# Astronomy mystery novels **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 17, 2003, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079 "2003-07-17T05:51:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![The\_Bad\_Astronomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@The\_Bad\_Astronomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Bad_Astronomer)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2003, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079/1 "2003-07-17T05:51:25Z")
Hey fellow Dopers– I just finished a novel by Joe Haldeman called “The Coming”, which is in some ways a mystery, and others a science fiction book. One of the lead characters is an astronomer, and it made me wonder if there were any mystery novels in which an important character is an astronomer, or the mystery itself rests on astronomy. I’m not looking for science fiction, just a good modern-day mystery with a scientific thread in it. Has anyone read a book like that? ---
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2003, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079/2 "2003-07-17T06:07:24Z")
a) The movie, “Roxanne”, was a weak attempt at a main character being an astronomer. b) This might be a little off-topic to your OP, but you ought to know: Judging Amy this week claimed “Does anyone ever see the constellations? I think the astronomers are pulling our legs…” I thought you’d like to know this, so let’s lynch the script writer on behalf of amateur astronomers everywhere! I was just one parsec short of kicking in the TV tube whenever they slaughter astronomy…luckily, that puts the TV at a safe distance! - Jinx ---
**Author:** ![audit1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@audit1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/audit1)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2003, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079/3 "2003-07-17T06:35:59Z")
EARTHLIGHT by Arthur C Clarke has a mystery element to it. Is somebody at a lunar observatory passing information to the enemy? and how? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2003, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079/4 "2003-07-17T07:35:22Z")
Have you read James P. Hogan’s “Inherit The Stars”? It’s a science mystery, that starts out with a human found in a spacesuit on the moon - and he’s 50,000 years old. Mystery ensues, containing much scientific study and some astronomy. But it’s definitely science fiction, so it might not be on your list. The other two stories I can think of with astronomers as the lead characters are both science fiction - Carl Sagan’s ‘Contact’, and ‘The Arrival’, with Charlie Sheen as a radio astronomer. I believe that was based on a book. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2003, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079/5 "2003-07-17T18:00:02Z")
[Astronomical Society of the Pacific](http://www.astrosociety.org/education/resources/scifi05.html): > [@](#): > > Egan, Greg **Quarantine**. 1992, Harper Prism. A sophisticated detective mystery that addresses serious ideas in the interpretation of quantum mechanics. > > Innes, Michael **The Weight of the Evidence**. 1943, Harper/Perennial. A somewhat ordinary murder mystery, but the murder was committed using a meteorite in a university setting. Also: **Two Moons: A Novel** , by Thomas Mallon **The Joshua Factor** , by Donald Clayton Innes is a true blue pure mystery writer. The others may be quasi-sf. Man, these are hard to come by. Even Steven Olderr’s massive **Mystery Index** only has an entry for Astrologers not Astronomers. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2003, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079/6 "2003-07-17T19:29:13Z")
Didn’t Prof. Moriarity write a treatise on asteroids? ---
**Author:** ![Sock\_Munkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Sock\_Munkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sock_Munkey)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2003, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079/7 "2003-07-17T19:57:22Z")
I remember a series of science mysteries that I think were written by Asimov bt I’m not sure. One of them involves a seeming murder where the pertpetrator turned out to be a large pendulum whose swing was altered by the coriolis effect so when the victim was found no one could figure out how his head had been bashed in. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2003, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079/8 "2003-07-17T23:18:57Z")
> [@](#): > > Didn’t Prof. Moriarity write a treatise on asteroids? **An** asteroid. “On the Dynamics of an Asteroid”. Asimov had an interesting short story in which he speculates on the nature of that treatise. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079/9 "2003-07-18T01:21:41Z")
Would _The Currents of Space_ by Asimov qualify? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Bad\_Astronomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@The\_Bad\_Astronomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Bad_Astronomer)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079/10 "2003-07-18T01:22:07Z")
