Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

This is our discussion of the short story....

"To Catch an Actor" by Blair C. Babylon

From the scifi anthology Dark Beyond the Stars, part of our discussion of Dark Beyond the Stars anthology.

The title seems to be a take off on the old adage, "it takes a thief to catch a thief." Apparently in the future it also takes an actor to catch an actor.

In the future, celebrities traveler circled around the galaxy at near lightspeed going from one inhabited planet to another. Thanks to relativity they none seemed ages fast as the rest of the population, which somehow keeps the more popular? I don't know, but no matter.

An actor returns to assist him where almost a century ago he was the prime suspect in a murder. A current detective (who wasn't even alive at the time of the crime) conducts the classic police interview, attempting to extract a confession. Entire story takes place in the interrogation room.

The story is OK. Nothing really special, but certainly entertaining enough.

I thought the idea behind the story was interesting. Multigenerational justice and how to interview a person who's been genetically enhanced to lie convincingly. Admittedly there wasn't any real action in the story but I enjoyed the process of working out the truth of the crime.

Michael wrote: "I thought the idea behind the story was interesting. Multigenerational justice and how to interview a person who's been genetically enhanced to lie convincingly...."

Good point. I may not have given the author enough credit for the idea of a multi-generational criminal justice system where flying off to another star system at relativistic speeds isn't sufficient to evade the long arm of the law.