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Hugh Likes Fiction: The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles

November 6, 2024

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The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles

Written by Malka Older

Published by Tor

The Skinny: You seem like you might need something cozy right now.

The second novella in Malka Older’s ongoing series, The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles is a delightfully cozy mystery set in the post-Earth colonized world of Giant, née Jupiter. Pleity is Classical Scholar, who studies ancient texts to gather data about the lost biomes of Earth in an attempt to someday recreate them. Mossa is an investigator as well as her once and current romantic partner. They were thrown together again when Mossa’s investigations led her to Pleity’s University in search of a missing and presumed dead scholar in the first book in the series, The Mimicking of Known Successes.
The sequel finds Mossa once again calling on Pleity’s help,some time after their initial investigation, as she attempts to locate a missing student. They find no less than seventeen people have gone missing from the University across a number of different fields. Meanwhile, the previous investigation has shake Pleity’s faith in the organization and its methods. The pair travel not just the many linked artificial platforms orbiting Jupiter, but also to the moon of Io, Mossa’s home and the site of the first controversial Jovian settlement.
The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles is as enchanting a novella as the first in the series with clever, deep world-building, a cast of lovable space communists, and just enough danger to keep things interesting. Fans will find much to love in this one, and while it spoils the ending of the first book, the opening serves to get new readers up to speed quickly.
Like the first book, the story is over too quickly. I would have loved a meatier, less straightforward mystery for them to solve, but everything clicks nicely into place with a satisfying ending.
Books three and four in the series are scheduled for future releases, so I can’t wait for the further adventures of these two pseudo-Victorian space goofs. You can find The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles in print from your local bookshop, or in ebook or audiobook from your preferred online retailer.

Hugh Likes Fiction: The Mimicking of Known Successes

July 31, 2024

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The Mimicking of Known Successes

Written by: Malka Older

Audiobook Read by: Lindsey Dorcus

Published by: Blackstone Audio

The Skinny: An atmospheric Sapphic mystery set in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere.

In the far future, humanity has conquered Jupiter, living in cities on platforms orbiting the upper atmosphere connected by rings that serve as train lines. After a man disappears from a small and remote platform, Talented by idiosyncratic Investigator Mossa is brought in to solve the crime. But the case leads her to the University platform of Valdegelde, home of her ex-lover, the scholar Pleiti. The pair will have to work together, and work through their differences, to solve the case which threatens Pleiti’s work researching the lost ecosystems of Earth, and the eventual resettlement project.
Older’s delightful science fiction novella is more of a vibe than a mystery, with taking the reader from fog-shrouded platform cities to experimental habitats for cloned wildlife in the comfort of well-appointed rail cars circling Jupiter. But the two leads are so delightful that you’ll be swept up in their Holmes and Watson dynamic as the chase for clues while braving just enough peril to be in danger of missing teatime. The mystery itself is a bit on the slight side, but this story is as cozy as curling up beside a warm hearth and watching the swirling gas giant out your window. Older devotes most of the book to world building, along with kindling the embers of the remaining sparks between the two leads. But I find that I didn’t mind the thinness of the story. This story is all about atmosphere, and the short length means that it doesn’t outstay its welcome.
I listened to the audiobook, and narrator Lindsey Dorcus’s performance is spot on: Neat as a pin and evocative of the Neo-Victorian charm of the setting. Her fussy, idealistic Pleiti and gruff, analytical Mossa are both excellent, It can be hard to sell a romance with one actor, but she does a great job with both characters, and her performance is enthralling.
The novella’s short length does make the central mystery feel a bit simpler and safer than I would have normally gone for, but this was a wonderfully cozy listen. You can find The Mimicking of Known Successes in print and ebook from wherever you buy books, and the audiobook from Audible and other retailers. I highly recommend it.

Hugh Likes Fiction: Gideon the Ninth

October 16, 2019

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Gideon the Ninth
Written by Tamsyn Muir
Audiobook read by Moira Quirk
Published by Recorded Books

The Skinny: Shirley Jackson’s Lesbian Space Necromancers.

Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth is an extraordinary novel that is a bit difficult to describe, pithy sentence above not withstanding. In a crumbling space empire built on necromancy, eight Necromancers, along with their Cavalier bodyguards, return to a long-abandoned planet to search for a secret power that could save their civilization. It’s a dense concept, and my attempts don’t do it justice, but Tamsyn sells it with from the first incredible opening line.

