Spies among us

Rick's Monday post was sobering. Not only because of the many ways we can be monitored and tracked and spied on, but also because this technology changes and evolves all the time. So even if we writers do include the most up-to-date gadgetry in our latest opus, by the time it has wended its way through the glacial publishing process and arrived on bookstore shelves, the technology will be out of date. And some astute reader will call us out.

But we can but try. Technology has facilitated the job for our characters in many ways. How many times has one of our characters looked up needed information in the middle of a case, or Googled someone to find out background? How many times have they used alerts, GPS, and whatnot to guide them through their day. But technology has also made plot twists more challenging. We can no longer make our characters lost in the wilderness (either urban or rural), when a reader would just say, Turn on your map app, idiot! We can no longer place our characters in peril without a reader yelling Why don't you call 911? Or your mother? We writers have to go to great lengths to get around this instant world-at-our-fingertips. Batteries have to die or the phone has to be dropped in water, both of which make the character look inept, or the character has to be in a dead zone, of which there fewer and fewer. At least in Canada in the dead of winter, batteries seem to have a life of about five minutes, so it's still possible for a character to be caught out unexpectedly.

Back in the mists of time, when my eldest was a newborn and neither cellphones nor personal computers were around, we bought a marvellous new-fangled gadget called a baby monitor. (Aside: look this up on Google and you'll find the first baby monitors were developed in 1937 in response to the Lindbergh baby kidnapping). We placed the recorder by the crib and took the receiver downstairs with us. It had two channels, A and B. We selected one at random and were delighted to be able to monitor our daughter's every breath. One day, being daring, I switched to the other channel, and suddenly, out of the blue, we were listening to a ferocious argument of our neighbours down the street! Ummm, talk about too much information. As a crime writer, however, I immediately saw the potential of this device for a crime story.

Since then, technology has intruded further and further into our lives, with some of us preferring to hide under our bed to stay out of the digital spotlight, and others embracing each new invasion. Today, that same daughter lives in a "smart home" where everything is wirelessly connected. She can sit in Ottawa and watch the Uber Eats driver delivering her family's food to their house in Toronto. She can play with the temperature in their house and add items to their grocery list. Clearly, most of us don't mind being ruled by that little round gadget on the counter that seems to know every aspect of our lives. No chance for sneaking around behind your spouse's or parents' backs with this home!

This summer we were up at my cottage, where life is still pretty simple. We bring our smart phones and laptops with us to stay connected on the mobile network, but there is no wifi and we waste very little time online. One day we were all sitting in the living room, glumly watching the rain pour down the window panes, and I wistfully remarked, "What's the weather going to be tomorrow, does anyone know?" And my two year-old granddaughter, sitting on the sofa beside me, pipes up "Why don't you ask Google?"

In a flash I remembered that baby monitor that watched over her mother all those years ago, and I thought, what a change in one generation. Could anyone have imagined it? And can we imagine what the next generation will bring?

That, of course, is the landscape of science fiction writers, not crime. 

Is it getting harder to write contemporary crime fiction?

by Rick Blechta

I recently read — if you’ve been paying attention — a few Nero Wolfe novels. The Wolfe series began back in the ’30s, so they’re pretty elderly. The world they portrayed at that time has long since ceased to exist and to be honest they seem rather “creaky” in spots, in that regard. I suspect I’m not uncommon in still wanting to read about Wolfe and Archie because of nostalgia for the time in which the stories were set, but some of the writing, perfectly acceptable then is very jarring now.

Fast forward to a more recent series, the Harry Bosch novels by Michael Connelly. The Black Echo first appeared in 1992. That’s over 25 years ago now, and thumbing through that while contemplating this post, I’m again struck by how out of date it is. While the years have been pretty kind to it, our contemporary world is far different than what Connelly describes in his novel in many important ways. The main thing separating 1992 Bosch with Bosch in 2018 would have to be technology. Like everything else, computers have swept over policing like a tidal wave. Harry is an old-style gumshoe even by 1992 standards, being all about pounding the street for clues, as an example, so the anachronisms are not all that important. But even skimming the book, I can see how his having a mobile phone would knock out quite a few scenes in the plot that were handled using 1992 technology.

It is with great trepidation, therefore, that a wise writer approaches technology as a main driving force in a novel. The shelf-life of current technology is very, very short and there lies the danger. In just one publishing cycle (the time it takes a book to go from concept to publication) so many things can change completely.

I’m feeling more and more as if I need the skills of a good futurist to make sure my current work-in-progress doesn’t wind up being anachronistic even before I finish writing it, since the plot relies heavily on current technology and its effects on contemporary living. Case in point: I’ve already had to change one plot point because it could no longer happen the way I initially described it. Technology caught up with me.

It now feels as if I have to finish this novel at lightning speed so other plot points don’t go the way of the dodo.

Is anyone else out there feeling this squeeze? And to the readers in the audience, does it bug you when something is obviously out of date?