Review based on an ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley

I have a soft spot for sci-fi and fantasy based around trains – think the anime Baccano!, Timothy Zahn’s Quadrail series, or Snowpiercer (I haven’t seen the show yet, but I loved the movie). To start with, trains are a great transportation system – you can see what’s going on outside, don’t have to focus on driving, and are more comfortable than flying, not to mention that it’s safer than driving and better for the environment than flying. When you make that into a story setting, you’ve got the isolation needed for horror or mystery, characters from a variety of backgrounds interacting with people they normally wouldn’t, and a ticking clock as the train nears its destination. So when one of my favorite authors writes a mystery about climate-apocalypse refugees living on Jovian train stations and a plucky academic helping her ex-girlfriend investigate an impossible disappearance, I’m fully onboard.

The setting was the first thing to grab me in Mimicking of Known Successes. Though I’ve not yet been to Asia, the opening paragraphs made me think of isolated Siberian rail stops. Older reveals her worldbuilding deliberately without resorting to expositive dumps, the way an early-21st century London resident would reference tube stops without lecturing on the history of the Underground. At the time of the story, humanity has fled Earth and is living on disparate platforms over Jupiter, connected by a set of rings that are transited by the railcars that got me so excited. So whether the characters are moving through their equivalent of a bustling city or rural farmland, there’s a pervasive sense of desolation as they’re surrounded by barren and bottomless clouds.

I also loved the dynamic between the two main characters, Pleiti (the narrator) and Mossa. Like many great detective duos, there’s a bit of Holmes and Watson to these two; however, several changes make this a refreshing take. For one, Pleiti and Mossa are ex-girlfriends, which both makes explicit the attraction that is either subtextual or relegated to fanfic for most Holmeses & Watsons and shifts things from “will they/won’t they?” to “can they, without hurting each other again?” Mossa isn’t infallible (as Holmes portrayals often seem to be) and her rudeness is commented on in the text, and Pleiti is far more independent than many other Watsons.

Without getting too much into spoilers, I wanted to mention several themes of Mimicking that are relevant to our current ethical dilemmas
-Slow scholarly processes in the face of urgent needs
-Direct action by a few individuals with great conviction vs slower (imperceptible?) collective/social/democratic action
-The difference between preventing harm the current system creates vs seeking good things the current system delays or prevents

(Lastly, I have a list of questions about the Jovian transit rings, and I think this is a sign that I’m invested in the worldbuilding rather than a problem. Any one of the rings would be the greatest human engineering feat to date in the 21st century; how many are there and how are they laid out? They’re named by degrees & minutes – does this mean that they’re longitudinal great circles, latitudinal smaller circles, or great circles laid out on other angles? If they’re on other angles, what to the degrees & minutes in the name refer to? I’m not owed answers but I am deeply curious!)

This book was great and I highly recommend it, particularly if you’re a fan of Older’s other work (and if you’re not, I recommend starting with Infomocracy and catching up).

The Mimicking of Known Successes‘ expected publication date is March 7, 2023. You can find a local bookstore to pre-order the print version at IndieBound, or an ebook at Kobo (or presumably most other ebook distributors).