Tag: Crime

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The Archimedes Engine (Exodus I) – Peter F. Hamilton

Over forty thousand years in the future, humanity is established in the distant Centauri Cluster, colonising it with arkships leaving Earth. The early arrivals evolved into posthuman races collectively known as Celestials. Later arrivals, still baseline humans, are now second class citizens in the Celestial dominions. Finn, a Uranic human, meaning he is a human with some ability to directly interface with Celestial system, is the scion of a wealthy family of administrators on the planet Anoosha. Surviving an assassination attempt, he is rescued by two recent arkship arrivals, and sees in them his future independence. Meanwhile, the Celestial noble families play “great games” of power and influence over centuries and millennia. They value stability of dominion, with upstart humans wanting more independence being a major concern.

Even for a Peter F. Hamilton novel, this one has almost overwhelming scope and complexity. Multiple interweaving storylines spanning decades weave a gorgeous tapestry of future society. However, it is sometimes difficult to know who to root for. Finn is the obvious protagonist, and he definitely grows as the story progresses, but there are so many plots and storylines to keep track of that he is often overshadowed by other events, or unmentioned for several chapters. That being said, Mr. Hamilton’s smooth prose and masterful plotting keep the story going.

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The Prefect AKA Aurora Rising (Prefect Dreyfus Emergency I) – Alastair Reynolds

The Prefect was republished as Aurora Rising in order to identify it more as the beginning of its own series than as tied to the Revelation Space series. The series do share the same Universe, though this book is set in a much earlier era.

The setting is the Glitter Band, a swarm of thousands of orbital habitats around the planet Yellowstone. Tom Dreyfus is a prefect for Panoply, a police force tasked with ensuring voting rights are respected, including investigating and punishing voting fraud. The habitats of the Glitter Band are as varied as they are many, from tyrannies to utopias to all manner of strange types of government. An investigation into voting fraud leads Dreyfus and his small team to a flaw in the voting system, and then all hell breaks loose.

While the setting is hard science fiction, the plot is in large part police procedural, and the characters could have been picked from any group of archetypal police investigators and functionaries. Dreyfus himself is the stereotypical dedicated detective with a tragic past. His assistants Thalia and Sparver are, respectively, the spunky and energetic young tech whiz and the stoic, solid sidekick. His boss Aumonier is the classic experienced police chief. The trope works very well for the novel, allowing the reader to immediately grasp relationships while navigating a completely new and strange world. The plot starts as a relatively simple police mystery, but as events unfold, the magnitude of the crisis becomes vast, encompassing the entire system. The ghosts from Dreyfus’s past, and indeed society’s past, come back to haunt the present, with some clever twists.

The vignette Open and Shut, available for free on the publisher’s website, serves as an epilogue for the novel.

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Red Planet Blues – Robert J. Sawyer

Untitled-2Alex Lomax is a private investigator in New Klondike, a frontier town on Mars. The place is a bit of a dump, existing only due to the rush on ancient Martian fossils, and Lomax is its stereotypical gumshoe. One day, a beautiful woman walks into his office. She is a “transfer”, a human who has transferred her consciousness into a cyborg body.

The story and setting are a deliberate homage to classic noir detective films and novels. The world-building is solid, and it is a enjoyable and almost wistful reading about New Klondike’s dome and the business of “transfers”. Mr. Sawyer takes the idea of the noir detective to the limits of its stereotype, skirting deadpan satire. Naturally the protagonist is broke and has an overdue tab at a seedy bar that he frequents. Naturally the local police department is corrupt and lazy. The first half of the book is good fun. Unfortunately the second half degenerates into a confusing mess of myriad double-crosses and plot twists, taking the novel from a pleasant pastime to an often irritating morass.

3Rosbochs

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The Churn (The Expanse III½) – James S.A. Corey

TheExpanse3.5TheChurnThe Churn tells the early backstory of Amos Burton, one of our heroes on the Rocinante in Leviathan Wakes and onwards. It is set in the criminal substrate of future Baltimore. Large parts of the city have been submerged by rising sea levels, and it is in general a crappy place to live; a backwater that no one cares very much.

The apathetic attitude of the denizens of Baltimore, and by implication much of Earth, is well portrayed. Most are living on Basic, a sort of dole where they get free (bland) food and basic services but do not have to work. Many are unregistered and have no real identity in the eyes of the authorities. They live their lives without purpose or hope for a better future. And they look upwards at Mars and the Outer Planets with a dreamlike wonder, knowing that they are very unlikely to have a chance at a better tomorrow up there.

3½Rosbochs

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The Sign of the Four (Sherlock Holmes II) – Arthur Conan Doyle

TheSignofFourThe second novel in the series, also known as “The Sign of Four”, is set a few years further on from the events in A Study in Scarlet. Holmes and Watson have lived together for a few years when a young woman comes to them with a mystery. Her late father disappeared years ago and now an unknown person sends her a pearl once a year, along with a strange note. The adventure then unfolds with Holmes having to solve a locked room murder, and unraveling a complex tale of treasure and alliance among criminals.

