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The Mammoth Book of Future Cops
This startling variety of science fiction suggests that as long as there are people there will also be police and criminals. Veteran editor Maxim Jakubowski and collaborator M. Christian have gathered over thirty visions of crime to come. The Mammoth Book of Future Cops features classic and specially commissioned works from such authors as the multi-award-winning Joe Haldeman, hard science scribe Stephen Baxter, crime writer-crossover Richard Paul Russo, dark fantasist China Mieville, steampunk Paul DiFilippo, and many more. Their imaginings range from the highest-tech law enforcement to virtual criminality in cyberspace. In Paul McAuley's chilling "Prison Dreams" convicts are given implants that monitor their brains—and are punished for illegal thoughts and dreams. "A Scanner Darkly" (soon to be a major motion picture) by Blade Runner–author Philip K. Dick turns the tables on an undercover cop whose computer-enhanced anonymity results in an assignment to investigate himself. In William Nolan's "Violation," the author of Logan's Run explores the laws of a world where machines judge and pass down sentences to human beings. And in Nebula and Hugo winner Mike Resnick's "Me and My Shadow," an amnesiac tries to discover why he was sentenced to the "erasure" of his whole identity.
544 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
About the author
Maxim Jakubowski
284 books163 followersMaxim Jakubowski is a crime, erotic, and science fiction writer and critic.
Jakubowski was born in England by Russian-British and Polish parents, but raised in France. Jakubowski has also lived in Italy and has travelled extensively. Jakubowski edited the science fiction anthology Twenty Houses of the Zodiac in 1979 for the 37th World Science Fiction Convention (Seacon '79) in Brighton. He also contributed a short story to that anthology. He has now published almost 100 books in a variety of areas.
He has worked in book publishing for many years, which he left to open the Murder One bookshop[1], the UK's first specialist crime and mystery bookstore. He contributes to a variety of newspapers and magazines, and was for eight years the crime columnist for Time Out and, presently, since 2000, the crime reviewer for The Guardian. He is also the literary director of London's Crime Scene Festival and a consultant for the International Mystery Film Festival, Noir in Fest, held annually in Courmayeur, Italy. He is one the leading editors in the crime and mystery and erotica field, in which he has published many major anthologies.
His novels include "It's You That I Want To Kiss", "Because She Thought She Loved Me", "The State Of Montana", "On Tenderness Express", "Kiss me Sadly" and "Confessions of a Romantic Pornographer". His short story collections are "Life in the World of Women", "Fools for Lust" and the collaborative "American Casanova". He is a regular broadcaster on British TV and radio and was recently voted the 4th Sexiest Writer of 2,007 on a poll on the crimespace website.
Jakubowski was born in England by Russian-British and Polish parents, but raised in France. Jakubowski has also lived in Italy and has travelled extensively. Jakubowski edited the science fiction anthology Twenty Houses of the Zodiac in 1979 for the 37th World Science Fiction Convention (Seacon '79) in Brighton. He also contributed a short story to that anthology. He has now published almost 100 books in a variety of areas.
He has worked in book publishing for many years, which he left to open the Murder One bookshop[1], the UK's first specialist crime and mystery bookstore. He contributes to a variety of newspapers and magazines, and was for eight years the crime columnist for Time Out and, presently, since 2000, the crime reviewer for The Guardian. He is also the literary director of London's Crime Scene Festival and a consultant for the International Mystery Film Festival, Noir in Fest, held annually in Courmayeur, Italy. He is one the leading editors in the crime and mystery and erotica field, in which he has published many major anthologies.
His novels include "It's You That I Want To Kiss", "Because She Thought She Loved Me", "The State Of Montana", "On Tenderness Express", "Kiss me Sadly" and "Confessions of a Romantic Pornographer". His short story collections are "Life in the World of Women", "Fools for Lust" and the collaborative "American Casanova". He is a regular broadcaster on British TV and radio and was recently voted the 4th Sexiest Writer of 2,007 on a poll on the crimespace website.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 16, 2012
It didn't really do what it said on the tin. I hate that, it's part of the reason I generally avoid these kinds of books. But what can I say? I'm a sucker for hardboiled crime, I enjoy cyberpunk and classic sci-fi, a merging of the genres seemed like a good way to find some interesting new authors and to get involved in some fun sci-crime stories. Overall I was a bit bored however.
