Crime in the Dark Heart of Space

Chris Brookmyre, Places in the Darkness

Ciudad de Cielo, humankind’s first permanent orbital civilian settlement, is a picture of responsible productivity. Industrious, thriving, with a robust native economy and (officially) low crime rate, it has qualities humanity’s sprawling, overpopulated Earthside cities desire. New security head thinks she’s taking a rubber-stamp job, until her first day, when someone takes a potshot at her. But even that pales when, almost simultaneously, CdC gets its first official murder.

Probably no genres are more innately tied to the times in which they’re written than crime and science fiction. That makes reviewing them particularly difficult when an author has clearly not been reading the current developments in the genres. British crime writer Chris Brookmyre has clearly been reading vintage Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, because his science fiction looks around thirty-five years out of date. His buddy cop narrative isn’t much newer.

Having not been formally inducted into her position yet, Alice Blake goes undercover to investigate this murder alongside Nikki Fixx. Ex-LAPD, Nikki is manifestly corrupt and runs multiple shakedown operations which keep her well-paid, while keeping CdC’s official crime rate low. She’s also the city’s only security officer with experience running a murder investigation. Which makes it puzzling when she sleepwalks through the most desultory investigation since Raymond Chandler started phoning them in.

This isn’t accidental. Nikki has a “round up the usual suspects” attitude toward crimefighting, colored by the fact that she’s in neck-deep with the criminals she supposedly busts. Alice, in her undercover persona, repeatedly leans on Nikki about the importance of law. Nikki, meanwhile, uses object lessons to show Alice how only someone who thinks like criminals can successfully enforce the law. Veteran noir audiences know how this debate ends.

Chris Brookmyre

Ciudad de Cielo, CdC in official parlance, “Seedee” on the streets, is a careful balance of rational ingenuity and moral compromise. We know this because Brookmyre repeatedly stops the narrative to tell us. Brookmyre is a master explainer, pausing his story to repeatedly explain how subsurface maglevs work, the space elevator that brings everything to Heinlein Station (!), the processing of food and other necessities in deep orbit.

Unfortunately, Brookmyre’s science and technology are as pointedly dated as his noir. I keep noticing pieces I recognize from reading authors like Robert Silverberg, Orson Scott Card, and Pat Cadigan back in the 1980s. His “dirty streets” pop psychology is equally dated. He fronts multiple, long-winded explanations why, even in space, people skirt the law and indulge their Freudian impulses. “Feed the beast” looms large.

Nevertheless, I could accept Brookmyre’s dated sci-fi and his sketchy postwar ruminations on human nature, if he’d put primary emphasis on his story. When he permits events to happen, they generally happen with a reasonable degree of punch. We get glimpses into the vulgar undercarriage of space exploration, the Mos Eisley of Low-Earth Orbit. Repeatedly, I feel something starting to happen, and get excited for genuine genre-bending crunch.

Then, whoomp, Brookmyre interrupts again. If he isn’t lecturing audiences directly through his third-person-limited voice, his characters lecture one another. This happens literally once, when an important supporting character, a university professor, delivers an actual TEDtalk about the nature of consciousness, an important theme in a society where neural implants are a career necessity. This lecture pinches, almost verbatim, from Sam Harris and Daniel C. Dennett.

While Brookmyre continues frontloading such information, I spend time trying to identify what sources he plunders for influence. I’ve name-dropped several already; you may spot others. The mere fact he has important events take place on a platform entitled Heinlein Station bespeaks just how dated his sources are. The events on that platform, incidentally, include members of a crowd going around a room introducing themselves. Talk about low tension.

I don’t mind Brookmyre’s familiarity with genre history. I myself still enjoy vintage Asimov and Silverberg. But dated references come so close upon one another, it becomes questionable whether Brookmyre has read any sci-fi more recent than Neuromancer. Science fiction and crime fiction, both dependent on current technology and social mores, usually evolve very quickly. If your cultural references are outdated, your audience, familiar with the tropes, can tell.

Shame, really. Because Brookmyre’s reputation as a “Tartan Noir” author precedes him, I expected something more earth-shattering. I expected something that would propel both genres he blends into new, adventurous territory. Instead, this pop-culture porridge will only interest readers who aren’t particularly familiar with either genre. Veteran audiences will get distracted spotting Brookmyre’s sources. There’s little else to hold our attention.