OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: Olivia Waite writes queer science fiction, fantasy, historical romance, and essays. She is the romance fiction columnist for the New York Times Book Review.

FORMAT/INFO: Murder by Memory will be published by Tordotcom on March 18th, 2025. It is 112 pages long. It is available in ebook, hardcover, and audiobook formats.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: When Dorothy Gentleman, ship's detective, wakes up in a body that isn't hers, she's more than a little annoyed. After all, she's supposed to be retired, her mind resting in the ship's Library until she decides to print a body again. And even if she'd chosen to wake up, she should be in a fresh body all her own. But there's been a murder on the ship, and what's worse, someone is deleting the memory archives from the Library itself - something that should be impossible.

Murder by Memory is a fluffy fun little appetizer that left me longing for a deeper dive into this world. The mystery itself is pretty straight forward. Dorothy goes from point A to B to C in fairly quick succession, following the clues on a mostly linear path. It's not going to scatter red herrings on your trail or give you a cast of suspects to consider. In fact, the mystery is less about the Who than it is about the Why and the How.

Instead, I was much more intrigued with puzzling out the ship the murder takes place on. The H.M.S. Fairweather is on a thousand year journey to a new planet. But with the technology to back up a person's mind, it's not a traditional generation ship; there isn't a constant turnover of populace because a person can simply print themselves into a fresh body when their old body gives out. This opens up a whole host of fascinating societal questions that Murder by Memory only barely begins to touch on, but it was enough of a glimpse that I wanted to know more.

I was also impressed by the way the author quickly sketched out her core cast of characters, from Dorothy herself to Ralphie her well-meaning but not always sensible nephew to his mysterious bartender boyfriend. They don't have deep backstories given the length of the novella, but I got enough of a sense of them that I wanted to spend more time with them, as much as I wanted to explore the ship.

CONCLUSION: Murder by Memory is like an episode of a weekly crime procedural. You'll know most of the beats, but you'll enjoy it anyway for the comfort of the familiar, and you'll want to return the cozy cast of characters. As this is the start of a new sci-fi mystery series, I'm definitely looking forward to more adventures in this world, but I do find myself wishing this were a main course instead of a snack.