ARC REVIEW: I received this ebook for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Title: The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles
Series: Mossa & Pleiti
Author: Malka Older
Genres: Sci-Fi, Mystery
Publishing Date: 13 February 2024
Original Language: English
Pages: ~224
CW: Murder, Death, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, Xenophobia, Colonization, Homophobia, Sexual content
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Read if you’re looking for:
- A noir, mystery novella in a sci-fi setting
- A touch of dark academia
- A missing persons case
- Sapphic relationship between the two main characters
- A verbose writing style that cleverly plays with words
This is a sci-fi, noir, mystery novella, with a little touch of dark academia thrown in. The second book in the Mossa & Pleiti series, we follow these two characters as they work together to solve the mystery of several missing persons. In the far future, Earth’s ecosystem has failed and humanity has removed to a system of platforms around Jupiter (called Giant in the book). Pleiti is an academic at an Oxford-like University where she met Mossa during her student days. Mossa left academia and became an Investigator. In the first book of the series the pair re-kindled a romance that they had years ago, and this relationship grows somewhat in the second book.
You really need to have read the first book in order for this one to make sense, as there are many references to what happened previously. You also get much more world-building and explanation in the first novella. I enjoyed this second outing, as these two solved another mystery. However, I found myself somewhat missing the world-building of the first book.
The writing style is verbose as we are in the first person with Pleiti, who is an academic. Be ready to check the dictionary, as there are many infrequently used and antiquated words in the text, as well as some that were made up by the author, ostensibly due to the evolution of language over many years and into the future. I enjoyed the author’s clever use of language. The writing style may not be for everyone, but those who enjoy denser dark academia or sci-fi will most likely have a good time with it.
I also appreciated the queer representation, and neurodivergent representation, although I’m not sure if the latter was intentional by the author. I found Mossa to read as neurodivergent. There are some cute quips and banter between Mossa and Pleiti, however, I found their love story to be a little bit flat and not quite as believable as it could have been. Although there is a sapphic relationship in this series, I wouldn’t go into it looking for a lot of romantic content, as that isn’t the focus.
Overall, this is a solid sci-fi, mystery story with an interesting setting and quirky characters. It’s an interesting mix of genres, and readers who enjoy sci-fi, murder mystery, and academic settings would probably be keen on this series!
