Saturday, March 02, 2013

Writing crime fiction is risky...






Writing crime fiction in all its sub-genres is fun, but also risky and the same holds true for the genre of Science Fiction.  Crime Fiction and Science Fiction include such a wide variety of sub-genres, it is easy to disappoint readers who are expecting something different.

On sale for 99cents
 Crime fiction lovers who revel in the ‘who-dun-it’ genre and read to test their mystery-solving skills against the author’s might not appreciate my novel THE TRAZ, wherein we know full well ‘who dun it’--we're there for the murder. The excitement and tension in this crime fiction thriller lie outside tracking down a mystery. We want to know if the bad guys ever get caught? Will they ever pay? Those on the periphery of the murder, those who are juveniles, those who were running scared—will they pay, too? Will the one who issued the command but didn’t pull the knife—will he pay? Will the police officer on scene ever pay with more than just a guilty conscience? In FATAL ERROR the sequel to the murder we continue to pursue the answers to those questions.  

Athough there’s no ‘who dun it’ in  FATAL ERROR either, there are many crime elements. Law enforcement officers, undercover agents, murder trials, witness protection, perjury, a Supreme Court of Canada ruling—so, how else to classify these intense YA novels than crime fiction? [For a limited time, FATAL ERROR is on sale for 99cents.]


And then there’s my SciFi novella, SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT. Those who like SciFi with aliens and foreign worlds and high-tech gadgetry won’t find any of that in THE CAT. My publisher briefly considered marketing this novel under the ‘Women’s Issues’ genre because it’s all about a present-day ordinary woman living two lives in two alternate universe. She does, indeed, have double the issues of most women but in a Sci-fi-type way. 

Sometimes I market SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT as crime fiction, because those who like mystery and like to pit their solving skills against mine, will like this book. And those keen on taking a scientific look at our justice system will like it. The Many Worlds Theory of quantum physics theory suggests multi-universes exist and we exist in multiple universes. SCHRÖDINGER'S CATexplores the impact of this theory on the justice system as Chorie fights her custody battle and Dr. Penny defends himself against murder charges. Could it be, that it is not a weakness of the human mind that causes the testimony of eye-witnesses to conflict with each others' and with video evidence, but rather it is that experiences in other universes leave their footprint on our psyches and our memories? Could what each witness saw have been his/her reality for a moment in time?

Likely the most realistic part of SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT is when Chorie’s lawyer tells her there’s no way he’s going to argue a multi-universe defense to the judge. He tells her it would be a sure-fire way for both of them to be committed to a psychiatric facility and for her to lose custody. At one point, he asks who’s looking after her child while she’s wandering around alternate universes. Her explanation of the simultaneous nature of time failed to impress him. But, wait. Maybe he shouldn’t have dismissed her ideas so quickly.


Scientists have just now discovered how quantum mechanics plays a role in biology, photosynthesis in particular, and perhaps also in migration.[ CBC News/Techology ] As biologists scramble to adapt their knowledge and theories to this new information, it makes me wonder...will we ever have to adjust our justice system to accommodate the new knowledge about the true nature of reality that is arising from quantum physics?



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