She could have made herself small and unthreatening. She could have hovered over people’s shoulders like a pet or a children’s toy, as was the fashion among older shipminds. But she’d lived through a war, an uprising and a famine, and she was done with diminishing herself to spare the feelings of others.
The Shadow’s Child is a mindship, eking out a meagre existence in the Scattered Pearls Belt in space and suffering emotional trauma after a horrific incident in deep space that left her entire human crew dead. Long Chau is a client who wants to study the decomposition of human bodies in space. But when the two explore deep space and find a body, Long Chau isn’t content with leaving the matter to the authorities and decides to investigate herself.
The Tea Master and the Detective is probably the strangest Holmesian novella I have ever read. Long Chau plays the part of Sherlock Holmes as an eccentric scholar and detective who is equal parts fascinating and frustrating, while the role of Dr. Watson falls to The Shadow’s Child, a sentient, traumatised, spaceship who is also a brewer of tea blends made with herbs and chemicals that influence and alter the mind, allowing humans to withstand the psychological and emotional toll of deep space travel.
Compelling, intriguing and peculiar, this novel provides the reader with a short glimpse into an odd and fascinating Asian-inspired, space opera universe seen through the lens of a distressed sentient spaceship who enjoys epic romance novels, is infuriated by arrogant humans, and, somewhat despite herself, ends up being invested in her troublesome client’s affairs. This won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you like genre blends and alternate universes and don’t mind stories that leave you with as many questions as answers, I highly recommend this one.
Do you like alternative versions of Holmesian stories, or do you prefer the original Holmesian canon?
Science fiction – Space opera – Novella
Mostly Murders 
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