Using the Programme Guide of the 2022 World Science Fiction Convention, ChiCON 8, which I WOULD have attended in person if I had disposable income, but I retired two years ago, my work health insurance stopped, and I’m now living on the Social Security and Medicare…I will be using the Programme Guide to jump off, jump on, rail against, or shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. My opinions may bring glad hearts to some, or cause others to wish to stomp me into the muddy ground of Lilydale Park shortly after a long rain…
The murder mystery is a classic plot structure, and has been written into SF settings many times, from classics such as Alfred Bester’s “Fondly Fahrenheit” and Pat Cadigan’s “Tea From An Empty Cup”, to Tade Thompson’s FAR FROM THE LIGHT OF HEAVEN. What are some of our favourite books in this genre? What books put a uniquely SFF twist on the locked room mystery or the unbreakable alibi, and use their setting to write mysteries that couldn’t be written outside the genre?
Mark Painter (m):
Lucy A. Synk:SF/F artist
Rebecca Inch Partridge: SF author
Roberta Rogow: SF/F author, editor
Victor Manibo: SF author
I was the last person to expect that I would love to read mysteries.
As a kid, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and books like that bored me.
I loved Asimov and the other panoply of writers from the end of the 60s through the 1970s. But if you’d asked me if Asimov wrote mysteries, I’d have said, “No. He’s a science fiction writer!”
About six or seven years ago, I stumbled across Craig Johnson, who wrote the novels about sheriff Walt Longmire. I can’t tell you even how that happened, but I fell in love with Longmire – and I’m currently rationing the last few of his novels that I haven’t read!
What caught me? How come I never noticed that Asimov’s novels were mysteries – and I read Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, and even have a copy of The Robots of Dawn from the Science Fiction Book Club. But I didn’t READ them as mysteries. I read them as “robot novels”.
I’m going to look at this today!
First, what caught me with Longmire? Why’d I even BOTHER TO READ THE FIRST BOOK? I am no fan of Westerns (REALLY NOT!), and I never really though of myself as a “mystery reader”. However, an old friend of mine LOVED the books and because I respect him, I tried the first one – COLD DISH. I was hooked because first off, Longmire’s not a supremely confident, “just put a gun in my hand and I’ll bring justice to the Old West ‘cause I’m the baddest-assed Lawman in the West!”
He's Human – I mean, he’s Human in the best possible way. Somehow, Craig Johnson managed to write Longmire as a quirky, smart – I mean, the man quotes Shakespeare! – and not entirely sure of himself. He also trusts the dangdest people. Sometimes, when he does, my first impression is that the person isn’t WORTHY of trust.
But, Larson gets that, too. Sometimes Longmire makes mistakes in who he trusts and then there are dire results. Also, Longmire DOESN’T ESCAPE HIS MISTAKES OR COME OUT UNHARMED! Even in movies, characters often make mistakes and other people suffer. Most of the time, it’s Longmire who suffers – though, just like in real life, others pay the price for his mistakes. They also pay the price for his well-night-to-unstoppable sense of justice – his daughter Cady ends up paying one of those times.
In essence though, what is it that attracts me to that kind of story? First off is the mystery – don’t get me wrong, I LOATHE mysteries in real life! I need to know what’s happening and to whom. I don’t mean just like, MURDER mysteries, though I’ve tried my hand at one or two – my first sale to CRICKET Magazine was “Mystery on Space Station Courage” (November 1997). No murder, just some strange sounds that turned out to be from someone who was trapped and might die if Candace can’t figure out and convince others that there WAS a mystery!
Another story where I use elements of mystery and science fiction is “Dinosaur Veterinarian” (ANALOG Science Fiction and Fact, November/December 2022). There you have a series of deaths seemingly caused by birds – which hinges on the fact that birds are relatives of the dinosaurs (doubters among you? Just go to the grocery store, and in the ethnic foods section, find a bag of frozen chicken feet! Don’t tell me that those feet DON’T have scales on them!) Anyway, my veterinarian character Javier Quinn Xiong Zaman DVM [aka Doctor Scrabble© (Because in the game, J, Qu, X, and Z are the highest scoring tiles)] has to find out what’s hunting and killing soldiers from both North and South Korea, as well as an entire international group of birdwatchers…
Of course he solves the mysteries.
Recently, I discovered that Isaac Asimov loved writing SF mysteries as well. Despite reading his work for most of my adult life, I didn’t notice that he wrote mysteries until the movie, “I, Robot” hit the silver screen with one of my favorite actors Will Smith, playing detective Spooner. What MOST people don’t know, is that the actual story that the movie is based on was in ASIMOV’S Science Fiction. “Robot Dreams”, while it isn’t ANYTHING LIKE THE MOVIE, had the seed in it. The movie-makers just added a Human cop with a grudge against robots to make the MOVIE…seems more Human, cause, really, would YOU go see a movie about, say, a Wyoming sheriff…who was a ROBOT? I mean, really?
Anyway, I’ve discovered I enjoy mysteries – also like WATCHING them, too, in particular the Hercule Poirot mysteries of Agatha Christie.
But I think I like not only the logical order of mysteries, I like that the logic comes wrapped in fallible Humans…or even fallible robots. STAR TREK: The Next Generation’s Commander Data’s holodeck adventures as Sherlock Holmes are intriguing and I enjoy those as well.
While reading a bit for this article, I stumbled across this: https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/its-simply-too-dangerous-to-arm-robots in which it explains how “San Francisco was embroiled in controversy earlier in December of 2022, over a proposal to allow police to deploy robots armed with deadly weapons. After initially greenlighting the technology, the Board of Supervisors reversed course due to widespread public outcry. For the time being, killer robots are banned in San Francisco, but the controversy there has put the issue in the national spotlight. People are increasingly aware that this technology exists and that some police departments want to deploy it.”
In a nutshell, people hated the idea and voted it down. Interesting, eh? Robots that can kill are NOT all right, but Humans who can kill are a-OK and we should be happy to sell them guns…maybe this world ISN’T ready for a robot detective yet. Then again, mostly when we think of a “robot detective”, we’re thinking of an ANDROID detective, a law enforcement officer who is built as an “humaniform” robot. But what about MACHINE detectives that don’t look anything like Humans, but are sapient and trained as police officers…what about them?
I think I might be exploring this subject through stories more in the future!
My New “To Read” List: https://theportalist.com/sci-fi-mystery-books
Program Guide: https://guide.chicon.org/; https://locusmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/chicon-8-twitter.png[GS1]
Image: https://chicon.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/WebHeader_wtexttopChicago_2x.png
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