“No One Can Admit It Doesn’t Work”

This article examines the hybridization of science fiction (sf) and detective fiction (df) as a literary reflection of spatial and epistemological instability. Analyzing three contemporary sf-df hybrids—China Miéville’s The City & the City (2009), Adam Roberts’s The Real-Town Murders (2017), and Malka Older’s The Mimicking of Known Successes (2023)—it explores how these texts use both genres to highlight the entanglement of spatial ontology (physical space) and spatial epistemology (the perception and understanding of space). Furthermore, by employing sf’s spatial novums alongside df’s spatial mysteries, these texts present spatial boundaries as malleable, open to manipulation through misinformation and conspiracy. In all three texts, the mystery plots destabilize the fictional worlds’ spatial rules, uncovering conspiracies orchestrated by figures of institutional authority. In this, the narratives reflect contemporary concerns about the erosion of trust in traditional systems of knowledge and power. This study demonstrates how sf-df hybrids engage with the precarities of space, knowledge, and power, resonating with the experiences of readers navigating an increasingly fragmented and uncertain world.