LANTERNS OVER DEMNER: A Science Fiction Murder Mystery

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Into the Heart of Obsessive Sports Fandom. From the Archives In a special archive show, Alan Burdick contemplates the nature of time and Ed Yong explores the world of microbes. How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia. A Year in the Life of an American Farm. The Triumph of the American Libido. Forster, and the Year That Changed Literature.

The Lives of Gay Gang Members. The Musical Lives of Sarah Vaughan. Bad Economics and the Rise of Inequality. My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto. Publishing Mission to Cuba. A Mostly Scientific Investigation. From the Archives Marjorie Ingall on how Jewish mothers raise amazing kids and science writer Ed Yong on the microbes living inside us. How to Survive Our Faster Future. How Play Made the Modern World.

An American History in Haunted Places. Robbins explores how YA authors are serving as advocates for teens. The Life of Jane Jacobs. On Fertility, Medicine, and Motherhood. A Natural History of Moving Air. PW editorial director Jim Milliot gives a run down of book sales for the first half of Portrait of a Photographer. Smith discusses her new novel, 'Marrow Island. The Curious Science of Humans at War. Kirschenbaum discusses his new book, 'Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing. PW senior news editor Calvin Reid explores selling e-books in an evolving digital marketplace.

Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture. James McClintock on fishing tales and ecological exploration, Wil Haygood on the contentious debate over Thurgood Marshall's nomination to the Supreme Court. Around Europe in Sixty Languages. Better Home Cooking Through Science. Naomi Jackson on tales of Caribbean migration, Anil Ananthaswamy on the mysteries of the brain and the self. Journey into an Obsession. Peterson and Andrew Albanese David J. Peterson, author of 'The Art of Language Invention,' tells us how new languages are made. PW contributing editor Shannon Maughan chronicles the e-book revolution in schools.

Ursula Vernon and Jim Milliot Ursula Vernon, author of 'Harriet the Invincible,' explains why a cheeky hamster is the perfect princess. Arkin and Bryan Kinney William M. Naomi Novik and Fan Fiction Naomi Novik, author of 'Uprooted,' talks about fairy tales, computer programming, fan fiction, and more in a special double-length interview. Martinez talks about wrapping up his Daedalus series with 'The Venusian Gambit. Cathy Erway, author of 'The Food of Taiwan,' discusses combining recipes with a fascinating history lesson; PW writer Lela Nargi talks about the intersection of cookbooks and technology.

PW senior spirituality and religion editor Lynn Garrett previews forthcoming books on near-death experiences and spiritual practice. Naomi Baron and Best Audio Books Author, educator, and researcher Naomi Baron talks about how economic pressures are driving the shift to digital reading. PW reviews editor Annie Coreno introduces 's best audio books. PW reviews director Louisa Ermelino previews the most anticipated books of spring. PW deputy reviews editor Gabe Habash introduces some more exciting debut authors in a sneak peek of PW's upcoming First Fiction feature.

Jeannie Lin explores romance and intrigue in Tang Dynasty China, and Shahan Mufti traces his family through the past and present of Pakistan. Jennifer Senior and Lori Duron discuss the joys and perils of parenting. Gay Talese For episode , Gay Talese, author of The Bridge just reissued for its 50th anniversary , gets to the heart of journalism: Gilbert Hernandez On today's show, powerhouse comics creator Gilbert Hernandez talks about blending punk and science fiction in his graphic stories. Then Heidi MacDonald tells us about the French invasion in comics.

Nelson provides a tour of the American Christian Fiction Writers conference. Walt Whitman and America's First Bohemians. Maximillian Potter Maximillian Potter, author of 'Shadows in the Vineyard,' explores agricultural terrorism and the love of the land in Burgundy's famous wineries.

Sharona Muir On today's show, author Sharona Muir discusses her new novel 'Invisible Beasts,' in which a woman discovers she has the rare ability to see unusual and mysterious creatures. Then PW editorial director Jim Milliot explains how changes at one book distributor could affect the entire publishing industry. A Life in Restaurants. Adam Begley Adam Begley discusses his new biography, "Updike.

