In Panic Town, on the Backward Moon, by Michael F. Flynn

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(Hard SF Mystery) Mickey works for the Martian Port Authority on Phobos. When a mysterious artifact goes missing, Mickey goes down to the surface to look for it. (4,200 words; Time: 14m)

Rating: ★★★☆☆, Average

Recommended By: GDozois:5

"In Panic Town, on the Backward Moon," by Michael F. Flynn (edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt), appeared in Mission: Tomorrow (RSR review), published on October 15, 2015 by Baen Books.

Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)

Pro: Nice setup for a detective mystery. Plenty of clues, mostly in the form of people's names. Most of the engineering seems plausible. The last line is a reward for readers of Flynn's January Dancer series, implying that this story is part of that series.

Con: The ending disappoints; not only is the artifact not recovered, the paragraphs killing off all the characters are awful. We don't really know any of the characters well enough to care about them--including Mickey.

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