Thanks folks! I have read many of these titles, but I’ll have to look into some of these others. A search on amazon turned up a book where Sherlock Holmes has to solve problems based on relativity, quantum mechanics, etc. Sounds fun. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079/11 "2003-07-18T01:36:41Z")
I remember the first Archer Mayor mystery novel I edited…_Fruits of the Poisonous Tree_. The protagonist notes that the moon is at the half at the time the crime is committed, so two weeks later he re-constructs the episode, in order to have the same kind of light that would have been cast. I pointed out that, uh, yeah, there certainly would be a half moon, but it would be on the other side of the sky in the other half of the day. The author sighed and said that he had had the manuscript vetted by a police detective, a lawyer, and a judge. But that he should have also called in an astronomer. ---
**Author:** ![drewbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drewbert/32/15890_2.png) [@drewbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewbert)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079/12 "2003-07-18T03:28:16Z")
In the true crime category…[The Cuckoo’s Egg](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0671726889/102-3447886-7417752?vi=glance) by Cliff Stoll, a Berekely astronomer on the trail of a hacker in the lab’s computer system. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079/13 "2003-07-18T04:36:27Z")
[The Sparrow](http://members.nccw.net/druss44121/thesparrow.htm) by Mary Doria Russell. Many interesting elements, from radio astronomy, to language acquisition, to Jesuit ideals… this is an intense book. The astronomy angle pretty much sets up the story though, not a major arc. The mystery is the question of what happened. It’s told in flashback. I know, I know… but it works. Warning: not for the faint at heart ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079/14 "2003-07-19T10:39:09Z")
_Night Train_ by Martin Amis concerns a policewoman investigating the death of a brilliant and glamourous astrophysicist. Granted the choice of profession is largely so that Amis can parade his thoughts on what he takes to be the philosophical consequences of modern cosmology. And, given that - while a great stylist - he usually can’t plot for toffee, the “solution” is pants. If it didn’t require a spoiler, it might make a good GQ. She is found with two bullets in her head and the gun beside her. Obviously murder. But eventually the heroine realises that in a handful of gun suicides per year the trigger is pulled twice. She’s killed herself in despair over the meaninglessness of the universe. Or something. Which raises the question: are there really such “impossible” suicides? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079/15 "2003-07-19T16:50:12Z")
From A Dictionary of English Slang and Colloquialisms: > [@](#): > > pants(!) > > Noun/Adj. Nonsense, rubbish, bad. From the standard British English of pants, meaning underwear; also a variation on ‘knickers’. E.g.“The first half was pants but I stayed until the end and it was actually a great film.” [1990s] > > Exclam. An exclamation of annoyance or frustration. From the noun, (above). Learn to speak American correctly, you furriners! ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2003, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079/16 "2003-07-20T23:11:01Z")
Ignorance being fought one word at a time. Just another day on the SDMB. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2003, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079/17 "2003-07-20T23:19:46Z")
**bonzer** , I haven’t read that book, but an automatic can misfire like that, essentially shooting twice in very rapid succession, if held or triggered incorrectly. The book probably handles the explanation better than I just did. Now I have to go make a purchase at the book monger, you incredible b\_st\_rd! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079/18 "2003-07-21T03:32:05Z")
Well, in the latest Harry Potter book, it was a _mystery_ to me how Harry could see Venus at half past midnight… The Arthur Clarke short story “Let There Be Light” (one of the Harry Purvis stories) involves an astronomer and foul play using astronomical instruments. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079/19 "2003-07-21T11:52:55Z")
**Jack Vance** wrote a story in the 50’s called _First Star I See Tonight_ which was a murder mystery set at an Observatory. Apart from the sheriff, everybody else was an astronomer, IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079/20 "2003-07-21T12:03:29Z")
One of the stories in the anthology **Sherlock Holmes in Orbit** involves Professor Moriarty and his “Treatise on the Dynamics of an Asteroid”, but I won’t tell you which one. It’s the first thing that came to mind when you mentioned Astronomy and Mysteries. As for others, it’s hard to say. I think you could make a case for Arthur C. Clarke’s short story “Jupiter Five”, and for some of Hal Clement’s stories (See the anthology **The Best of Hal Clement**. (One has a kid trying to navigate using the stars on the moon. Another involves Lagrange Points.) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/astronomy-mystery-novels/189079.md?page=2)