Down these Dark Spaceways

Detective Jake Masters #1 (Guardian Angel)

by Mike Resnick (editor / contributor), Catherine Asaro (contributor), Robert J. Sawyer (Contributor)

They used to say that no one could blend mystery and science fiction, but that theory was dashed decades ago with the publication of Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man and Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel . Since then, the two fields have crossbred, producing sf mysteries in every style, from locked-room to noir. We at the SFBC especially love the Chandler-esque tales, whose hard-bitten sleuths stalk crime down the dark alleys of space. So we jumped at Mike Resnick's suggestion that we do a book called Down these Dark Spaceways, featuring six original novellas exclusive to the Club. These stories have never been published anywhere else, and each one is written by a top-notch writer who shares our passion for a good sf mystery.

Genres: Science Fiction, Anthologies, Mystery, Short Stories, Fiction, Collections, Science Fiction Fantasy

424 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2005

About the author

Michael "Mike" Diamond Resnick, better known by his published name Mike Resnick, was a popular and prolific American science fiction author. He is, according to Locus, the all-time leading award winner, living or dead, for short science fiction. He was the winner of five Hugos, a Nebula, and other major awards in the United States, France, Spain, Japan, Croatia and Poland. and has been short-listed for major awards in England, Italy and Australia. He was the author of 68 novels, over 250 stories, and 2 screenplays, and was the editor of 41 anthologies. His work has been translated into 25 languages. He was the Guest of Honor at the 2012 Worldcon and can be found online as @ResnickMike on Twitter or at www.mikeresnick.com.

Reviews

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Down these Dark Spaceways' is great fun. The six novellas by the popular science fiction writers included in this book all are flavored by classic noir-mystery styling. Two stories are outstanding.

Guardian Angel by Mike Resnick

*In the Quake Zone by David Gerrold

*The City of Cries by Catherine Asaro

Camouflage by Robert Reed

The Big Downtown by Jack McDevitt

Identity Theft by Robert A. Sawyer

Each novella features a high-tech, yet still streetwise, detective who is hired to find a murderer. The detectives each live in peculiar, and wonderfully inventive, future universes. Some gumshoes pursue their murderer on Earth, others find their weird killer on other planets or on a spaceship in a galaxy far away.

I do not want to spoil your enjoyment in discovering the wondrous technology or how things work in these futures. I was extremely pleased with entertaining twists in every story. I'm keeping this anthology on my bookshelf.

[Rhiannon Boyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

• Guardian Angel (Detective Jake Masters series) ~ Mike Resnick ⭐⭐⭐/5

• In the Quake Zone ~ David Gerrold ⭐⭐⭐⭐½/5

• The City of Cries (Major Bhaajan series) ~ Catherine Asaro ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

• Camouflage (The Great Ship Series) by Robert Reed ⭐⭐⭐ ½/5

• The Big Downtown (The Academy Series) ~ Jack McDevitt ⭐⭐⭐ ½/5

• Identity Theft ~ Robert J. Sawyer ⭐⭐⭐/5

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book, which contained some really nice variations of space noir and scifi mysteries. Unfortunately the book was rather ruined by an overlong piece of talkative borefest in the middle, resulting in one star getting dropped.
Let me go story-by-story.
Following a candid 'Introduction' from the editor, we have~
1. Mike Resnick's "Guardian Angel": A Detective Masters story that would have made Chandler very happy, with edgy dialogues, social commentary, pathos, and a sense of poetic justice.
2. David Gerrold's "In the Quake Zone": Above-mentioned talkative overlong borefest that had almost turned me off with respect to this boom. Luckily, I persevered.
3. Catherine Asaro's "The City of Cries": A beautiful story of action, intrigue, violence, romance and desire. It was more fantasy than scifi, but loved it absolutely.
4. Robert Reed's "Camouflage": A really solid story that was simultaneously a mystery and an exploration of several ideas, all happening in a gigantic spaceship.
5. Jack Mcdevitt's "The Big Downtown": Terrific story of crime, noir, mystery, with a hard scifi twist. These are the reasons why I keep falling in love with scifi.
6. Robert J. Sawyer's "Identity Theft": Another stunner that would have fit right into the world inhabited by wisecracking hardboiled PI-s.
Overall, except that one lumbering rubbish in the middle, all you get would be highly entertaining as well as thought-provoking jewels.
Go for it, I would say.

[C. Scott Kippen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Down the Dark Spaceways is a collection of novellas/short stories in the tradition of Issac Asimov's Caves of Steel--or is supposed to be. It is a collection, mostly, of mysteries set in a sci-fi world, and many have a Hammet/Chandler feel. Lots of these stories start with poor, down-on-their-luck PIs when hot women walk into their office and need help. Overall, not bad but not great. The stories:

Guardian Angel, Mike Resnick -- completely forgettable, and done completely in the style of Chandler/Hammet to its deteriment. Predictable and uninteresting.

In the Quake Zone, David Gerrold -- the best of the lot. More a time-travel story with gender identification/sexuality issues (quite the surprise) than a mystery. Of the lot, this one feels out of place, but it has the best story and best background.

The City of Cries, Catherine Asaro -- pretty good, probably the third best in the book.

Camouflage, Robert Reed -- a mystery set in his Great Ship series (started with Marrow). Not bad, and interesting to return to the Great Ship. It was good to get back there.

The Big Downtown, Jack McDevitt -- McDevitt, for me, is one of the more underrated sci-fi authors out there, and his writing is always solid. It is solid here as well, and the story is enjoyable, but nothing special and nothing I would return too.

