I spent sometime with the Elvis Cole / Joe Pike mystery/thriller series, and it is set in a world where they still use payphones for all the reasons stated. I get the purpose of this article is to...
I spent sometime with the Elvis Cole / Joe Pike mystery/thriller series, and it is set in a world where they still use payphones for all the reasons stated.
I get the purpose of this article is to promote the author's work, so it's fine, but there are plenty of examples of of detective/mystery novels dealing quite well with advanced technology. Go all the way back to Caves of Steel and Robots of Dawn which deal explicitly with AI, Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson (which honestly feels closer every day), and a ton of William Gibson's work, just to name a few.
I think in a world inundated by all that data, it could be the gumshoe who goes around physically talking to people and verifying evidence face to face.
Also, the heart of a mystery novel is uncovering the human motivations that led to the crime. So as long as people are people, I think the format will hold up.
Yeah, Caves of Steel and the like was certainly front of mind when I was reading the article, alongside a few other Asimov short stories that also do the robot-centric whodunnit thing. I guess...
Yeah, Caves of Steel and the like was certainly front of mind when I was reading the article, alongside a few other Asimov short stories that also do the robot-centric whodunnit thing.
I guess it's always going to be a rarer subgenre of stories that deviates the setting significantly from the lived experience of its readers. So over time technology changes what plot devices that status quo default template setting will allow, while the stories in historical or speculative fiction get more control over the setting constraints but have an obligation to do more worldbuilding to make it work.
I grok your primary point. But I find myself thinking about Heinlein Future History novels that depend heavily on computers but continue to use slipsticks. The new technology changes the writing...
I grok your primary point. But I find myself thinking about Heinlein Future History novels that depend heavily on computers but continue to use slipsticks.
The new technology changes the writing based on what "everybody knows."
I spent sometime with the Elvis Cole / Joe Pike mystery/thriller series, and it is set in a world where they still use payphones for all the reasons stated.
I get the purpose of this article is to promote the author's work, so it's fine, but there are plenty of examples of of detective/mystery novels dealing quite well with advanced technology. Go all the way back to Caves of Steel and Robots of Dawn which deal explicitly with AI, Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson (which honestly feels closer every day), and a ton of William Gibson's work, just to name a few.
I think in a world inundated by all that data, it could be the gumshoe who goes around physically talking to people and verifying evidence face to face.
Also, the heart of a mystery novel is uncovering the human motivations that led to the crime. So as long as people are people, I think the format will hold up.
Yeah, Caves of Steel and the like was certainly front of mind when I was reading the article, alongside a few other Asimov short stories that also do the robot-centric whodunnit thing.
I guess it's always going to be a rarer subgenre of stories that deviates the setting significantly from the lived experience of its readers. So over time technology changes what plot devices that status quo default template setting will allow, while the stories in historical or speculative fiction get more control over the setting constraints but have an obligation to do more worldbuilding to make it work.
I grok your primary point. But I find myself thinking about Heinlein Future History novels that depend heavily on computers but continue to use slipsticks.
The new technology changes the writing based on what "everybody knows."
I grok what you did there :)
Honestly. Absurd. A single barrier (inability to communicate) doesn’t destroy the entire genre. There are so many more barriers to draw from.