Mike Ashley, surely the world’s hardest-working editor of short story collections, has combined two of my loves with Future Crimes (2021): detective fiction and SF. As a fan of crossover mysteries, this seems tailor-made for me, and I have Countdown John to thank for bringing it to my attention. So, how does it stack up?
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#885: Death Among the Undead (2017) by Masahiro Imamura [trans. Ho-Ling Wong 2021]

Fourteen years and two disappointing sequels after the fact, it might be difficult to believe just how wild people went for the Matt Reeves-directed monster movie Cloverfield (2008) when it was first released. And I was reminded of that film when reading Death Among the Undead (2017, tr. 2021) by Masahiro Imamura for two reasons: firstly because of the time taken in both to ground the upcoming fantastical elements in enjoyably relatable worlds, and secondly because I cannot help but feel, now as then, that the praise heaped on both might be slightly overdone.
#849: (Spooky) Little Fictions – ‘The Grinning God’ (1907) by May and Jacques Futrelle
It’s Hallowe’en — or, er, it will be in a few weeks — and so I’m jumping on the branding train and looking at some short stories that feature ghosts, ghouls, witches, and other season-appropriate horrors which end up having rational resolutions.
Continue reading#759: “They think they’ve got a locked room murder…” – The Patchwork Girl (1980) by Larry Niven
Before the classic detection bug bit me hard, I would have considered myself of a fan of latter-era Golden Age SF above anything else — put me in the triangle formed by Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Philip K Dick and I’m very happy indeed. And sometimes these dual fascinations collide, as in Asimov’s The Caves of Steel (1953) or, under the microscope today, The Patchwork Girl (1980) by Larry Niven.
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