The Doomsday Men

by Kenneth Bulmer

It is an age of omnipotent machines; of a vast, megalopolis with hover-cars tied into an electronic traffic control, pedways and monorails…

It is an age, too, of ultimate detectives. Robin Carver was one of the best on Ridforce. Connecting with the dying brains of murder victims, reliving their last moments, fingering the killers for the police was his job, and he did it well.

But the sudden wave of murders had shaken him to the core. A man could work with death for just so long - then something had to give…

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Mystery

First published July 16, 2012

About the author

Henry Kenneth Bulmer
aka:
Alan Burt Akers
Ken Blake
Ernest Corley
Arthur Frazier
Adam Hardy
Philip Kent
Bruno Krauss
Neil Langholm
Karl Maras
Manning Norvil
Charles R. Pike
Andrew Quiller
Richard Silver
Tully Zetford

Reviews

[F.R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

As long as a team can get to the victim within three minutes of a murder, trained investigators can enter the poor soul’s mind and parse through their final memories to identify who the killer is. But one such investigator is about to stumble on a lot more than a simple murder.

All science fiction is a product of its time, but this novel is so wedded to a 1960s aesthetic it feels like a swinging version of Chesterton’s ‘The Napoleon of Notting Hill’ – science fiction which doesn’t want to admit the future is going to happen and openly just wants to write about now. So, we have world weary men who look good in sharp suits (in a way which now feels straight out of ‘Mad Men’), we have rebellious youth who don’t respect The Man, we have a cold war, and we even have aeroplane stewardesses rated on their attractiveness. I actually thought at first that we had quite a reactionary novel here, but even though it reads like that for a lot of its length, Bulmer is cunningly undermining the conservative attitudes whilst espousing them. This is a much cleverer book than it originally appears.

True, the whole thing is somewhat overwritten and, if you think about it there’s a big plot hole at the centre (surely rates of murders solved would shoot up, even without this technology, if the police could get to the victims within three minutes of death – the killer is still very much going to be in the vicinity), while the plot doesn’t come together all that neatly. But despite those flaws, I enjoyed it – this is a tough, twisty and smart piece of noir science fiction.

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a teen when I read my first Kenneth Bulmer book, The Wizards of Senchuria. The novel was part of the Ace Double series and was actually the fourth book in a series I've yet to read but have promised myself to get around to now that they're in ebook format and I can get them reasonably priced.

The Doomsday Men had an interesting premise. The main character was a cop who used technology to download a murdered person's thoughts within four minutes of death, then explore them to find the killer(s). Then, somehow, the plot goes off the rails and focuses on a change/threat to the Shield, the barrier that has sealed the Americas off from the rest of the world.

I had to struggle with this one to stay with the plot. It was almost like Bulmer had two novellas already written and found a way to jam them together. More or less.

I've enjoyed Bulmer's work in the past (under several different pseudonyms he'd used) and always looked forward to getting one of his new Dray Prescot or George Ambercrombie Fox novels. The man simply wrote everything during his career, and he was one author I truly wish I'd met while he was still with us.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the tech did not hold up well over time, the basic story was enough to make this a fun read. The novel is set in 'the americas' around 2100, with the main protagonist Robin Carver being a detective of sorts; he and others are arranged in squads that if they can get to a recently murdered victim fast enough, they can read his/her final thoughts via some electronic gizmo. This is secret tech, but with it, they have been able to round up murders left and right.

The unnamed city where most of the action takes place is on the West Coast of the USA, but all of the americas are protected by a vast shield from any nuclear or other weapons. The americas have turned insular, and turned out the rest of the world. Perhaps being written at the heard of the cold war explains the constant worries about nuclear war. Anyway, something fishy is going on in the detective's headquarters, and Robin is determined to find out what. Some interesting plot twists and a surprise ending. The novel actually has some decent female characters, which for 1965 scifi, is a bit of a surprise as well.