Standalone Novels
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Tomorrow and Tomorrow | 2014 | Buy |
| The Gone World | 2018 | Buy |
Tom Sweterlitsch is a Pittsburgh-based science fiction author who has published two novels. Before becoming a full-time writer, he worked at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh for over a decade. Both of his books are set against a backdrop of sci-fi concepts but read more like noir thrillers, with investigators piecing together dark mysteries.
His debut, Tomorrow and Tomorrow (2014), takes place in a future where Pittsburgh has been destroyed by a nuclear attack. The protagonist, Dominic, spends his time exploring a massive digital archive that recreates the city as it was before the blast, and he stumbles onto evidence of a murder that no one else noticed. The Gone World (2018) is about a Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent named Shannon Moss who uses secret government time-travel technology to investigate a sailor’s murder and the disappearance of his family.
Both novels are heavily rooted in Pittsburgh and share Sweterlitsch’s fascination with how technology warps our relationship to the past. The Gone World in particular received strong critical attention and drew comparisons to the work of Philip K. Dick and the television series True Detective. Sweterlitsch writes slowly, but his two books have built him a loyal following among readers who like their science fiction mixed with crime fiction.