Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Top 10 science fiction detective novels of all time

At io9, Charlie Jane Anders came up with a list of the ten greatest science fiction detective novels of all time.

One series on the list:
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Another cyberpunk-esque noir future, in which people can be "shelved" and then later "resleeved" into new bodies. For the super-rich, known as Meths (or Methuselahs), it's possible to remain young and healthy for hundreds of years, just regrowing a new body whenever you want one. So when someone apparently murders wealthy asshole Laurens Bancroft, he just gets resleeved in a new body soon afterwards. But he still wants to know who killed him, so he hires/enslaves former soldier and current convict Takeshi Kovacs, giving Kovacs a new body, which happens to have a nicotine addicition and a few other annoying quirks. Possibly the greatest classic of the "future noir" genre. James McTeigue (Ninja Assassin, V For Vendetta) wants to make the movie version.
Read about another series on the list.

See Richard K. Morgan's list of essential reading for modern humans.

--Marshal Zeringue