Customer Reviews

Alien Crimes

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This latest entry in the Science Fiction Book Club's original-anthology series is a followon to Resnick's Down these Dark Spaceways (2005), a volume of hard-boiled SF detective stories. Resnick's mandate this time was similar, but avoid the hard-boiled stuff.

Pat Cadigan's "The Dread" opens the book. It's a classic police-procedural that turns into something of a locked-room mystery, with a surprising and effective twist ending. Cadigan draws a convincing portrait of a policewoman on the verge of a breakdown. I liked it, and I bet you will too.

The highlight of Alien Crimes is Gregory Benford's "Dark Heaven", an elegant tribute to the Travis McGee mysteries, set in Benford's native Alabama. This atmospheric Gulf Coast pastoral features the obligatory world-weary detective in a near-future police-procedural that takes a very odd turn. Alien amphibians from Centaurus have established a coastal enclave near Mobile. Detective Mckenna is investigating an odd series of drowning homicides.... A strong story, one of Benford's best ever. It may turn out to be part of a novel. I hope so.

Walter Jon Williams "Womb of Every World" is a long novella (140+ pages), an extract from his upcoming novel Implied Spaces (to be published in mid-2008). This one starts with sword-play on a desert caravan in a medieval fantasy-world, then veers into Aristoian high-tech wizardry. Some Very Cool stuff happens.... As editor Resnick notes, "whatever you think it is, it's almost certainly not." There's no real resolution here, a hazard of novel-extracts, but the novel looks to be well-worth waiting for. Williams' many fans will appreciate the preview -- and be impatient to read the book.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch ventures into (darker than) Zenna Henderson territory in her effective and atmospheric two-track story "The End of the World". In the present, small-town detective Becca Keller is presented with an old mass-grave at her former boyfriend's big resort-restoration project in the Oregon desert. The second, past track relates the unhappy fate of the shipwrecked alien visitors, when the town and resort were new. Rusch is an underrated writer, working at the peak of her powers here. Recommended.

Harry Turtledove's "Hoxbomb" is another good police-procedural, this one set on Lacanth, a colony-world shared with the Snarre't, a furry race of biotech geniuses. Humans and Snarre't get along, after a fashion, and trade alien biotech goodies for human computers and vehicles. Lacanth's peace is broken by the birth of a severely-deformed human infant, clearly the victim of a Snarre't hoxbomb, a genetic scrambler-weapon. The case is solved by two detectives, one from each race's police force. The srory is nicely-done, but the ending falls a bit flat, I thought.

Mike Resnick's " A Locked Planet Mystery" is the weakest story in the book, and a poster-child for the dangers of an editor buying his own work. Plus it's basically a hardboiled PI tale, contrary to the book's premise. Readable but slight.

Overall, a fine original anthology, with only one weak story. Recommended.

Happy reading--
Peter D. Tillman
Review first published at SF Site

ALIEN CRIMES(2007) is a collection of Novella-length SciFi Mysteries, sponsored by the Science Fiction Book Club, and edited by Mike Resnick. Following are brief reviews of each of the 6 stories:

NOTHING PERSONAL ** (52 pages) by Pat Cadigan: A veteran lady cop who is nearing retirement, comes across her strangest case yet. This was my least favorite of the stories in the book, as there were too many loose ends when the story closed.

A LOCKED-PLANET MYSTERY *** (60 pages) by Mike Resnick: Semi-interesting story of a human detective paired with and alien detective, and set in the far-future, with mankind spread among the stars, and interspersed with alien cultures.

HOXBOMB **** (58 pages) by Harry Turtledove: A more-interesting story, also with a human/alien detective pair, set in the far-future. But, the aliens are more interesting, and the story more intriguing.

THE END OF THE WORLD ***** (98 pages) by Kristine Kathryn Rusch: Best of the bunch. Intertwining storylines set in the 100-year-old past and present. A woman detective in a small Western town, has to battle small town politics, in a "situation" involving her ex-husband.

DARK HEAVEN (74 pages) by Gregory Benford: TBD

WOMB OF THE EVERY WORLD (142 pages) by Walter Jon Williams: TBD

The book cover was painted by Donato; and, as usual, is extremely detailed and interesting.

A collection of short stories.
Okay - but not very strong on originality or depth.
I finished it but then reached for "Ring World's Children" to read.
Dana Van Valin 7/2011

The Resnick novella, "A Locked-Planet Mystery" was written at roughly the "See Spot Run" level of diction. If you are over the age of seven, you will find it painful to read. The plot and characterization were imbecilic as well.

The Turtledove novella, "Hoxbomb," was one of the very worst science fiction stories I can remember reading (and I have read many thousands of them). The plot resolution was utterly pointless. Shaggy dog stories have their place, but not if they last for 60 pages and are interspersed with aleatory disturbing imagery.

The Cadigan story quickly degenerated into supposedly troubled female cops overusing profanity at each other in some misdirected attempt to sound gritty. I was not able to wade through the profanity and cliches to get to the end of that one.

This anthology epitomizes the disrespect both for the well-crafted sentence and for logic generally that is the hallmark of contemporary literature and its readers. That great authors like Asimov, Chiang, Egan, Kuttner & Moore must share a genre with the junk in this book must be degrading to them.