A while back I read The Mimicking of Known Successes, the first Mossa and Pleiti mystery, enjoyed it, and stated my intention to get around to the later books as they came out. Then I lost track and never got around to them – until now. I’ve finally gotten back to the series with the second novella, The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles. I’m not going to binge the rest of them, but also I’m not going to wait 3 years before getting to the next book.
The second book has Pleiti dealing with some baggage in academia from the events of the first book, when Mossa asks for her help with a series of disappearances of students and staff in the Speculative Department. To get to the bottom of this, the two will have to go to Mossa’s home moon of Io, deal with lingering baggage from the Jovian systems initial settlement, and naturally solve a murder.
The mystery in this novel is fine, but I feel like the core of the novel is getting to see more of Jovian Society. I found myself particularly amused by in-setting-historical-now-current works of fiction being adapted to the stage and as Opera, like a Murderbot Opera being mentioned. As someone who ended up missing seeing the Sailor Moon 2.5D Musical in Portland, and who liked season 2 of Oshi No Ko because of it getting into the process of putting on a 2.5D adaptation of a manga, I got a kick out of that concept.
The mystery of the disappearances, which is related to but not wholly connected to the murder, is much more interesting than the murder mystery itself, but either story, on it’s own, doesn’t quite feel able to carry the story to a satisfying conclusion.
I did enjoy the book, and plan to move on to book 3 in a bit.
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