It’s been a while since I read any of the often boundary-straddling works of DWaM, and with a couple of self-published books by other authors proving hard going, common sense finally prevailed and I turned to An Odyssey to the Castle of Vampires (2023) — an epic which has been patiently waiting its turn for nearly three years now.
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A fourth story from the 13 Crimes of Science Fiction [ss] (1977) collection, as I further explore my interest in the crossover mystery. Might this be the point where this collection springs to life?
Continue readingMy first two excursions into the 13 Crimes of Science Fiction [ss] (1977) anthology haven’t exactly been roaring successes. Might some actual detective work find things more to my liking?
Continue readingA second delve into The 13 Crimes of Science Fiction [ss] (1979), as I explore the possibilities of another crossover mystery.
Continue readingI am a fan of a good crossover mystery, in which the tenets of crime and detection are placed into a science fiction/Fantasy milieu. So when I heard of a collection called The 13 Crimes of Science Fiction [ss] (1979), you’re darn tootin’ it was only a matter of time before I got to it.
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When The Invisible Event hit 1,000 posts — ahh, back in the day — I put up a list of 100 recommended impossible crime novels and short story collections for those of you wishing to be a little more discerning when reading the best subgenre in the world. TomCat was disgruntled with my inclusion of Too Many Magicians (1967) by Randall Garrett, but I stood by it as an interesting take on both the crossover mystery and the impossible crime, with a neat little, expectation-subverting idea at is core, and I vowed to reread it in due course to reinforce these impressions. Well, I’ve reread it now, and while I stand by the locked room murder as clever and fun, the book itself is frankly so tedious that I wonder how I ever saw anything in it in the first place.
Given that it revolves around loosely-codified magic, a world of ‘normal’ folk living below a world of ‘giants’ in the sky, and a pigeon who is an art critic, The Beanstalk Murder (2025) by P.G. Bell is a far better book than it has any right to be.
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For as long as he can remember, 16 year-old Hisataro Oba has found himself randomly, several times a month, caught in a time loop he dubs The Trap: waking up on the same day nine times in a row, with only the events of the final day of the loop becoming the canon version of the day for everyone else in existence. Having realised this, and in part as a coping mechanism, he has been able to exploit The Trap — cheat on a test, win a bet, etc. — but now things are different. Because now a murder has been committed and he would like, if possible, to avert it in the ninth and final version so that it does not become the reality for everyone else.
I stumbled over the Baker Street Irregulars: The Game is Afoot [ss] (2018) collection, in which thirteen authors offer wildly varying alternative versions of Sherlock Holmes, when searching for more criminous tales by Jonathan Maberry, one of the highlights of the C. Auguste Dupin-extending collection Beyond Rue Morgue [ss] (2013).
Continue readingRandall Garrett’s Lord Darcy stories, where murder and magic mingle in an alternate-history Europe, being a closed set, I had never really thought to consider the gaps between them before now.
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The Invisible Event 