I love most if not all genres of writing….and before I wrote SF I mainly earned my living from crime.
With my third novel Version 43, I took a step forward in time from the events of Debatable Space and Red Claw, to a future world where all is peace and harmony, and there is no crime or injustice.
And then I thought – phooey! – and created the Exodus Universe, where all the outlaws and misfits and bad guys live. Much more my style.
In this lawless realm, the law is enforced by a small team of cyborg cops. And our hero is one such – known as the Cop.
This book grew out of my love of crime thrillers and pulp noirs, including and especially the books of the great Dashiell Hammett, whose Continental Op rivals Sam Spade, and could knock spots off Philip Marlowe.
But this is not a crime novel with a few SF trappings – it’s very much rooted in its strange future world.
Here’s a visual sample of the scary, genre-mashing dystopic vision that is Version 43. Don’t take the images too literally – this is what’s called in the film business a ‘mood board’. These are images which inspired me, or spoke to me, or which resonated with me for reasons that aren’t entirely logical.
And you can find out more about Version 43 when it’s published, in autumn 2010.
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Of the, albeit limited, sub genre of SCI fi crime novels, Version 43 is about the only book I have found, written after Mr Dick expired, which ‘get’s it’. Love the mood board. Love the decadence of Belladonna. As if to prove we are just a whisper away from Lawless City, I’ve just read an article in this morning’s Times about teenagers who have worked out how to get drunk quicker by putting tampons soaked in alcohol up their noses, or by dripping alcohol into their eyes, or by taking vaporised ‘Oxy Shots’. (Banned in the US but for sale on Costa De Sol which is, effectively, Belladonna-lite)
That’s so so so scary and horrible…the tampons up noses I mean, not you liking Version 43. Have you read Chester Himes? Not SF, but brilliant Harlem noir of the 1960s, but that’s exactly the kind of stuff they would have got up to there…
Yup. Kids, huh? Seriously – gruesome but medically well informed (the nasal membrane allows alcohol to be absorbed more quickly).
Thanks for the Chester tip – will read some. I see Will Self now writes the forewords….which I think is a good sign.
And please keep up the good work. I have been searching for this type of fiction for years. Michael Marshall Smith abandoned me. Scarlett Thomas let me down. But now I’ve found you!
Ps. Please write a Sci-Fi crime blog. You have a unique perspective!
Thanks so much…and I’ll definitely try and do some more crime pieces. It’s a while since I’ve been out as an observer with the Murder Squad (AMIP as it was in those days) and I miss it…I’m currently working on a military drama, a whole other perspective, for Radio 4.