Identity Theft and other stories (collection)

But again I have to emphasize, don’t let any of this intimidate you. Rob grew up in suburban Toronto, went to school there, picked up some public-appearance skills at Ryerson University (which is why he’s more at home at a podium than some of us reclusive schlubs and stammering poets), dabbled in journalism before turning to fiction full-time, married a wonderful woman named Carolyn Clink, and currently lives with her, his books, and a collection of hominid skulls in a penthouse condo in Mississauga.

Want to know more? Ask Rob, if you see him at a science-fiction convention or writer’s conference (he goes to lots of them). As I said, he’s approachable. And so is his fiction—it’s among the most accessible SF being produced today, enjoyed with equal pleasure by hard-core fans and those who normally disdain the genre. Ignore his laurels and plaudits, which is what I meant by the smartass title of this introduction. But please don’t ignore this collection of his recent short stories: the work of one of the most interesting, outgoing, and thoughtful SF writers walking the earth today.

Identity Theft

Doubleday’s venerable Science Fiction Book Club, which normally only publishes reprint editions of books, recently experimented with doing its own original anthologies—special collections of brand-new stories that would only be available through them. One of the first such collections was an anthology edited by Mike Resnick called Down These Dark Spaceways. It contains six SF hard-boiled detective novellas by award-winning authors (Mike, me, Catherine Asaro, David Gerrold, Jack McDevitt, and Robert Reed).

Why did Mike ask me to contribute? Well, my science fiction often has crime or mystery overtones; indeed, I won the Crime Writers of Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Story of 1993 for my time-travel tale “Just Like Old Times,”and The Globe and Mail: Canada’s National Newspaper called my SF courtroom drama Illegal Alien “the best Canadian mystery of 1997.”My other SF/crime crossovers include the novels Golden Fleece, Fossil Hunter, The Terminal Experiment, Frameshift, Flashforward, Hominids, and Mindscan.

My story for Down These Dark Spaceways follows. At 25,000 words, it’s by far the longest piece in this collection, so I’m leading off with it—but I’ll note up front that the last story in this book, “Biding Time,” is a sequel to it.

To my delight, “Identity Theft” won Spain’s Premio UPC de Ciencia Ficción, which, at 6,000 euros, is the world’s largest cash prize for science-fiction writing. It was also a finalist for the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Award (“the Aurora”), as well as for the top two awards in the science-fiction field: the World Science Fiction Society’s Hugo Award (SF’s “People’s Choice” Award) and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America’s Nebula Award (SF’s “Academy Award”)—making “Identity Theft” the first (and so far only) original publication of the SFBC to ever be nominated for those awards.

* * *

The door to my office slid open. “Hello,” I said, rising from my chair. “You must be my nine o’clock.” I said it as if I had a ten o’clock and an eleven o’clock, but I didn’t. The whole Martian economy was in a slump, and, even though I was the only private detective on Mars, this was the first new case I’d had in weeks.

“Yes,” said a high, feminine voice. “I’m Cassandra Wilkins.”