Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Gaslamp-Inspired Sci-Fi Mystery

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older

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The Mimicking of Known Successes imagines a future where humanity, having completely wrecked Earth and then Mars, has settled on the rings of Jupiter. The entire civilization lives on a series of platforms orbiting above the gas planet, connected to one another across the rings by a series of rail lines. On one of the most distant platforms a man has gone missing. He seems to have stepped off the platform to his death, but why? Inspector Mossa follows his trail back to the university […]

A cozy sff mystery novella that is set in the future but feels like it’s set in the past.

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

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30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 4 Book 27/30 This was really good! I loved the vibes and the writing and the setting. Definitely reading book two. I’m honestly surprised how much I liked this. It’s really hard to find great, vibesy sci-fi these days. A lot of sff authors go for the colder, more depressing, gritty machine-like futures, I think forgetting that humans like to be COMFY. Even though this book is set after humans have colonized Jupiter (of all places); the humans here […]

“Come along, Pleiti, you can practice ethnography later. We have a murder to solve.”

The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles by Malka Older

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I loved Malka Older’s The Mimicking of Known Successes. The second Mossa and Pleiti novella, The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles was also a delightful read. There was a moment in the story when I thought back to a conversation I had years ago with a much younger cousin who was still in his 20s. He began expounding on his desire to live somewhere that tested his grit, a place with “real” problems, like on the gritty prestige cop shows he watched. I didn’t point out all […]

Mossa responded simply with a Classical quotation: “‘Why are men?’”

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older

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This seems like a book that would bring delight to many Cannonballers. Malka Older’s The Mimicking of Known Successes was a perfect listen to transition from 2023 to 2024. Just over 4 hours long, I listened to Lindsey Dorcus’ narration instead of the booms of neighborhood fireworks, and then finished up this morning with my first coffee of the year. I knew going in that Known Successes was a sapphic scifi Holmsian mystery set on a human colony on Jupiter. What I love is that […]



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