Sarah Pinborough Sarah Pinborough discusses her murder mystery, "Mayhem. Phil Klay Phil Klay discusses his new short story collection, "Redeployment. Terry Frei Terry Frei talks about his new book, "March The Art of High Impact Leadership. With enemies at every turn, Mike must use his newly enhanced capabilities to save his family, his friends, and ultimately, the world. This is the first of Willis time traveling historians. Ned Henry is looking for something called the bishops bird stump in the s, despite the fact that he lives in the 21st century.

He needs it as part of a plan to restore a cathedral destroyed by Nazi bombing. The time travel devices are good for little else, as they have mechanisms built into them that deny travelers any possibility of changing the past or even visiting certain controversial events. That means that corporations have no use for the machines, leaving them in the hands of historians. Verity Kindle no relation to the eReader brings a domestic house cat back to their present from Victorian England and now Henry must replace it in its rightful place, before all of history is rewritten by the act.

The book is written in a true Victorian style with asides to the reader and repeated references to mystery authors like Wilkie Collins and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This book won the Hugo and the Locus awards and was nominated for a Nebula. Willis has won multiple Hugos for her work which are guaranteed to tickle the funny bone.

Set in the near future, scientists have discovered the genetic disposition that makes men more likely to exhibit violent behavior. The breakthrough is in response to an outbreak of serial killers all over the world. However, just as all genetic features do not mean that the genetic condition will occur, some men with the marker dont display violent behavior. However, that nuance doesnt matter to a serial killer named Wittgenstein, who has decided to wipe out the men with this disposition. It makes you feel old when the science fiction book set in the future is now actually set in the past.

This book takes place in , some years behind us now. Even so, its interesting to watch an author weave a futuristic society that has come and gone. The book can go a little bit far with the philosophy and the discussions of the morality of such acts, but it never hurts a reader to think a little while enjoying a good chase.

Earth is overpopulated a thousand years from now. Planets outside of our solar system have been colonized and development of robots through the positronic brain. In this new society, only some of humans live in New York City including Detective Elijah Baley, who is not a big fan of the robot. However, hes teamed up with a robot to solve a murder case far from planet Earth. The robot sidekick is bad enough until Baley learns that the robot is an exact replica of the murder victim.

Asimov does mystery and science fiction well, and this is the first book in his Robot series, which is well-loved and critically acclaimed. Asimov is a master of the genre. Hes been republished and collected and filmed more than most of the authors on this list combined. Hes garnered multiple awards and been nominated more times than most of us can count.

Hes one of the giants of the genre, and when he wasnt prolifically writing science fiction, he wrote mysteries including the well-known Black Widower stories. Mack is some kind of detective. Hes a robot that was built to take over the world, but he decided that wasnt his thing. So he drives a cab in Empire City. Its only when his neighbors go missing that he decides to get involved in their lives. It turns out that one of the kidnapped people has the key to something that could spell the end of the Earth.

Mack is made to storm any fortress, but its not that easy, because others start playing with his internal mechanisms to turn him back into that world-dominating machine. He meets a beautiful, potential love interest that helps Mack in his quest to stay on his path for a better life and to find and save the neighbors. The book is a classic in the genre, a well-received novel by a fan-favorite author. Its worth the time to find it and read it. It has the old-fashioned wise-cracking private eye in the same vein as Spade and Marlowe, which brings a smile to the reader while reading a fast-paced book.

The concept for the book is rather involved. Peoples souls and memories can now be digitized and stored. Once stored, if something happens to you, the soul and memories can be put into a different body, which is now called a sleeve and explains the title. Not everyone is in favor of eternal life in different bodies. The problem is that much like a computer back-up, the last few hours of data is lost since it has not been backed up as of yet.

Thats the situation for Laurens Bancroft, whose death is labeled a suicide, but he thinks that someone deliberately killed him. He hires Kovacs who has been trained as a member of an elite military group and now works as a detective. The book is violent, since Kovacs was trained to take a beating, but the books hook is worth the violence.

