Universal Language: The Airlocked Room Mystery by Tim Major (book review).

‘Universal Language: The Airlocked Room Mystery’ is a Science Fiction novella by Tim Major who has published six plus novels as well as various anthology contributions, short stories, etc. Major is very fond of his mysteries in the fashion of Sir Author Conan Doyle and has published three Sherlock Holmes novels alongside his SF. ‘Universal Language’ is where his love of mystery meets has interest in SF. Major has expressed a fondness for the robot stories by Isaac Asimov and this novella is essentially a `closed room’ murder mystery where the only suspect is a robot who follows the three laws of robotics and so is incapable of harming a human being.

Major does not quote the laws of robotics directly. Instead, he highlights these rules naturally as the story unfolds. At the start of the story, the main protagonist, Abby Oma arrives at Tharsis Caraway, which is a ‘Martian crawler’. These are large arcology-like vehicles that were set to search Mars for potential colonisation sites but, given time, the project failed due to lack of funding and political will. Tharsis Caraway is therefore a rather run down setting, both under-populated and in need of renovation.

Abby Oma herself is a famous investigator for a company called Sagacity, which is implied to be very important in the Mars administration. This gives Abby the clout to investigate a death on the crawler under suspicious circumstances. Abbey was born on Mars but left at a very young age and carved out a famous career troubleshooting for Sagacity and so is ideally employed to figure out the suspicious death on Tharsis Caraway.

When she arrives, she immediately meets Frank Treadgold, who is a talented engineer for the Caraway. Frank is a fan of Abby’s exploits and immediately attaches himself to Abby as a Dr. Watson-like assistant. Investigating the crawler, Abby meets Edith Pannick, the laid-back senior manager who doesn’t really want to cause a fuss. After a tour of the crawler with Franck, taking in the bar on the way, Abby gets to examine the body of Jerem Ferrer, who was a scientist working on a mysterious project of his own and which no-one on the crawler seems to understand. Shortly afterward, we are introduced to the slightly confused robot Ai383, who stands accused of the murder. Ai383 is humaniform, but could not be taken for human, having a fencing mask-like face, smooth ceramic limbs and arms that end short with interface devices designed to interact with most of the machinery on the crawler.

Ai383 claims to have no memory of the actions, captured on video-recorder, leading to the death of Jerem Ferrer. The video records Jarem’s ordering Ai383 to remove the helmet of his suit within a chamber open to the Mars atmosphere, which Ai383 does and Jerem subsequently asphyxiates to death. It turns out a factory reset has been inflicted on Ai383 and, as Frank points out, anyone on the crawler can do this. Abby proceeds to test Ai383 in an alarming fashion and proves that Ai383 cannot harm, never mind murder, a living human being and so the mystery deepens.

Tim Major writes the novella in Abby’s first-person perspective throughout. This is not unusual for a relatively new writer, which he still counts himself at time of writing. Of course, experienced writers do use the first person, but will often switch the observer between characters to give a more complete perspective on events, especially in a full novel. This book, however, is not a full novel and, in a short story using just one first person perspective throughout is quite adequate. Whether it works at this mid-length, however, I am unsure. Let’s say it would have been nice to get a few more disparate viewpoints, but I am not convinced the story suffers without this.

One odd thing, Major does do is use curiously 20th century English references. At one point, some currency is referred to as a £10 coin, which seems odd given that it is being used on Mars at some indeterminate time in the future. This happens two or three more times within the text and is a bit jarring. The rest of Major’s worldbuilding creates quite a good feeling of being in this so-familiar but alien world. Making stereotypically English references every now and again breaks the immersion somewhat.

The story widens out after awhile and we meet other inhabitants of Mars. Gradually, Abby’s Martian origins become more relevant and Major explores his setting with a degree of enthusiasm. Given that the story is told in 157 pages yet has quite a lot of ground to cover means that Major writes with a skilfully brisk style, keeping the action moving and making the threats zip at the reader fast enough to prevent suspension of disbelief.

The text builds to a satisfying conclusion that both solves the wider mystery but also brings Abby to an emotional epiphany. Major’s text is pleasantly personable and characterises Abby very well through her observations. I also notice that the spine of my copy has a numeral one printed right at the top. This is reference to Newcon Press’ line of novellas with subsequent volumes written by other authors. Alas, this was slightly disappointed as I would not mind further novellas as a sequel to this one, maybe the further exploits of Abby and Franck or how about a spin-off featuring Franck Treadgold as the main character?

Overall, this reviewer recommends ‘Universal Language’ as a light introduction to Tim Major’s work. It is short enough that the average fan will probably finish it in one day, if not quite one sitting. The novella’s denouement is pleasingly clever and does echo the Sherlock Homes stories without directly copying them. Of course, if you are not a fan of mysteries then maybe this isn’t your cup of tea but, otherwise, I have no hesitation recommending this as a way to dip your toe into Major’s pool of work.

Dave Corby

September 2023

(pub: Newcon Press, 2021. 160 page small enlarged paperback. Price: £ 9.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-91295-085-0)

check out website: www.newconpress.co.uk