Illustrated Detective Sci-Fi

by Brian Heming

 

I’ve read some of these genre mash-ups written in the heyday of pulpy paperbacks. Whether written for laughs or not, it was obvious that the authors had a good time taking a hardboiled P.I. character and giving him a case to solve on an extraterrestrial planet or a futuristic Earth. Bladerunner is the most popular such mash-up (based on Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), and was not played for laughs.

Murder on the Stellar Schooner is not exactly played for laughs. That is: no jokes are cracked by the narrator. The humor is there for the eye of the beholder, spawned simply by the scenario of a hardboiled detective from 1930s Los Angeles solving a murder on a space ship.

The attitude, lingo, and illustrations are lifted from a Depression-era noire milieu–only the technology is different.

A freshly-minted widow hires our hero to solve the murder of her erstwhile boyfriend. He was snuffed shortly after winning big in a card game. There’s a short list of suspects and it doesn’t take long for the murderer to be identified.

Honestly, that’s my only complaint: I wish there had been more. I didn’t check the word count beforehand, and was expecting a novella. That length would have served this story well. The “facts of the case” wouldn’t even need to change much, if at all. Simply fleshing out the characters and action would have done the trick. Nevertheless, an enjoyable read.

 

Speaking of mash-ups, check out my Paradox Series, which blends time travel with conspiracy thriller, sports fiction, a little coming-of-age, and a whole lot of men’s adventure!