Paranormal Technothrillers

[ffutures]

A lot of early SF was published as the equivalent of technothrillers, e.g. stories that built on more-or-less real-world politics etc., sometimes adding some extra element (usually aircraft) that was obviously technically feasible but wasn't yet ready for service. Dracula falls into this category in many ways; the "science" is basically magical, but the tools used to combat Dracula include the telephone and telegraph, carefully planned rail travel, and even a recording phonograph. A later example is Hodgson's Carnacki the Ghost Finder, where the technical tools include cameras, recording phonographs, and weird science specials such as the wonderful Electric Pentacle.

So it occurred to me that these days we have a "Paranormal romance" category in bookshops, basically chick fic and soft porn with vampires. Isn't it time that there was also a "Paranormal technothriller" category? A couple of obvious examples

Charlie Stross - The Laundry novels - they're more or less the exemplar for this type of fiction.
Tim Powers - Declare and other works
Quite a lot of the books published as "urban fantasy"
etc.

Any suggestions for more works for this category? I'm inclined not to include Harry Turtledove's books, such as The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump, since they assume a basically magical universe and aren't technothrillers in the same way, but opinions may differ.

Comments

[ckd]

The Apocalypse Door (James Macdonald) is another example, and just came back into print.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Don't know this one - how does it fit into this category?

[ckd]

From the PW description on Amazon: "The refreshingly original hero, Peter Crossman, is an Inner Temple soldier in the Knights Templar, an order of paramilitary priests that has existed covertly since its presumed dismantling in the 14th century. Although he's used to challenging missions, Peter's latest proves a doozy when a tip on the whereabouts of a missing U.N. peacekeeping team leads him to a warehouse in Newark and a crate of living mushrooms that appear to flinch at the sign of the cross."

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Well, that's different...

[slrose.livejournal.com]

Laura Anne Gilman's new book, Hard Magic (which I have on order but my copy hasn't arrived yet) is about paranormal crime scene investigation.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Is this a primarily magical world, or is the magic treated as an extra technology in our world?

[slrose.livejournal.com]

The latter. It's the same world as her Retrievers series.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Thanks!