a bottle and a half of wine.

Goodreads Overview:

The Mimicking of Known Successes presents a cozy Holmesian murder mystery and sapphic romance, set on Jupiter, by Malka Older, 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.

Drunk Overview: so as most of you know, this blog and its writers all love Malka. We love her and her books and her professional endeavors and we even went so far as to record the literal only episode of the WRFB podcast with her. So when we heard this book was coming out we were in. We got an early copy but literally each of us bought a copy too.

This is a sci-fi murder mystery novella. It’s a concept where humans have colonized one of Jupiter’s moons, which isn’t technically inhabitable, but we’ve colonized with our methods… habitats and so forth. We have this guy who’s died and the lead investigator goes to get an expert opinion about certain facts of his death from their ex partner. I don’t want to give more away than that because its a novella and i don’t want to spoil anything.

Spoiler-free Thoughts: this book was a good. damn. Time.

Characters:so without going too much in to it, the two characters Mossa and Pleiti are simply fabulous. While I wish there was more time to learn about their relationship prior to this series, I loved learning about it through context. there are no flashbacks or telling, all showing through the way the narratives play out. It’s so hard to do that these days and I was impressed. I also loved them both for different reasons. I loved one for her dedication to their career and the other for her dedication to knowledge and the mission that they all commit to when taking on the journey. It’s lovely.

Plot: this novella never gave us enough information to be able to come to any conclusion of our own, which made the end so surprising. I really loved that. Idk what else to say about it but plot-wise this was pretty traditional in plot beats.

Writing Style: its Malka. She’s dope

World Building: ok so this is what’s most interesting. It took me a minute to realize what “classical” meant (or whatever word she used). The idea of trying to create the ecological sameness of Earth in order to recreate is ecosystem based off of things so simple as Peter Rabbit was incredible. It’s just not something i would have thought before but of course Malka did. Just fab.

What to pair it with: I want to come up with something like kombucha but i hate kombucha. I don’t even think it counts as fermented alcohol. So… let’s go with a floral drink like a lavender martini.

Rating: 5/5

Until next time, we remain forever drunkenly yours,
Sam