Science Fiction & Fantasy

For starters Netflix announced that this will be a 10 episode series in It also won the Philip K. Dick Best Novel award when it was released. Nothing is more primal to a civilization than the story of its creation and heroes. Alex Benedict is the man who searches for the answers in this story. Hes left the clues to the real story by his uncle, who has mysteriously disappeared. When Benedict goes to look for the files, theyve been stolen and all data.

Benedict decides to continue his uncles quest to find out what really happened in the great war that started the society. Hes joined by a Ms. The relationship doesnt start well since the uncle owed her a significant amount of money. However, after the debt is paid, she agrees to take Benedict to other parts of the galaxy. The results are not what the reader would have expected and certainly not the spin that the civilization wants its people to believe.

The story has grandiose themes, and the book has long been a fan favorite. The author has a string of fantastic books and this is another winner. The book is consistently ranked among the authors best. When a scholar, Dr. James Owen Mega, has his book accepted for publication, he never realizes that his academic tome is about to become a best-seller through the unfortunate name change of his book to the title of this book.

The publisher also dubs him as Jay Omega to match the title. To promote the book, he, and another scholar, attend a science fiction conference where of course murder happens. The ultimate irony is that McCrumb won the Edgar for this book, and now has that this title on her own book covers. Before The Big Bang Theory came to be, there were McCrumbs renditions of what the culture of a science fiction convention looked like.

She caught the spirit of the people involved and portrayed them carefully, yet humorously. This book and its follow-up, Zombies of the Gene Pool, are well-worth looking up. Junos family moved to Lagarto, promised as a futuristic utopia for citizens of the overcrowded earth. However, the economy on Lagarto depends on a single export, and that export was replaced with a cheap knock-off. After that, Lagarto became a planetary slum and its residents suffer extreme poverty.

Juno works as a cop, but hes corrupted by bribes from the organized crime elements on Lagarto. Then hes given a new partner, who wants to seem to set him for an arrest and conviction. Its the first in a great series of books about Juno Mozambe. One of the best things to come from science fiction is the ability to bring out the worst in current society and display it taken to the extreme in a futuristic society.

The themes of corporate greed and the loss of the middle class are resoundingly important today and the book will give you plenty to think about. The fact that this was the first novel by the author should tell you to go buy more of the authors books. Dirk Gently, who was a minor character in one of Adams other works, becomes a private eye in this novel. The character is not the type who checks DNA and looks instead for the way in which seemingly unique things like poets and pizza are interconnected. Hence the name holistic detective agency.

As expected the events are shown through the eyes of many characters and in such a fashion as to seem disjointed until Gently explains the relationships. There are definitely some science fiction elements in the book, like time travel, but there are also ghosts, which pushes it towards fantasy as well. Definitely a book for those who have read and enjoyed the other books by this author.

This book is labeled a science fiction mystery comedy. Its by the same author who wrote The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, which is a fan-favorite in the science fiction genre. Dirk only appeared in two novels, but theyre both worth finding and reading. Adams was working on a third when he passed away, and its not been released. Mard Audran is something of a lone wolf in this futuristic book. The current superpowers have foundered and the Middle East is now prospering.

The story is set in this area. Audran makes his living from hand-to-mouth, but at the beginning of the book, hes suspected of being a sadist serial killer. A mob boss wants to execute Audran, but instead uses significant modifications to Audrans brain. As Audran adjusts to the changes, the serial killer gets closer and closer to Audran himself by killing off the mans acquaintances. Audran is not the best of investigators, as he stumbles into more situations than he deduces or even intuits. The situation deteriorates until Audran is captured by the serial killer, who plans on making him the next victim.

The book was nominated for the Hugo and the Nebula awards. Its the first in a series that included two other novels and a series of short stories as well as an unfinished novel. The book is one of the first to use transgender characters, in the person of Yasmin, Audrans sometimes girlfriend. Japan, in the future, has been destroyed by a cataclysmic event.

The older generations that remember how things used to be have died off, and all thats left are the people who have only known this wasteland. To make life more tolerable, a better Japan has been made via artificial reality. The technology has become so pervasive that many people spend all their time in AR. Homicide detective Dore Konstantin has to solve a murder that occurred in an AR parlor, where people go to use the artificial reality technology. In this particular case, the victim was killed in the same manner in real life and AR.

