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Old 01-26-2011, 05:18 AM   #6
ATDrake
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Robert J. Sawyer is pretty good at SF+mysteries. He's won both science fiction and mystery awards for several of his books and stories. You can read 2 of his dual-award-winning novellas free online at his website, Identity Theft, and The Hand You're Dealt, which are both murder mysteries set in future colonies.

My personal favourite is Golden Fleece (exploration expedition + locked room murder mystery), though there's also Illegal Alien (first contact + legal thriller), The Terminal Experiment (AI + serial killer procedural), Frameshift (genetics research + fugitive hunt). He's also got the Quintaglio Ascension Trilogy, which aren't mystery (mostly), but Dinosaurs Discovering Science IN SPAAACE!!!!! with Galileo, Darwin, and Freudian analogues.

Brian Stableford's done some very good genetic engineering + murder mystery works, though they tend to read better in the original novella format (usually reprinted in those Dozois-edited Year's Best Science Fiction collections) than the expanded novel editions. Architects of Emortality (expanded from Les Fleurs du Mal) blends post-apocalyptic future society with 19th century Victorian literature and cop/civilian team-up. The Cassandra Complex (expanded from The Silver Bullet) is a biotech absconding-with-important-medical-research thriller.

Nancy Kress, who's won Hugo and Nebula awards, also did a few biotech thrillers, two in a series with the same detective, Stinger and Oaths and Miracles, set modern-day/near-future with significant genetic-engineering advances that people would kill for, and Maximum Light, set in a future where human fertility has taken a drastic decline for unknown reasons.

Lois McMaster Bujold's A Civil Campaign, in the Vorkosigan Saga, is SF+comedy of manners (MilSF space opera + Heyer-esque Regency romance, specifically), as is Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog (time travel + comedy of errors). Bujold's Memory, Cetaganda, and Diplomatic Immunity are also excellent SF+mystery, while Komarr and Winterfair Gifts are SF+mystery+romance.

And finally, Charles Stross' Laundry series is really vaguely sf-ish in terms of all the "magic" having a mathematical/quantum mechanical basis, but they're excellent Lovecraftian horror + Cold War spy thriller + office bureaucracy stories and well worth reading if you think you might be inclined.
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