Mixing Mysteries and Science Fiction
Ever the twain shall meet

I have learnt that I am me, that I can do the things that, as one might put it, me can do, but I cannot do the things that me would like to do.
Mystery Writer, Agatha Christie

Me would like to mix the two genres ...

Humanity either makes, or breeds, or tolerates all its afflictions.
Science Fiction Writer, H.G. Wells

H.G. Wells, meet Agatha Christie

Actually they look like a nice couple, don't they? And sharing a commonality in writing. How wonderful. Yet, they operate in two distinct literary realms. These thoughts are brought to you by my brain- and how it would appear on screen if subjected to a CAT Scan. It's weird, I enjoy listening to classical music, straight rock, blues, jazz, or even some of my kids' new stuff. I throw a baseball with either my right or left hand. I write sci-fi and mystery and sci-fi-mystery. I'm not asking science fiction readers to toss out the bold and the imaginative for the suspenseful whodunit books.

Mozart understood a good murder mystery

... death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

The Fab Five Paul, Ringo, George, John, and Wolfy

The Beatles music was varied yet each song had a distinctive Beatle signature. What about writing? I always wanted to write different genres because I enjoy different genres. A writer's style and point of view can cross genres.

The Mystery Theme...

WHAT DO THESE TV SLEUTHS HAVE IN COMMON?

Peter Faulk as Lieutenant Columbo " Just one more question about your web site, sir."		Raymond Burr: Perry Mason " But where were you on the morning of September 18th, 1951, Mr. Fitton?"		Mike Connors is Joe Mannix " Cut his Internet connection, Peggy..."
Angela Landsbury, a novelist, (hmm) Jessica Fletcher, investigating murders.		Dick Van Dyke not as Rob Petrie in Diagnosis Murder		Jack Klugman/ QUINCY, ME Is the guy in the bed alive or dead? "We're talkin' about murder here"
		One thing about these investigators: I like every one of them and want to participate in solving the crime. They all have their own sense of humor, sidekicks, and investigative formulae.
Buddy Ebsen Barnaby not Matthias Jones				William Conrad: FRANK CANNON

The Magic Screen ...
I remember watching a rather rotund Frank Cannon knock a gun out of a guy's hand, pool side, with a piece of paper, and then use his belly to bounce the guy in the water. In the courtroom Perry Mason steamrolled over all his legal opponents. Mannix crashed through fortified roadblocks and never got a scratch. And how come Jessica Fletcher runs head- long into murder in her town week after deadly week? Why are there so murder victims the LA coroner's morgue, Quincy? And last but not least- Columbo knows whodunit, I know whodunit, but I enjoy him making the murderer squirm. There is an endearing quality to these people; a moral view of the world mixed with an optimistic persistence that will overtake injustice at the next intersection. Stitched into this durable fabric is a subtle, self-effacing humor directed at the perpetrators of evil. I drape a magic screen around these shenanigans because I like these people.

What about the Science Fiction attributes?

A collage of Flash Gordon		Staring Buster Crabbe		as Flash Gordon

Flash Gordon has all the elements. Okay, it's buried in the black and white twentieth century celluloid or in Alex Raymond's 1930's colorful inked comics, but throw aside the early special effects. Flash has his lovely, Dale Arden. It's an epic. It has cliffhangers. It has the brilliant scientist, Dr. Hans Zarkov. It has the villain, Ming the Merciless, on the planet Mongo. And earth's future is in jeopardy. But can this genre be mixed with a mystery?

Sci-fi / Mystery: An intelligent mix?

It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value.
Stephen Hawking

Clearly, Professor Hawking was referring to this article. If you're going to mix things up in a literary way, you might as well ask if light is a particle or a wave ...

... an idea that goes back at least two hundred years, to a time when there were two theories about light: one, which Newton favored, was that it was composed of particles: the other was that it is made of waves. We now know that really both theories are correct. By the wave/particle duality of quantum mechanics, light can be regarded as both a wave and a particle ...
Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

And writing is still writing. Suspense turns the pages, but suspense must make sense and be tweaked with melodrama, but it must not become sensationalized. Amicable characters can motivate as well as stabilize, and a meaningful plot justifies the reader's attention. Aspects of character relate to the specific book. Does the imagination and adventurous spirit of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter work in a Raymond Chandler mystery novel? YES. YES. YES. Characters can investigate within an adventurous, suspenseful science-fiction plot.

BLADE RUNNER EMPLOYS SCI-FI AND MYSTERY

		Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard

I once had an instructor once tell me that mixing genres would confuse the readers. I was left thinking my outline of Harry Cobb, an investigator on Mars, was literary cross-dressing. Then I thought back to when I first saw Blade Runner ( based on Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) at a wide screen movie theater in Pasadena, California. There are readers and moviegoers who like the mix.

All the mystery requirements needed to be there. Harry Cobb had to fall within the endearing constant of any investigator, have enjoyable and flamboyant sidekicks, a suspenseful plot, and a mysterious killer.
The fact that Cobb is on Mars is not essential to the basic plot, but I sure like the landscape and the futuristic accouterments. As science fiction, the culture and the science had better make sense. So, should the crime and the murderer.

But I like just mystery, too ...

Having great settings, crisp description, and identifying with characters in a well- constructed story are the hallmark of the first lady of popular mystery. I empathize with her characters because of what they say and how they say it . The use of cliffhangers stirs the reader onward. Yet, all these qualities are attributes that transcend mystery writing and influenced my House Series books.

What about the Matthias Jones Mysteries?

With all the humor and antics in the Jones Mystery books, I will save the many worlds interpretation of Matthias Jones for another article.

PS: I made it all the way through without mentioning Star Trek, but look at the similarities to Flash Gordon.