The coincidence shocks the detective, but gathering evidence and testimony is difficult, since no evidence is accepted given that so much time is spent in a world where nothing is real. The book is a fascinating look at what happens when a generation becomes addicted to technology. Nothing can be taken at face value, and everything is suspected of being false. Cardigan is often called the Queen of Cyberpunk and is a two time Arthur C. This novel is set in , though it easily could have been set years before.

Its a fairly classic private eye novel with science fiction and humor galore. Zachary Nixon Johnson calls himself the last private eye on earth. While its not quite true, he does get his share of odd cases. The world has only grown more pop-star crazy in the intervening years and Johnson is something of a celebrity given his status as the last private eye.

Hes hired by the former stripper who now runs a massive global corporation to find her renegade clone. Of course, the seemingly minor case turns out to worldwide ramifications that could get dangerous for Johnson. Its clear that Zakour is also a humorist, a fact that he doesnt try to hide. The book is laugh-out-loud funny in place and smirk-worthy in many others.

The weird combination of characters and events will keep the reader guessing and smiling up to the last page.

Similar Recommendations

As this galaxy becomes more crowded, scientists begin to look for other ways to allow population to continue to grow. They create a universe next to our own; however, in order to fully function, that galaxy has to nibble away at the edge of our galaxy, raising the question of how much of its resources should Earth donate to this alternative world. More questions are raised because the project is being financed by an entertainment firm.

Private investigator Blaine Donne begins to investigate several cases that seem to have nothing to do with that situation. He starts one investigation into a woman who seems to have no past. However, as with most private eye novels, the cases begin to converge into one, and Donne learns about the scientists and the ramifications for Earth with this new galaxy.

For starters, the author has tucked in many references to other science fiction works and authors. So the story has Easter eggs that can be found by the close readers. The book received favorable reviews from all the major review outlets. SyFy has named it an essential book. In a future society, extrasensory perception exists in a fraction of the worlds population.

There are 3 levels of ESP or espers as they are called in the book. They go from mild to those who can intuit future actions and thoughts of an individual. Of course, these Level 1 espers are most likely to be on the police force. So when Ben Reich decides to kill a competitor, based on his own misinterpretation of the situation, he hires a mental bodyguard, a Level 1 esper who doubles as a psychiatrist.

The bodyguard also believes that espers should rule the world, so hes a dangerous ally to have. Additionally, Reich develops weapons and a song that destroys the concentration of the espers. These tools help him to cover his tracks. A very good introverted mystery has missteps that can doom the killer, and in this case, the victims daughter is a witness to the crime.

The police prefect is also a Level 1 esper, which is not good for Reich. He discerns easily that Reich is guilty, but the game begins of trying to find the witness before the other. The critics raved about this and it won the Hugo in Inverted mysteries are not all that common, and a great example of one is rare.

Bester seemed to easily and flawlessly combine this sub-genre of mystery with science fiction to come up with a one-of-a-kind novel. This book is not to be missed. One of the few books on this list that is set in the current day, Cayce Pollard reacts to logos and corporate advertising in an allergic fashion. So its no surprise that shes hired by a marketing firm When a graphic designer becomes angry with Cayce, its obvious that theres more to this anger than simple some Photoshop.

The designer is aligned with the Russians, who have been spying on case. Cayce has been investigating some odd video clips on the Internet. She teams up with a stranger who goes by the name of Parkaboy to solve this. Parkaboy learns of a watermark on one of the clips can be identified. Cayce goes to Japan to learn more, but she and a friend learn that the trail leads them to London and the US.

The trail gets hot after that as they try to learn more. This is an interesting book that doesnt fit the rest of the list, though it very much is a science fiction mystery. The background and the current day make it unique, but in the same way, the book makes the reader look at various marketing techniques and the uses of the Internet. Its definitely a book that will make you think and not want to put it down.

This was the authors first use of a present-day setting and it works well. Miles Vorkosigan, the scion of the clan, is sent to a society that puts a price on physical perfection. A baby in the society has been murdered, one with physical defects. The custom has been outlawed for years and sending a member of the clan to solve it is sending a message to the village that this needs to cease.

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