Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

“That is, perhaps you can forgive yourself for being a person who doesn’t always rise above her human urges.”

The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses by Malka Older

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I’m a smidge perplexed by my relationship with Malka Older’s The Investigations of Mossa and Pleiti series. I think it boils down to loving them in concept but not in practice. The idea of a mystery a la Arthur Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie mixed with the cozy character-driven sci-fi of Becky Chambers sounds right up my alley – which means I’m looking forward to them each time, and then struggle to sink in. I’ve given myself some time and I think a big part of […]

Another Gas Lamp Mystery in Space!

The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles by Malka Older

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Mossa and Pleiti are back! Take a Sherlock Holmes style mystery (gaslamps, lots of fog, some terribly repressed people) but set it far in the future, on huge platforms that orbit the planet Jupiter, where humanity settled after we wrecked Earth so badly we couldn’t stay. Add in a University setting and the subsequent academic jockeying, rivalry, and backstabbing, and you’ve got yourself a potent combination! Book 2 in the series sees Mossa looking into the disappearance of Stravan, a student at Valdegeld University where […]

“I wanted to go home, where I felt safe. It occurred to me, as we continued our journey in silence, that when the first refugees from Earth had arrived on Giant—and, for that matter, on Io—they must have felt much the same.”

The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles by Malka Older

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When I finished The Mimicking of Known Successes a couple weeks ago I knew I wasn’t in love with that book, but that I wanted to continue reading the series to see how Malka Older built out her world and dug into her sapphic Watson & Holmes stand-ins because I had become quite attached to Mossa and Pleiti. The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles begins the same way as its predecessor in that we get a prologue from Mossa’s point of view and then the rest […]

“Because being of utility was more than I had expected, and yet one still does not want to be used. Of use, but not used.”

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Ann Older

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The Mimicking of Known Successes can be quickly described as what if Sherlock Holmes, but sapphic and in a sci-fi future where the Earth is uninhabitable and humans have colonized Jupiter?   Malka Ann Older’s resume is a wide combination of things, and it feeds directly into the kind of book that The Mimicking of Known Successes is. We have here a book that examines what happens next when final resources are used to leave Earth, but the goal is to go back. Pleiti is our […]

When I probe the gallimaufry of blurred memories from that night I can still feel the potency of the ungovernable impulse that demanded I place my palms on her bony shoulders

The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses by Malka Older

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Every time I pick up a Malka Older book, I am struck anew by how beautifully she writes. As much as I enjoy the melding of mystery, romance, and science fiction in her Mossa and Pleiti series, the way she uses words is such a joy to read. The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses is the third in the series, and you must read the first two books in order to understand this one. The Rector’s actions in The Mimicking of Known Successes continues to reverberate. Mossa and […]

Filled my Earth Day square! (Double bingo)

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older

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CBR16 Bingo: Earth Day (while this novella is set off-Earth, a lot of the plot involves conservation efforts to try to reintroduce healthy biodiversity on Earth) Mossa is investigating the mysterious disappearance, most likely a suicide, on one of the human colonies on Jupiter. Mossa discovers that the missing man worked at the colony’s university, where conveniently for her and her further investigation, Mossa’s ex-girlfriend is a scholar working with others to try to recreate the ecosystems of Earth before it collapsed. Pleiti is surprised […]



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