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Proverbs for Paranoids, 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.
Look especially at Isaac Asimov. His Elijah Bailey novels - The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, and The Robots Of Dawn. Also, it's not in print anymore - I don't think so anyway - but look out for Asimov's Mysteries, a collection of his short stories which feature mysteries involving scientific causes or resolutions. For the more Fantastic side of SF mystery, try several collections of his Black Widower stories.
Another SF writer fond of the SF twist on the hard-boiled detective is Philip K Dick. You've seen Blade Runner? Then read the novel on which it's based, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? Also, Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said.
There's a lot of cyberpunk fiction that's very reminiscent of 30's detective fiction, such as William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy (Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive) but also read the collection Burning Chrome as well as Virtual Light and Idoru - heck, that's just about everything he's done!
Michael Marshall Smith's three books to date, Only Forward, Spares and One Of Us should be read by EVERYONE here anyway.
What else? Larry Niven's short story Meddler. . . James Lovegrove is a new writer whose brilliant book Days has a store detective as the protagonist. . . I'll think of some more. . .
The Caves of Steel trilogy is excellent and I've read them all; and the Robot books that take place after Lije's death even though there no where near as good.
I've read both "Neuromancer" and "Do Androids..." but none of Gibson's others or the other Dick book you mentioned.
And I hadn't heard of Smith's or Lonegrove's at all and I'll definitey check into them.
If you come up with anymore I'm primarily interested in those that are set strictly in a human future. I'm not really looking for anything with an alien detective, etc. Thanks for the tips!
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Proverbs for Paranoids, 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.
[This message has been edited by jh (edited July 26, 1999).]
It's the only one I can think of. (Well, that wasn't already mentioned. Of course, it was already mentioned, but I didn't know that at the time. Er...or something.)------------------
"We kid around a lot about people who are cyclopses, but seriously; if you're a mythic figure you've got challenges that no one should have to deal with."
--
John Flansburgh
Larry Niven has done one or two in the Known Space setting, some featuring the A.R.M. [I read a *lot* of his stuff many years ago, and now cn't recall all the titles. There was one where the killer {in a pacified future-Earth where murder is uncommon} had used an antique firearm, something from the 21st Century.] I believe there was something called "Borderlands of Sol," about missing ships, and a Louis Wu adventure involving a kidnapped Kdatlyno artist.
Also, there was a paperback collection of stories years ago called "Whatdunnit?"
I never found that one, but local library had "More Whatdunnits," which included a story about time travel, a crime-solving robot, a locked-room mystery, etc.
Damn! The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton was a collection of three stories featuring United Nations ARM cop Gil Hamilton who fights organlegging crime. . . there was also a separate novella printed, The Patchwork Girl. By Larry Niven, as Xentrick has said.
Oh, yes! More! Greg Bear, Queen of Angels and Slant. These follow a Public Defender named Mary Choy investigating crimes in a world where nanotechnology rules, Artificial Intelligence is just being established and just about everyone is Therapied to prevent such crimes.
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Right, cheers, thanks a lot-Patsy Stone "Ab-Fab"