Via the International Business Times: Silicon Valley startup Knightscope has created robots that can replace policemen – and cost just $6.25 (£3.80) an hour to rent. The robots, which are 1.50 metres (59.06 inches) tall and weigh 136 kilos (about 21 stone), are able to collect real time data and utilise predictive analytics to provide a…
The Cure by Douglas E. Richards is a medical sci-fi thriller exploring what would happen if a gene controlling the development of psychopaths could be cured (available September 17, 2013). When Erin Palmer was twelve years old, on a night which began very much like every other night of her young life, she witnessed her…
According to TV Guide, there are fifty-seven new shows premiering this fall. Fifty-seven. That’s a lot of shows. Clearly, not all of them will succeed, but there are five new shows with criminal elements (ha) that I am excited about. So, I thought I’d share a bit about each one. Here are my top five,…
The Red Queen Dies by Frankie Y. Bailey is the debut mystery featuring Detective Hannah McCabe—who works in an alternate near-future of Albany, New York in 2019—hunting a serial killer who seems connected to Alice in Wonderland (available September 10, 2013). Frankie Y. Bailey is the author of nonfiction about crime and detective novels as…
There is an acknowledged condition in which people have extraordinary face-recognition abilities. The opposite is also known, the more worrisome prosopagnosia, that in severe cases keeps sufferers from recognizing their own family's faces. The Notting Hill Carnival is expected to draw a million paraders and participants, so this year, the Met are employing special officers…
Ecko Rising by Danie Ware is a science fiction thriller with literary qualities that questions what it is to be human (available June 11, 2013). In a futuristic London where technological body modification is the norm, Ecko stands alone as a testament to the extreme capabilities of his society. Driven half mad by the systems…
The Private Eye is an experiment. From a creative standpoint, the setting is daring, a strange new future in which all technologies have advanced except for communication and images. From a distribution standpoint, it’s unprecedented. Writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Marcos Martin placed the 32-page Issue 1 of The Private Eye up at their…
The Cloud by Matt Richtel is a techno-thriller laced with paranoia (available January 29, 2013). While waiting for a subway train to take him home, Nat Idle is thinking about his son Isaac and how an eight-month-old views the world. Within seconds he’s on the floor, barely escaping death by subway train, and trying to…
An excerpt of Dinosaur Thunder, a futuristic thriller by James F. David (available December 24, 2012). Eighteen years ago, the prehistoric past collided with the present as time itself underwent a tremendous disruption, transporting huge swaths of the Cretaceous period into the twentieth century. Neighborhoods, towns, and cities were replaced by dense primeval jungles and…
Because It Is My Blood by Gabrielle Zevin is the second young adult futuristic thriller in the Birthright series (available September 18, 2012). Since her release from Liberty Children’s Facility, Anya Balanchine is determined to follow the straight and narrow. Unfortunately, her criminal record and mafiya family are making it hard for her to do…