The name Future Cops is misleading, most of the stories don't feature law enforcement of any kind; that's no gumshoes, no PI's, no cops, no pigs, no rozzers, no dicks, no old ladies knitting or baking, no recluse solving crime from their beds, you get the idea. The blurb uses the term 'future noir' and makes comparisons to the fantastic movies Blade Runner and Akira, and being a fan of the pulp crime genre of writing, an afficionado of film noir, I had expectations based on that which unfortunately were not met. There's a whole heap of inevitability and existentialism on behalf of the protagonists but aside from that the stories on the whole were lacking in excitement, interest, entertainment value, grittiness, dirtiness, great dialogue.
One thing that ties most of them together is the fascination with legalised narcotics and alternative sexual lifestyles, staples of cyberpunk I suppose, but mostly used in such a lazy fashion that it gave no added meaning or depth to the stories and caused sporadic eye-rolling to occur - not good whilst trying to read by the way.
Now to highlight a few standout experiences from the collection:
My first experience of Stephen Baxter was a real eye opener, I may have to get involved in his back catalogue of hard science fiction afterall (despite previous assertions that it was probably too hard for my brain.) Top quality writing and ideas are to be expected from him I believe.
The same can be said for China Miéville, I gave up on Perdido Street Station quite early on and haven't gone back despite the lavish praise heaped upon him. I may try a different novel of his in the future after this story.
The transplanting of Hercule Poirot to a spaceship using his little grey cells to figure out a murder involving man-eating aliens amongst other things was a triumph of an ingenious homage from Ian Watson which I will be sharing with my fellow Agatha Christie fans.
Blood Sisters from Joe Haldeman was a very interesting piece, not least because of the original publication being a 1979 issue of Playboy, which created a world I would have been interested to know more about.
Finally a mention for Jon Courtenay Grimwood, an author who I had previously considered reading thanks to his Arabesk Trilogy but dismissed as not worth my time thanks to the 500 books I currently have on my shelves waiting to be read, I enjoyed his Axl Against The Immortals story and will be hunting out that Arabesk Trilogy in the coming weeks.
The name Future Cops is misleading, most of the stories don't feature law enforcement of any kind; that's no gumshoes, no PI's, no cops, no pigs, no rozzers, no dicks, no old ladies knitting or baking, no recluse solving crime from their beds, you get the idea. The blurb uses the term 'future noir' and makes comparisons to the fantastic movies Blade Runner and Akira, and being a fan of the pulp crime genre of writing, an afficionado of film noir, I had expectations based on that which unfortunately were not met. There's a whole heap of inevitability and existentialism on behalf of the protagonists but aside from that the stories on the whole were lacking in excitement, interest, entertainment value, grittiness, dirtiness, great dialogue.
One thing that ties most of them together is the fascination with legalised narcotics and alternative sexual lifestyles, staples of cyberpunk I suppose, but mostly used in such a lazy fashion that it gave no added meaning or depth to the stories and caused sporadic eye-rolling to occur - not good whilst trying to read by the way.
Now to highlight a few standout experiences from the collection:
My first experience of Stephen Baxter was a real eye opener, I may have to get involved in his back catalogue of hard science fiction afterall (despite previous assertions that it was probably too hard for my brain.) Top quality writing and ideas are to be expected from him I believe.
The same can be said for China Miéville, I gave up on Perdido Street Station quite early on and haven't gone back despite the lavish praise heaped upon him. I may try a different novel of his in the future after this story.
The transplanting of Hercule Poirot to a spaceship using his little grey cells to figure out a murder involving man-eating aliens amongst other things was a triumph of an ingenious homage from Ian Watson which I will be sharing with my fellow Agatha Christie fans.
Blood Sisters from Joe Haldeman was a very interesting piece, not least because of the original publication being a 1979 issue of Playboy, which created a world I would have been interested to know more about.
Finally a mention for Jon Courtenay Grimwood, an author who I had previously considered reading thanks to his Arabesk Trilogy but dismissed as not worth my time thanks to the 500 books I currently have on my shelves waiting to be read, I enjoyed his Axl Against The Immortals story and will be hunting out that Arabesk Trilogy in the coming weeks.
Displaying 1 of 1 review