FutureCrime: An Anthology of the Shape of Crime to Come

by Charles Ardai (Editor), Cynthia Mason (Editor), Robert Bloch

Contents:

• Show Biz • (1959) by Robert Bloch
• The Incorporated • (1985) by John Shirley
• Dogwalker • (1989) by Orson Scott Card
• Mech by C.J. Cherryh
• The Tercentenary Incident • (1976) by Isaac Asimov
• One-Shot • (1991) by Lawrence Watt-Evans
• A Kind of Murder • (1974) by Larry Niven
• VRM-547 • (1990) by W.R. Thompson
• The Not-So-Big Sleep • (1990) by Terry Black
• I Always Do What Teddy Says • (1965) by Harry Harrison
• Lay Your Head on My Pilose by Alan Dean Foster
• The Barbie Murders • (1978) by John Varley
• The Energies of Love • (1989) by Kathe Koja
• Ryerson's Fate • (1989) by Doug Larsen
• The World as We Know It • by George Alec Effinger

Genres: Mystery, Science Fiction, Anthologies, Fiction

275 pages, Hardcover

First published January 28, 1992

About the author

Charles Ardai is a founder of Hard Case Crime, a pulp crime novel publisher, as well as an editor and author. In 1991 he received the Pearlman Prize for his fiction. He also writes under the pen name Richard Aleas.

Reviews

[Ben Isely · Rating 4 out of 5]

Varied collection in both topic and style. Just 3 new/original stories and a great early story from local legend Kathe Koja. Very strong collection

[Bev · Rating 3 out of 5]

Future Crime: An Anthology of the Shape of Crime to Come (Cynthia Manson & Charles Ardai, eds) is a collection of 15 short stories by Isaac Asimov, Robert Bloch, Harry Harrison, Larry Niven, C. J. Cherryh, Orson Scott Card and others. We have visions of DNA detectives who, once they have a sample from the culprit, can target the villain with a DNA-specific virus that will turn him green or make her smell so bad that even the most inept officer couldn't miss tracking them down. We have murder in a supposedly utopian society where everyone should be treated exactly the same because...well...because everybody looks exactly the same. And if nobody's different, then everyone should be equal, right? It does make it a little hard to track down the killer when everyone saw "her" but "she" looks exactly like all the others. And then there's the child raised to be a killer through the training he received from his teddy bear...because "I Always Do What Teddy Says." And what about a world where alibis are meaningless because everyone has teleportation and could be anywhere and back within the blink of an eye? Or..is it really murder if the act was committed by a servo-robot--or just an unfortunate accident?

There are some interesting ideas in these pages. Unfortunately, some of them are better executed (no pun intended) than others...making for an adequate, but not brilliant collection of stories. Enjoyable, but not unputdownable. Somewhat thought-provoking without making you think too much. It is fun to see what sort of "future" crime some of the science fiction greats came up with from 1975-91. Some of those ideas don't seem quite so futuristic anymore.... Three stars for a decent outing.