Just as A Study in Scarlet, this one holds up very well today. The style is engaging and the story moves quickly. However, just as with the previous novel, I found the very long “explanation flashback” to be excessively long and quite jarring. Still an enjoyable novel for the brief time it takes to read it.

3½Rosbochs

 

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A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes I) – Arthur Conan Doyle

AStudyinScarletThe first novel in the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Dr. John Watson, freshly returned from campaign in Afghanistan, becomes what we today would call Holmes’s roommate. Holmes is a mysterious character, addicted to deduction in the service of the detective arts. He is called in to solve a murder and Watson observes.

Despite being well over a century old, this novel stands up very well today. It is eminently readable, even a page turner. It reads more like a historical novel than a dated document written in a forgotten past. Holmes as a character is perfect; mercurial, ironic, enigmatic and arrogant. I had two problems with this novel, and I am hardly treading new ground here. First, it violates that cardinal rule of detective novels. It is impossible for the reader to figure out who did it before this is revealed. Secondly, just as Holmes is about to reveal all about halfway through the book, the story flashes back a few decades on an immensely long backstory set in Utah. While this was certainly more page turning action, I found the transition quite jarring.

3½Rosbochs

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The Patchwork Girl – Larry Niven

This novel, illustrated in the original editions, features Gil “The Arm” Hamilton, the detective protagonist of the stories in Flatlander (most of which were published earlier in “The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton). A woman is accused of murder and Gil must clear her name before she is executed and ends up in the organ banks.

The novel is rather short but a solid story from Niven at the height of his powers. If you can get hold of one of the original editions, the illustrations are have a nice retro feel.

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Flatlander – Larry Niven

All the Gil “The Arm” Hamilton stories collected in one volume with a previously unpublished story. These are good SciFi murder mysteries set in the Known Space universe. It just goes to show that Niven has a devious mind. As he says himself, SciFi murder stories are tricky since the reader must know all the “rules” of the environment in order to have a shot at solving the mystery himself.

Note: Most of the stories were previously published in “The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton”.

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The Rampart Worlds Trilogy

While the Exiles Saga and the Galactic Milieu Trilogy are among my favorites, May has for a far less grandiose approach here. The characters are well rounded and her elegant prose flows smoothly. Unfortunately, the story is not very engaging. Still worth a read, especially as the third book is qualitatively above the first two. My main problem with the novels is that May is just a bit too in love with the main character, and he seems to be good at everything. There’s never any big question that things are going to be all right. Fun though.

  • Perseus Spur
  • Orion Arm
  • Sagittarius Whorl

On a side note, the covers are simply magnificent, especially on the UK edition.

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The Stainless Steel Rat Series – Harry Harrison

SciFi humor. I quite enjoyed the first five books or so, but in the end the laughter starts wearing thin. I gave up after “The Stainless Steel Rat Goes to Hell”. Those I have read are:

  • The Stainless Steel Rat
  • The Stainless Steel Rat’s Revenge
  • The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World
  • The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You
  • The Stainless Steel Rat for President
  • A Stainless Steel Rat is Born
  • The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted
  • The Stainless Steel Rat Goes to Hell

 

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The Greg Mandel Series – Peter F. Hamilton

Consisting of:

  • Mindstar Rising
  • A Quantum Murder
  • The Nano Flower

These three loosely connected novels share the same protagonist, Greg Mandel. He is a psychic former soldier who now works as a sort of private investigator/mercenary. Greg comes into contact with a billionaire named Julia Evans, a very interesting characted in herself.

Although they can be read as straightforward SciFi crime novels, there is much more depth here. The location, a post ecodisaster England recovering from climate change is a fascinating place. Add to that a brave new kind of capitalism that has superseded rabid socialism, and the social commentary becomes top notch. Highly recommended.

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Rising Sun – Michael Crichton

Thriller set in the corporate world of Los Angeles. A murder has been committed in the boardroom of a large Japanese corporation, just prior to a major deal. An old detective with “Japanese experience” is teamed up with a younger man to solve the murder. Masterfully told, if a bit dated due to the heavy use of old computer jargon and technology as plot points.

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Luftslottet som sprängdes (The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest) – Stieg Larsson

The final novel in the Millennium trilogy concludes the story begun in Flickan som lekte med Elden (The Girl who Played with Fire) and ties up the Salander arc started in Män som hatar kvinnor (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). The novel picks up right after the dramatic events surrounding the encounter between Zalachenko and Lisbeth Salander. Salander is arrested and spends most of the time in isolation, first in hospital and then in prison. At the same time Blomkvist and his cohorts work to set things straight, proving how the state has committed crimes against her and in the process unraveling a conspiracy deep within the Swedish secret police.

Despite the fact that much of the book consists of spy-novel maneuvering and exposition of past events, it is a total page turner, especially the second half. The suspense as good guys and bad guys try to outmaneuver each other is gripping and masterfully written. The character development of Salander is interesting, particularly her slow realization (helped along by her attorney and others) that if she wants the people around her and the state to consider her a competent adult she has obligations towards these people and the state. The state especially has repeatedly betrayed Salander, and she is thus understandably suspicious of the concept.

