At Swancon 40 Alex Isle , Sally Beasley , myself and Stephen Dedman participated in my panel "Magical and SF Detective Fiction: Police Procedurals and similar in non mainstream settings". I had wanted to run it at CrimeScene, but were not able to do anything about it at the time. We had quite a big audience and couldn't cover everything we wanted to in the hour, but we got a lot discussed.
I have a partial list of recs, some I need more detail on, as I was adding to my list of notes from the other speakers at the time.
This is mostly just my rough notes.
Recommended anthologies
The best paranormal crime stories - Martin H Greenberg
The Dragon Done it anthology by Eric Flint and Mike Resnick
Magical and Science Fiction Detectives
Science Fiction
Alistaire Reynolds – Revelation Space Universe – The Prefect good standalone in this
Set in the Glitter Band – a huge array of orbital habitats around the planet Yellowstone.
John Scalzi – Lock In
JD Robb – Eve Dallas
Fantasy/Paranormal
The Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch
P N Elrod - Vampire Jack Fleming in 30’s Chicago - solves his own murder in the first book.
Jim Butcher – Harry Dresden
Esther M. Friesner – Brithic Donne & Weston (Druid's Blood)
Randall Garret – Lord Darcy
Barry Hughart Master Li and Number 10 Ox
Jasper Fforde – Thursday Next
Ellis Peters – Brother Cadvael a little bit
Mike Resnick – John Justin Mallory
Guy Boothby – Dr Nikola Go look them up! Seriously!
Dirk Gently – Douglas Adams
Jasper Fforde – The Eyre Affair,
Charles Stross
Liz Williams – Detective Inspector Chen
Some incomplete notes that hopefully can be filled in?
Hawk and fisher
Doberman policedog?
The scarlet rider
Lee killough
And something I call WTF/SF
Containing both elements of fantasy and science fiction and just plain nuts with with physics/concepts.
Jasper Fforde – Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron
Dr Who
In Death Series - J D Robb
The Hawk and Fisher books are by Simon Green.
ReplyDeleteThe Scarlet Rider is by Lucy Sussex, and was described as non-fiction detective work.
Lee Killough has written a number of police procedural books: fantasies featuring a detective who is a werewolf (Wilding Nights), vampire (Blood Hunt, Blood Links, Blood Games) or ghost (Killer Karma). She also wrote SF police procedurals: the Brill and Maxwell series starting with The Doppelganger Gambit and several stand-alones.
You didn't mention Melissa Scott's Points of Astreiant series, which I know I talked about. Fantasy police procedurals in a very well-described and quite different society and world.
Thanks Sally Beasley , there must be a million I missed! It's basically my original notes, with scribbles of interesting stuff I managed to note down. I must also go and research what the one was about the Doberman.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reminding me about Melissa Scott, I hadn't come across her and look forward to exploring!
The Deadly Silents by Lee Killough has a Earth police team sent to an alien planet. Normally the planet has no crime but after a diplomatic mission to Earth returns they are having a crime spree.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like something I'd like to read - I don't think I've read any Lee Killough! And I still can't find anything about the Doberman police dog who walks upright so he can use a laser pointer, that Steve was talking about.
ReplyDeleteSteve Dedman, that is.
ReplyDeleteFrom memory, The Scarlet Rider is by Lucy Sussex. Lee Killough also wrote Blood Hunt and Bloodlinks about a police officer who becomes a vampire and the problems therein; not just tracking down the vampire who changed him against his will but fiddly stuff like not being able to enter a building he has not been invited into! If you're a cop and have no warrant, they often don't want you to come in...! I have stacks of stuff I didn't get a chance to talk about so will be doing so online asap. [And how do I do italics?]
ReplyDeleteI know that putting a star on either side of the text turns it bold, but italics, um, lemme see, https://plus.google.com/103400392486480765286/posts/QBmgLCtmoo1 says that an underscore on either side of the text works.
ReplyDeleteSeems it does, Alex Isle
ReplyDelete