Long Arm Gil Hamilton

This is a collection of three stories. It is funny to read a detective story set in the science fiction world. A nice afterword by Mr. Niven explains this and more. Mr Hamilton is an agent for Amalgamated Regional Militias (ARM, of course). But, in an interesting oddity, he lost an arm in an accident and gained an ethereal arm (psychokinetic), as well as a replacement from some dead person. 'Death by Ecstasy' is a future drug use story. An associate of Mr. Hamilton is found dead in a room by himself. There were enough oddities that Mr. Hamilton and the regular police detective were suspicious that it might be murder. It is a 'locked room' mystery: no one could get in or out, so how ws it done? They figure it out and get the bad guy. I seem to remember something like this in another story. I just do not remember that it was this story. 'The Defenseless Dead' develops the theme of using dead or near dead people for spare parts for living people, like arms, livers, retinas, etc. There are legal and illegal sources of these organs and most of Mr. Hamilton's working time is used in finding the illegal organ suppliers. In this story he is trying to figure out why one of those folks would shoot at him. This leads him to another mystery: why were two kids kidnapped a couple of years ago, what happened to them and are they to be attacked again? 'Arm' investigates the death of a rich inventor because he was working on a device that could be used as a weapon. It is another 'locked room' mystery.

I loved this book! It's actually a collection of three stories centered around ARM (Amalgamation of Regional Militia) agent Gilbert Gilgamesh Hamilton (Gil The Arm). Born in Topeka, Kansas, to Flatlander parents near the end of the 21st century, he emigrates to the Belt as soon as he becomes an adult. There he begins work on an arduous ten year apprenticeship towards the acquisition of his singleship licence. During this time he works as a member of small multi-person crews. After completing several successful trips, Gil loses his right arm. While attempting to move an asteroid with explosives, crew leader "Cubes" Forsythe miscalculates, which results in the destruction of the valuable rock. A fast moving piece of shrapnel penetrates the ship, slicing off Gil's arm and killing Forsythe instantly. The remaining crewmember, Owen Jennison, quickly seals the hull breach, stops Gil's bleeding, and manages to get him to life-saving medical facilities in time. While recouperating from his injury, Gil broods over his future as a Belter. Their ship is missing a crew member, Gil is missing an arm, and Owen's reputation is ruined due to the fact that he took (what Belters consider) unacceptable risks to get Gil back to safety. In the low gravity of Ceres base, Gil discovers that he has a psi power. His brain, still remembering the "image" of his lost arm, can use it much as he did his own arm. He could feel and manipulate objects via ESP and telekinesis, respectively. Finding a third crewman, Homer Chandrasekhar, they make several highly profitable trips over the following year. Gil finds his "imaginary arm", though not strong, to be an asset, as he can reach through walls, and accomplish tasks beyond the ability of a normal person. After six months, Gil has earned enough to repay all his medical fees, with a comfortable cash reserve left over. Despite much disapproval from Owen and Homer, Gil decides to return to Earth and seek to get his citizenship back. On Earth, he can easily get a transplant to replace his missing arm. In the Belt he would have to pay exorbitantly high fees for a transplant, or settle for a prosthetic. Gil, by a quirk of his own nature, can not live with a prosthetic. Gil receives his new arm, but finds he can still dissociate his imaginary arm from his real one, and reach through walls, flesh, and even vidphone screens. Shortly afterward, Gil finds out that his new arm had not come from a condemned criminal as he had hoped, but from the captured stock of "organleggers", black market dealers in illicit organ transplants. To make amends, Gil joins the ARM, the elite global police force. As an ARM, Hamilton is a high-tech detective, who hunts organleggers and other criminals for a living. With his unusual psi power, he is formidable and highly feared among his enemies.

I read this book years ago and have ever after searched to find this kind of cleverness. What we have here are locked door mysteries set in the future. An ARM (Amalgamated Regional Militia), the police force of the United Nations, detective named Gil Hamilton solves mysteries that seem unsolvable. The extra added is that Gil , who lost an arm in a space accident was given a new arm, but comes to find that his lost arm is not entirely missing. What he's left with is a telekinetic arm that can sense things and manipulate light objects. Great stuff. The stories are a bit dated but the cleverness shines through. Niven reprised Gil Hamilton in "The Woman in Del Rey Crater" (1995, Flatlander)) but stated that he will not write any future stories because the locked door scenarios are too difficult to create. I recommend this book all the time hoping that someone will tell me of an author that can top it. So far no one has. But just in case you are better read than my friends - let me know what you think. [email protected] caslo

Good mysteries are very hard to write. The puzzle is either too simple and the reader solves it long before the story ends, or the puzzle is too hard and the reader ends up feeling cheated. Finding the right balance is hard, which is why so many mysteries are unreadable, formula-driven hack jobs. Trying to write a good mystery in a science fiction setting is even harder because the background sociology, technology, history, and settings all need to be explained in a way that does not bore the reader to tears, and still allows the story's puzzle to be at the right level. This is a lot harder than it sounds and only a few authors have been able to pull it off. Larry Niven is one of the few. "The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton" is composed of three novellas about Gil "the Arm" Hamilton, a detective operating the 22nd century Los Angeles. The stories are strong and, with the exception of the third story, the characters are believable. All of the clues needed to solve each mystery are in place long before the story ends, but solving the puzzle requires thinking outside the box. The problems with these stories are the same as the problems with most of Niven's pre-Pournelle writings: the writing is bad and the society that he describes is a 1960s version of southern Californian university life transported into the future. It does not feel dated as much as it feels immature. The bad writing, however, is more than made up for by the steady flow of interesting ideas that Niven gives the reader. There are better mysteries, and there is better science fiction, but "The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton" is one of the best fusions of these two genres in print.

Gil "the arm" Hamilton, named so because of his prosthetic arm, and the strange telekinetic ability he has that was developed after he lost his real arm and before the replacement, is a detective for ARM, the United Nations police force. The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton is a few stories of deduction and logic involving weird technologies, monstrous crimes as well as equally monstrous punishments in a world obsessed with staying young at the expense of everyone else. Very cool addendum to the Known Space Series.