Addendum

Your Jabberjaw revival could benefit as well.

Classic Inspiration

Have you ever noticed how many old detective stories that aren't murder-based are about attempted thefts of torpedo plans? In the distant, spacefaring future, the same may well occur.

Marchuary

We call it March because it's time to get going. To space. Let's build a space elevator. Come on. We can't have a murder on the space elevator until we have the space elevator.

Surely Somebody's Done This Already

Fairy Mason

How to Integrate Mechs Into Your Setting

Do it on page one.

Addendum

Another third are because of access roads, but this is true for California only when Perry Mason was practicing (before he became a judge or stepped down to practice again).

It's Almost Halloween

Did you remember to make out your wills? I advise against it. Do you know many people are murdered because they changed their wills so somebody kills them and destroys or hides the new will? About a third of all murder victims based on the literature.

Genre Confusion

Is a cozy mystery a story in which nobody much cares that somebody got murdered? That's the impression I've gotten, but maybe there's more to it. For instance, does it have to star Angela Lansbury? That could present problems for the subgenre in the future.

Challenge of the Flavorful Dish

"No, inspector. There are no signs of violence and no indication of poisoning. The cause of death is natural."
"I have reason to doubt that," Inspector Iagius said. What reason need there be aside from the intuition of that veteran avenger of crime? Nevertheless, grounds existed! The dead man had not gone through life without enemies or without making a will. That will . . . was missing!
The doctor cared about physiological signs and not motive. And rightly so. He shook his learned head. "The sole unusual fact about this corpse is how much garlic he must have eaten!"
"Garlic, you say?"
"Crates of it!"

*****

"Well, Mr. Modusta, I only have one question for you before I stop wasting your time."
"Not at all, Inspector. Happy to help."
"Is it true that the victim dined here the night of the murder?"
"It is."
"Falgunus! Arrest this man!"
"What?"
An escape attempt! Mr. Modusta made his try, but Custos Falgunus was too fast for him in body just as Inspector Iagius was in mind. He struggled, but he might as well have wrestled against a mountain!
"He's full of energy, sir!"
"I am! Because this is outrageous!"
"And deviltry. Mr. Modusta, I talked to your other guests. They reported tasting no garlic at all. You knew the victim had worn a vampire costume for a party once! That made him vulnerable to garlic in sufficient amounts, larger of course than what the true vampire requires, and that's why you had your chief load his dish alone with all the garlic in the house! Take him away, Falgunus."
Another triumph for Inspector Iagius!
Finis

Addendum

I think the Roaring '20s is the only decade name that ever really stuck. What a testament to the power of the word "roaring." The '20s were pretty good too, with all that detective fiction and so forth.

The Sadness of Things

Fantasy is an existing word, but science fiction isn't anything. Just as most people say mystery instead of detective fiction and history instead of narrative of past events, science fiction will always lose the terminology wars to fantasy. Therefore, we should accept science fiction's place as a subsidiary of fantasy and henceforth refer to it as gun fantasy, or guntasy. There's more to the difference between science fiction and fantasy than guns, you say? Not really. When you think about it.