Today’s links Rebecca Roque’s “Till Human Voices Wake Us”: A brilliant technorealist teen thriller/murder mystery. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2004, 2014, 2019, 2023 Upcoming appearances: Where to find me. Recent appearances: Where I’ve been. Latest books: You keep readin’ em, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Colophon: All the rest. Rebecca Roque’s “Till Human Voices Wake Us” (permalink) “Till Human Voices Wake Us” is Rebecca Roque’s debut novel: it’s a superb teen thriller, intricately plotted and brilliantly executed, packed with imaginative technological turns that amp up the tension and suspense: https://www.blackstonepublishing.com/till-human-voices-wake-us-gn3a.html#541=2790108 Modern technology presents a serious problem for a thriller writer. Once characters can call or text one another, a whole portfolio of suspense-building gimmicks – like the high-speed race across town – just stop working. For years, thriller writers contrived implausible – but narratively convenient – ways to go on using these tropes. Think of the shopworn “damn, my phone is out of battery/range just when I need it the most”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIZVcRccCx0 When that fails, often writers just lean into the “idiot plot” – a plot that only works because the characters are acting like idiots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot_plot But even as technology was sawing a hole in the suspense writer’s bag of tricks, shrewd suspense writers were cooking up a whole new menu of clever ways to build suspense in ways that turn on the limitations and capabilities of technology. One pioneer of this was Iain…Pluralistic: Rebecca Roque's "Till Human Voices Wake Us" (16 Apr 2024)