Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite
Murder by Memory is a cozy mystery novella by Oliva Waite set on a generation spaceship. Unfortunately, despite the intriguing setting, this didn’t connect with me for a number of reasons: the brevity of the novella form seemed to work against the story, neither the mystery nor the solving of it was particularly compelling, and the novel was both a bit overly expository and too twee for me.
The HMS Fairweather has been journey through space for 300 years, carrying thousands of passengers whose minds are stored in the ship’s Library so when their bodies wear out or are damaged, their minds can simply be downloaded into a new body. Meanwhile, passengers are free to ply their trades, amass wealth, partake in their favorite hobbies, and down “memory cocktails” that can call up a summer storm or other such memory experiences. It’s all pretty idyllic. Until ship detective Dorothy Gentleman, who has been resting in the Library, wakes up in the body of one of the passengers and is informed by the slightly tipsy (due to a magnetic storm) Ship mind that there is a dead body. Even worse, through her investigation, Dorothy learns that several minds have been destroyed in the library, meaning murder has now become permanent.
As I said above, much of this story didn’t work for me. The brevity of the novella form didn’t do the tale any favors as there simply wasn’t room to do much with the various aspects: the purpose of the generation ship or how it’s run, the characterization, the investigation and resolution of the murder.
Olivia Waite
As far as the ship goes, there’s little sense of the day-to-day existence, of the way being en route for centuries have affected people, why they left or where they’re going, how the ship is organized. What details we do get over-emphasized (for me) the “cozy” nature, with lots of time — relative the length — spent on yarn, clothes, tea, cocktails, etc. And the Ship mind’s intoxication was a bit too cutesy, though luckily, we didn’t spend too much time in that mode.
The murder itself, despite the loss of minds, never feels like the stakes are all that high, partly due to the tone throughout, partly due to the motivation, and partly due to the nature of the crime itself. Its resolution involves very little actual investigation and what we do get is very straightforward and expository, with characters telling other characters what’s needed or our first-person POV just telling us. And it all gets bogged down in finance and business details.
Finally, the characterization is thin throughout. Our main character lacks any strong sense of depth. There are a few hints of some potentially interesting backstory, but those get scant mention, and the “romance” angle brought in feels unearned, the sort of “insta-romance” I’m never a fan of. It just didn’t feel natural or true. Other characters fare even worse, serving their plot purpose but that’s about it.
Murder by Memory is pegged as the first of a potential series set on the ship and with the same detective character at the center. If you’re a huge cozy fan, you might have a more positive reaction, but unfortunately, I didn’t find enough here to convince me to read a second book in the series.
Well, your review is a perfect match for what they marketed it as, so… that’s good.
I’m having the same problem with novellas. For one thing, they seem to be getting shorter! And I read SFF for richness, so I feel cheated. Generally, with lightly drawn characters, brisk, easy plots, low stakes and lots of “cups of tea,” I’m starting to feel like this whole swathe of stories is being written from elevator pitches and outlines. “It’s Agatha Christie–in space!” (The good news; they bought these stories over a year ago–they may be dealing with better properties right now, and we can look forward to challenging and rewarding books to come.)
And did you know it’s pronounced “Swaythe?” I did not!
yes, I mean, there are certainly lots of good sci-fi/fantasy novellas out there, so they aren’t impossible to do, but I do think they are inherently harder to do because they’re in that betwixt and between place: more plot than a short story, less than a novel so something gets stinted because some of that limited text space has to be devoted to worldbuilding/explanation. It a tough task to do well