The 13 Crimes of Science Fiction

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Summary: The proper mix of science fiction and crime
Review: Authors do not develop new stories, they write new twists on old ones. While a science fiction setting does provide additional possibilities for a mystery, it is also very limiting. To be effective, the science fictional aspects must be important, yet secondary. For example, it would be a very dull tale if a locked room mystery was solved by a principal character simply using a device to step into the fourth dimension at a critical moment.
These thirteen stories of crimes are well crafted. Each follows one of the basic themes of crime stories: hard-boiled detective, psychic detective, spy, analytical detective, whodunit, why-done-it, how-done-it, inverted, locked room, cipher, police procedural, trial and punishment. The science fiction aspects are necessary, yet do not overshadow what is a tale of suspense. My favorite stories are "Mouthpiece" by Edward Wellen and "Time In Advance" by William Tenn. In "Mouthpiece", the personality of a gangster is loaded into a powerful computer and the programmer who did it becomes an unwitting pawn of the gangster who wants to avenge his assassination. "Time In Advance" is aptly named, as in this story, the human race has expanded out to other planets and colonists are badly needed. A solution is to have people voluntarily serve a sentence for murder before the fact and then in the unlikely event they survive, they have the right to commit one murder.
These are thirteen of the best combinations of crime and science fiction stories that have ever been written. The editors made their selections well and I enjoyed each one immensely, even though I generally do not read crime stories.

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Summary: Another great book out of print
Review: I have got to stop giving my old books away. I probably have a small fortune in out of print volumes. Every time I look up a book for a gift I reach the same section, "sorry." "13 Crimes" is one of those entertaining books that probably started as a coffee shop conversation. "Hey Joe, you notice there aren't any SciFi detective stories." "Can't be done Fred. Too easy. The Gumshoes could just come up with some gizmo to see fingerprints, or track shoe size. It can't be fair. For along time this was the case. Then someone got the idea of making rules. What if you had a world of the future, but no surprises? Any technology you want, but the reader has to be let in on it. A hundred years ago crime stories were just laid out. Today it's different. You have to give the reader a chance to figure it out along with the detective. "13 Crimes" does this masterfully. It takes the 13 types of mystery stories, the loc! ked room mystery, the hard boiled PI mystery, etc., and puts it in a SciFi setting. The result is a collection of authors and stories that will satisfy both the SciFi AND mystery fan. Or a least it would if you can find it.