Quantum Moon

Ty Merrick #1

by Denise Vitola

In the wake of a powerful district councilman's wife's murder, detective Ty Merrick realizes that the truth will threaten the structure of the district's government and fights an unusual disorder that emerges during the full moon. Original.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Mystery, Urban Fantasy

288 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 1, 1996

About the author

Denise has written 12 novels and has been an editor and creative writing teacher for 37 years. Denise was the Editor-in-Chief of the Emporium Gazette, an ezine devoted to the art and craft of writ ing. She served as the Executive Editor for Cool Well Press, Inc. Her short stories have appeared in such magazines as AMAZING STORIES, the best selling anthology, FORGOTTEN REALMS--The Realms of Infamy, SHADOW STREET, and TIMELESS. Her novel, OPALITE MOON, the second in her popular Ty Merrick Mystery Series, was nominated for the prestigious Philip K. Dick Award for Excellent in Science Fiction. This series has been optioned by the Tom Jacobson Company to be made into a television show. Denise's latest nonfiction book, THOMAS TALKS TO ME, HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN MUSE, was written for all those authors who work alone.


"Vitola is able to knit all the various elements (mystery, science fiction and the fantastic) together into a coherent whole, for a unique and satisfying read." -- SF Site

"Vitola's knack for punchy dialog and intriguing characters make her SF-noir mystery crossovers good choices for most SF or mystery collections." -- Library Journal

"The perfect blending of mystery and science fiction." -- The Midwest Book Review

Reviews

[Akiva ꙮ]

Page 146 - I have never had a book go from "not bad" to JESUS CHRIST WHAT THE FUCK in the space of one sentence like this, I think I have whiplash

Review to come I guess, like basically it wasn't bad and did what it said on the tin and had a few interesting ideas, but the sudden het romance was both completely bananas and completely unnecessary to the plot.

The only physical characteristics that are described are 1. Ty's view of her own body changes (important to the plot), 2. Gibson has abs (why???????), 3. Fat people being gross and fat and gross, 4. Dirty people having a fairly unbelievable amount of grease coming out of their hair with every movement

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat standard police drama where the current state of politics is as much a character as the detectives trying to solve the murder.
Sometime in the very near future, the world economy has pretty much collapsed, and some type of rebellion has created a world government. There is not much background on this, just things dropped throughout the story. Government officials are fairly corrupt, there are shortages of basic services, and the black market is overrun with voodoo/magic scams. Kind of a Bladerunner world without the advanced tech.
The main character, Detective Ty Merrick, clams to have lycanthropy, but she is not actually a werewolf. Her disease increases with the onset of the full moon, and there are slight physical and psychological changes, but most people just think she is crazy. She becomes a reluctant research project for an ambitious doctor.
Ty and her partner are called on to solve the murder of a councilman's wife, which leads into political issues that put the detectives in danger from the murderer, and possibly the government.
For the most part it is a good book, just a little underwhelming. Nothing is really fleshed out about the world, and a lot of the storylines are just kind of simple, but this is the first book in the series. Hopefully the world building will continue, because as just a quirky crime novel, this story is lacking. I will give the next book a try though.

[Kimberly [Come Hither Books] · Rating 4 out of 5]

Out of print, not in ebook, and worth finding. I finished this book a few months ago but have been negligent in my reviews lately. I AM going to track down the rest of the series, though it's old.

Great mix of lots of genres I love. It's urban fantasy from before the subgenre exploded, so it doesn't feel as cliched and formulaic as more recent urban fantasy can sometimes feel. The world is fascinating, with natural resources stretched so thin that major plotlines hang on the struggle for energy credits and forced recycling monitoring. A werewolf detective solving a crime in a very noir future. And that future is fascinating and revealing enough to trip all my science fiction needs.

Think Blade Runner plus a very scifi interpretation of werewolves. Awesome.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A future dystopia where superstition lives and lycanthropy might just be a medical condition. Vitola has created an interesting world. And a criminal justice system that doesn't work quite like now.
Looking forward to the next one.

[Patrick]

Quantum Moon's most critical flaw is that it suffers from an identity crisis. It doesn't know if it wants to be urban fantasy, dystopian sci-fi, or speculative detective fiction a la Simon Green's Nightside series or Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. As a result, the reader is left wandering through a rather conventional detective story with splashes of all these genres and no clear idea of what they're reading.

Nonetheless, Vitola is a master of the kind of accessible prose needed for commercial fiction, and it's easy to see why she's been tapped to write all kinds of tie-in fiction. [Finished on page 100.]

[Bryan457 · Rating 2 out of 5]

The fascinating background of a future world where your garbage is weighed, you get credit for recycling, your energy usage is measured and controlled, and where everything is reused,recycled, scarce and rationed kept me turning the pages.

The protagonist, detective Ty Merrick, is looking for clues to the identity of a killer, and at the same time is trying to figure out if her "lycanthrope" is magic or neurosis, real or imagined, metaphysical or biological.