The 13 Crimes of Science Fiction

Interesting combination stories for fans of both mystery and SF. The stories are from the 1950s-70s and are dated in unexpected ways. The concept of a CSI camera that can take pictures into the recent past is still futuristic, but the suspension of disbelief fails when one of the restrictions on it's use is how long it takes to develop the film! A team of robots working with a lawyer to define themselves as independent beings stumbles when the robots are described as writing out, on paper, information they've looked up in law books.

As a teenager I found this anthology fascinating - admittedly, possibly more for the concept than for the stories actually included. Certainly, coming back to it 25 years later, I don't have a lot of memories of these tales, and I think time has worked to distance me (and probably anyone else) from many of them. Several of the stories are written in the rather stark, procedural voice of science fiction that dominated the immediate post-war era, and quite a few of them are laced with misogyny in a way I'm sure I overlooked as a kid but find far more tiring today.

However, having said that, it's not a bad collection if you're in the mood for something definitively of that 1950s-70s era. I do think it's easy to misinterpret the book's show more premise (or at least, I did); it's not thirteen styles of mystery in science fiction, it's literally thirteen styles of crime story, and there's a difference. There are genres here like "spy story," "trial," and so on, which I wasn't expecting alongside the more anticipated "locked room," "whodunit," and "why-done-it," and occasionally a story seems somewhat arbitrarily chosen. But overall, it's not a bad set.

The best stories in the volume - by about a country mile - are Philip K. Dick's "War Game" and Clifford D. Simak's "How-2." These both demonstrate a somewhat sly sense of humor that gives them a bit more reach, and even if they feel almost self-consciously retro, they both land with a pretty good punch in the gut. show less

Reading through older anthologies of 'classic' science-fiction has not produced the level of awe I expected going into them - this one was no different. Despite featuring stories by Asimov, PK Dick, Niven, and Simak, I just didn't find a consistent enjoyment of the offerings. The best story, from Tom Reamy, features a locked-box mystery solved in discovering a rather unusual witness/suspect who is more than meets the eye. Dick's story, War Game, was good, typical PKD. But the others just didn't fascinate.

3 bones!!!

A good collection of science fiction mysteries, along with an explanation of that relatively obscure sub-genre from Isaac Asimov. I've read a fair number of SF mysteries, and had read most of the ones in the book; most of them are excellent examples of the form. The leading story, "The Detweiler Boy" by Tom Reamy, was not particularly good; putting a relatively weak story first in an anthology is an unfortunate flaw.

But there are a number of gems here, including Larry Niven's "Arm". "War Games" by Philip K. Dick, was simply not readable for me; I can take some PKD, but only in mild doses - and not a lot of it. I don't know if it was the mood I was in, or if the story was particularly Dick-ish (sorry, couldn't resist), but after a page show more or two I simply skipped that story altogether.

That said, the vast majority of the book is excellent and well worth reading. show less

Read for the second time, a couple each night. Fun to finish off the day.
The various authors use science, and certain extrapolations thereof, but almoat always fairly. The reader doesn't have to be an expert to work out the puzzle, but does need to be alert and logical.
Some of the stories are better than others, but overall the quality is high.

Contains non-zero amount of fantasy. Tries to shoehorn some stories into a genre in need of a representative. I'd read a handful of these before, too.

I dunno. Skipped the majority of these - but it just might be my personal taste.