Genre question

[robkelk]

Does a book count as a techno-thriller when it's set in 1973? The story features items that are high-tech for the time, but the time is a half-century ago.

(Chris Hadfield has written two of these, so far.)

[classicdrogn]

I'd tend to fil;e that under "period fiction" myself, but it's not like genres are as such are really exclusive. "Techno-thriller" could easily also apply. You could make arguments for a lot of Jules Verne's work fitting that pairing as well.

[Bob Schroeck]

Technothrillers written in the 1970s and set in the 70s are still technothrillers, so I can't see why one written now and set then wouldn't be. But yeah, classicdrogn is right -- it's also period fiction.

[hazard]

The important bit about 'techno-thriller' fiction is, IMO, that the technology and its implications are central to the plot. That it's talking about technology of what we consider yesteryear is irrelevant.

[classicdrogn]

... does that make that movie about some fellow in the American South introducing fingerprinting to solve crimes - Melon-Head Williams or something - a techno-thriller?

[Bob Schroeck]

Are you referring to Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson? I wish I could remember enough of it to give you an answer, but I last read it some forty or more years ago.

[classicdrogn]

Ah, tes, that's the title! I'd forgotten if I ever knew it was by Twain, I just rmember some kid-rated movie from somewhere in the 80s or late 70s and that the plot hinged on determining the guilty party in ... I think what was tiptoed-around for the sake of the rating but in direct terms was a rape case? Anyway, the amazing new technique of fingerprint analysis played a pivotal role.

I don't really rmember, because Ghostbusters was the "fun" movie we rented for after the "educational" one, and, well, Ghostbusters.

[Mamorien]

Ah, tes, that's the title! I'd forgotten if I ever knew it was by Twain, I just rmember some kid-rated movie from somewhere in the 80s or late 70s and that the plot hinged on determining the guilty party in ... I think what was tiptoed-around for the sake of the rating but in direct terms was a rape case? Anyway, the amazing new technique of fingerprint analysis played a pivotal role.

If it was (as I vaguely recall hearing at the time) a faithful adaptation of the original, it was a murder, not a rape. Also, it might be the book Pterry spoke of librarians being asked about, of which the reader could only recall that "it had a red cover and it turned out they were twins." (Well, sort of.)

I don't really rmember, because Ghostbusters was the "fun" movie we rented for after the "educational" one, and, well, Ghostbusters.

That'll do it, I guess. (Well, that and being however old you were at the time, I suspect.)

[robkelk]

As for my original question, I've decided to go with "Period Thriller" for Chris Hadfield's novels. They don't quite focus enough on the tech to be techno-thrillers, on second thought and IMHO.