Due to the death of Stieg Larsson and the legal disputes surrounding his estate, we may never see the nearly finished fourth novel or six additional novels which he allegedly planned. A shame, perhaps, but the three published works are still rather neatly tied up. And in this way Larsson’s legacy will not be diluted. He will forever be remembered as a novelist at the top of his game, with no slow decline to mar the image.

For the record, I read it in the original Swedish.

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Flickan som lekte med elden (The Girl Who Played with Fire) – Stieg Larsson

I read this novel in the original Swedish.

The sequel to Män som hatar kvinnor (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) has a slow start. At the newspaper Millenium, new collaborator Dag Svensson is preparing a big exposé on trafficking. A number of policemen, judges and other prominent individuals will be named as having had liaisons with underaged sex slaves. Out of the blue, Dag and his domestic partner are brutally murdered. Lisbeth Salander’s legal guardian (she is declared incompetent) and torturer from the first book is also murdered with the same gun. Lisbeth Salander has just returned to Sweden and, through a series of unfortunate coincidences, finds herself wanted for the murders. The story then follows the police investigation as well as the actions of Lisbeth and journalist Michael Blomkvist. There is a lot of deep diving into Lisbeth’s mysterious background.

While Män som hatar kvinnor (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) was a relatively self-contained story, this one is much more wide ranging. The ending does not neatly tie up all loose ends, but distinctly leads into the next novel. The excuisitely crafted character of Lisbeth Salander is further explored, and while Blomkvist was the focus in the first novel, she is very clearly the center of this one. One of the more prominent themes is how society dismisses and discriminates against people with alternative lifestyles. Several of the policemen are extremely resistant to taking Lisbeth (allegedly a bisexual) and Miriam Wu (an ostentatiously lesbian artist) seriously, especially since they are into fem-rock of the darker variety with alleged satanist influences. The mainstream press is no better than the police, feeding the masses with shock headlines instead of reporting the facts. An interesting indictment of the mainstream which rings very true.

I enjoyed this novel almost as much as the first one. The second half is a real page turner. However the story feels a bit more contrived and there is a lack of focus in the first half. A lot of setup, if you will. Still, even if it didn’t satisfy as much as the first one it is very good stuff.

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Män som hatar kvinnor (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) – Stieg Larsson

Since I am Swedish, it seems somewhat odd that I seem to be the last person to have read Stieg Larsson’s wildly successful Millennium trilogy. I have finally gotten around to it, starting of course with the first novel. For the record, I read it in the original Swedish.

The novel has two protagonists, middle-aged muckraker journalist Mikael Blomkvist and twenty-five year old sociopathic hacker genius Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist is hired to dig into a forty-year old murder mystery by an old industrialist. Salander is a researcher, expert at finding the dirt on people, who becomes involved in the investigation. What they finally find is shocking beyond their wildest expectations.

I am often irrationally suspicious when an author becomes universally acclaimed by both critics and public, and this is perhaps why it took me so long to get around to reading The Girl with the Dragon  Tattoo. But I also do not mind being proven wrong. This novel is certainly one of the finest I have read in a long time. The characters are deep, interesting and “different”. They do not fit any preconceived molds but are very real and believable. Salander especially is a very peculiar character to say the least, but Larsson adeptly makes her plausible and even sympathetic. This even though she certainly is not a sympathetic person by any normal definition. She is almost the comic relief versus Blomkvist’s straight man in a twisted sort of way. The story is excellent, but the book is at heart a character study of the two protagonists. And that is the key to its genius.

The pacing is not perfect, faltering a bit in the slow middle part, but overall it is very good. The story itself is complex without being hard to follow, supporting the plot perfectly. The device of the age old mystery of Harriet’s disappearance set against the backdrop of the intricacies of Vanger family politics is simply superb. And even when you think it is all over, over a tenth of the book is left, with a very extended epilogue that is still satisfying, possessing the same page-turning quality as the rest of the book. The language is elegant without being pompous, with clever turns of phrase in support of the story but never for their own sake.

One thing I do wonder about, and which is not really a reflection on the book’s merit, is how a person without any Swedish background experiences the novel. Many behaviors, locations and situations are so very Swedish that they would seem hard to translate. I guess I will never know.

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Altered Carbon – Richard Morgan

This book blew me away. After five or six pages I was hooked. Very cool cyberpunk/noir in a future where bodies can used (as “sleeves”) almost like clothes (albeit very expensive ones; a normal person can only afford one “extra” body and thus double his lifespan). This naturally raises some rather intriguing philosophical questions about mortality (or the lack of it), but also about how the legal system would work under the circumstances. All this is but a backdrop for a fabulous crime thriller told in the first person. It is clear that Morgan was very much inspired by Blade Runner (down to the robotic voice saying “Cross now. Cross Now. Cross Now” at a zebra crossing). The gloomy, indifferent outlook of our hero is similar, and it is answered by a similar outlook from his surroundings. The onlyshortcoming with this book is that the plot becomes a bit convoluted at times. All in all, a very very nice read.