“In the myriadic year of our Lord—the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death!— Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth.”

A postmodern space fantasy/ghost story, Muir fills her novel with deeply rich characters like the eponymous sassy swordswoman Gideon and her Necromancer charge, Harrowhawk. Harrow is the teenaged leader of the Ninth House, and Gideon’s only childhood companion, so of course they hate each other, and are only working together to keep the other houses from finding out that a tragedy befell their planet, and they are literally the only suitable candidates. Her characters are outstandingly drawn and painfully real. And her setting, from the nearly-lifeless frozen tomb planet the Ninth House calls home to the abandoned, crumbling palace of Canaan House is a character in its own right; melancholy, ferocious, and disarmingly witty.
Muir’s handling of equal parts tension and farce are deft, constantly surprising, and utterly delightful.
Just as delightful as the writing is Moira Quirk’s narration on the audiobook version. Quirk does an excellent job brining Muir’s already vivid characters to life. She does a stunning job performing a large cast of strange and complicated characters.
Gideon the Ninth draws from the work of masters like Agatha Christie, Shirley Jackson, and Ursula K. Le Guin, while also building something modern and wholly unique. It is unlike anything I’ve read in a very long time, and not to be missed. You can listen to the remarkable audiobook version via Audible, or purchase a physical or ebook copy from your retailer of choice.

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Hugh Likes Fiction: The 5th Gender

May 18, 2019

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The 5th Gender: A Tinkered Stars Mystery
Written by G. L. Carriger
Published by the author
Reviewed from an Advance Reader Copy

5th Gender Cover

The Skinny: A sweet, fluffy queer sci-fi romance with a few bits of mystery thrown in for good measure.

Alien diplomat Tistol and space station security detective Drey Hastion have been making eyes at each other for months. But just as they finally get together, to the mutual relief of their friends and coworkers, Drey gets a case that he’ll need his new romantic partner’s help with. A ship from Tristol’s notably reclusive home world has arrived, and there has been a murder, something so unthinkable in Tris’s society as to be unprecedented.
Going in, I was worried that this book was trying to do too much, but the author comes through with flying colors. Carriger, who may be better known for her best-selling steampunk adventures, brings her characteristic sense of style and dry wit to this romantic cozy mystery. The Galloi are a fascinating and well realized species. The sex scenes are well written and feel natural.
As a cozy, there isn’t a lot of tension in this book. Even places where I expected there to be, such as Tris’s naive misunderstanding of human gender and racial concepts is breezily but respectfully handled. Although as a cis-gendered white man, it’s not my place to make final judgement on that. Drey’s space station seems much more of a utopian one than Carriger’s Dickensian Wheel in Crudrat, which is implied to share a universe. But the story is charming and sexy, with delightful characters you’ll want to see more of when you get to the back cover.
The 5th Gender is directly available from The Author’s Website, as well as Amazon, the usual online stores, and can be ordered by Your Local Independent Bookshop.
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Hugh Likes Fiction: Six Wakes

May 17, 2017

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Six Wakes
Written by Mur Lafferty
Publishedd by Orbit
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Six Wakes is the ultimate Sci-Fi locked room mystery. The six-person crew of the Dormire wakes up in the cloning lab. They are staring at their own corpses, with no memory of what happened, or anything else, for the last 24 years of their interstellar journey. Light-years from Earth, they’ll have to figure out what happened and how to survive when at least one of the crew is a murderer.
This novel is a story of paranoia, survival, and the ethics of cloning and life extension. Mur’s story is full of rich characters, drama, and unexpected twists. But what I found most interesting were the choices Lafferty made in building her world. The premise hangs on some very hard science astrophysics to build the sense of tension and isolation. This isn’t a quick warp through the galaxy. The characters have been stuck together for a very long time, and they have a much, much longer way to go. The cloning technology, however, is very soft SF. It’s a surprising choice, considering how much of the story, and the mystery, relies on it.
While she never breaks her own rules, Lafferty focuses on the ethics and moral issues of life extension, and what a world where some people will effectively live forever and others won’t, means, and the paradox of the ultimate revenge being reduced to a minor inconvenience. The cloning tech, however, is based on a movie-producer’s idea of how hacking works, and literal glowing goo. I wasn’t particularly bothered by this choice, but hard SF purists may consider it cheating.
Six Wakes is a chiller of a Sci-Fi mystery filled with interesting ideas and plenty of tension. You can find it at your local bookstore, or in print and ebook from Amazon.

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