a theme in fiction im very sick of..

AlexM

AlexM

Scout
aren't you tired of the whole hard-boiled paranormal private eye thing. I mean first was Hellblazer's John Constantine, then F. Paul Wilson came through with Repairman jack, then Steve Niles with Cal macDonald and now charlie Huston with the Joe Pitt casebooks
dont get me wrong, i really, really liked The cal macDonald Books, and The Joe Pitt books by Huston(Already Dead, No Dominion, and Half the Blood of Brooklyn) really impressed me. its just the whole concept is as played out as nanotechnology. Do you agree?

incidentally Charlie Huston is/was doing a run on the new Moon Knight series for marvel thats supposed to kick ***, and Already dead is being optioned.
 
scifi + detective is a very small genre really. It's only in modern times it has been used much. So I don't think we can get bored of it just yet. Bring in paranormal material though and there's a lot for a very specific audience. They maybe don't want to be scifi labelled.
 
yeah, i think the whole sf detective genre begins and ends with 'the long ARM of gil hamilton'.
I meant the horror PI genre specifically though.
 
yah, like the dresden files..have you ever read the cal macdonald mysteries by steve niles? start with Guns, Drugs and Monsters. im not saying it cant be a good story, im just saying theres a lot of hard-boiled paranormal PI series out thre now. i didnt even think of dresden files since ive never read 'em. im mainly intio the work in this genre by steve niles and charlie huston.
incidentally, i just read a few pages of 'crooked little vein' by warren ellis. its his first non-comics work, and its pretty good.
 
ha. that was a power move, staying away from them, i mean.
i don't really mean to say im sick of the whole hammet-esque paranormal PI thing. any idea can be good if well executed. its just most of these books are very derivative. the works of mystery writer andrew vachss seem to be a strong inspiration for charlie huston in particular. but i like most of these books, its just the concept is easily exhausted
 
My favourite Scifi detective was Second Contact by Mike Resnick.

I suppose you are right in that it is now an overdone trope, but like other fashions, it will recycle.

Geoff
 
ive never read anything by mike resnick. i do see his name often, as an editor of short story collection. he wrote some books about writing sf too, no?
 
Mike Resnick is the exec editor of Baen's Universe. He's a prolific writer; shorts and novels. You are right he's written a couple of how to write sf books. I've not read them - maybe I should! I have how to books by Orson Scott Card and others by Lisa Tuttle and Bryan Stableford. I can't say I've read much by Mike R but of them, Second Contact was the best even though he didn't get a Hugo for it.

Geoff
 
What about Asimov waaaay back in olden days - one of his principle characters was a detective. Can't remember the name but he was the principle protagonist in The Caves of Steel. Maybe not hard boiled but detective nonetheless. People love mystery type stories so there's plenty of scope for more hard boiled detectives to pop up and save the universe yet :D
 
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