Identity Theft, Robert J. Sawyer -- Predictable in many ways due to its paying homage to the old classics, but the mystery and settings is intriguing enough that I liked this one. It was a bit too long for what it was, but the world he built in this novella is interesting enough I would like to go back.

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short story collections are always a mixed bag, but I ended up enjoying this volume a little more than I thought I would when I started it. The theme here is science fiction detective fiction, a sub-genre of sci-fi that is rather thin. The editor wanted to change that, so he got some people to write original stories in that genre. Some work more for me than others, but that is normal in a collection of this kind, and I don't hold that against the book.

This book contains six stories. My favorite is The City of Cries, and I also like The Big Downtown and Identify Theft. In the Quake Zone is my least favorite story. It has a time travel concept, which for whatever reason rarely works for me; I just don't like a story where someone jumps around a lot in time, as I can't follow it properly. The story is also way long, being almost 100 pages, so put those two things together and I stop caring. Still, liking three out of six stories, and only really disliking one of six, makes this a pretty good book if you are into sci-fi and also like detective stories, and want to mix the two.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology makes its point that their ought to be a place for noir detective stories in the science fiction genre. Resnick and company make a convincing case. The mysteries in this anthology are well constructed both as tech thrillers and mysteries--a blend which sometimes takes subtlety to pull off. I was especially pleased with Jack McDevitt's "The Big Downtown" that gives us a female detective of which Raymond Chandler would be proud.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of six novellas edited by Resnick. A very strong selection of stories, with especially good ones by David Gerrold, Jack McDevitt, Robert Sawyer, and Resnick himself.

[Scott DuJardin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Summary: good mystery stories, but not good sci-fi mysteries. A good sci-fi mystery has to have a science fiction element as an integral part of the story - a mystery that is not possible without the sci-fi element(s). Most of these stories would be just as strong as non sci-fi stories. The notable exceptions are David Gerrold's and Robert J. Sawyer's stories - the former is truly a good science fiction mystery, and my favorite story in this book.
If I were rating this as a book of mystery stories, I would give it 4 stars (5 of the 6 were good mysteries that I mostly liked). Because I am rating it as a book of science fiction mysteries, it loses a star.

My reviews of the individual stories:

1) 'Guardian Angel' by Mike Resnick (also the book's editor)
I am not a fan of an editor including his own work in this kind of anthology, but this is a strong first story and (hopefully) sets the mood for the rest of the book. I will say however that although this story contained science fiction elements, it could have been written without them.
2) 'In the Quake Zone' by David Gerrold
Loved it. Yes, it includes a science fiction element, but this story is most powerful as an historical portrait of the lives of young homosexuals in 1967 - heart wrenching. Seems like a very brave story even in 2005. It is a bonus that it does such a good job of raising ethical questions around time travel.
3) 'The City of Cries' by Catherine Asaro
Another good story, although this one could just as easily have been written as a fantasy, or with some changes a straight-up mystery thriller.
4) 'Camouflage' by Robert Reed
Did not care for this one. Did not like the writing style. Much of the science fiction was not only not important to the story - it was extraneous and distracting. The plot seemed overly contrived, and unfortunately loses points by sharing some ideas with a story earlier in this book.
5) 'The Big Downtown' by Jack McDevitt
Another good mystery, but again, this could easily have been written with no sci-fi element. The science fiction was very minimal in this story, and the mystery did not in any way depend on it.
6) 'Identity Theft' by Robert J. Sawyer
My second favorite, and only the 2nd of the six in which science fiction is an integral part of the plot.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting collection of 6 works of short fiction that combine science fiction and private investigators. For a change, two of the private eyes are women.

The stories are:
* Mike Resnick's "Guardian Angel"
* Catherine Asaro's "The City of Cries" - a story in her Skolian Empire's matriarchal setting where princes are kept in isolation
* Robert Reed's "Camouflage" - a story on his Great Ship setting.
* David Gerrold's "In the Quake Zone" - a story with "time quakes" that shift areas through time
* Jack McDevitt's "The Big Downtown" - starts as an investigation of an artist and his model who disappeared on Chesapeake Bay during a hurricane
* Robert J. Sawyer's "Identity Theft" - Hugo and Nebula nominated novella of private eye in domed city on Mars

[Paul Horstmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

As an anthology of six novellas, these stories overall were a lot of fun to read. Some were more my style than others, but all were worth the effort of reading, and most were rewarding.

[Geoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Club exclusive. It is six beefy short stories that combine crime mysteries and science fiction. It includes a good opening story by Mike Resnick, the editor. All the stories were different from each other, which kept the level of interest at a high. A pretty good collection, I enjoyed it a lot. The one exception was Jack McDevitt's tale. It was not my style I guess. But the stories all contained a good twist as one would expect in a mystery, along with a couple of interesting moral dilemmas. The SF Book Club can put out some pretty good exclusives, and this is an excellent example of the quality of what they can produce.

[DaNela · Rating 4 out of 5]

*BIB*

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got it for the Asaro & Resnick stories.

[Cherie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some rather good short fiction.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of short to medium length stories blending the genres of hard-boiled PI mystery with sci-fi. Not all of the stories managed to hit the nail, but some were quite good.

[Keith Osmond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contains City of Cries, which was my first introduction to Catherine Asaro and the Skolian Empire. Glad to see it is being folded into the larger novel "Underworld"