Gun, with Occasional Music

Gun, with Occasional Music is the perfect off-balance title for this novel. Its tightrope walk of the really weird and the really normal was a lot of fun. Predictable in the extreme though and that’s why the ½ point deduction. The adherence to the noir detective novel was textbook. The opening scene featured a shabby PI in his shabby office. A little aside involving the phone and calling his own number to make sure it still worked was right out of the Chandler/Spillane handbook. In a way it was fun to see how many of the clichés he could hit and he pretty much hit all of them. The temping dames. The double-crosses. The menacing cops. The beatings. All there and in perfect order.

The elements of the dystopian future were quite show more unsettling. I wondered how society or commerce could function at all with people loading up on state-sanctioned Forgettal and Acceptal (laced with appropriate amounts of Addictal). At first, people had to employ notepads to keep track of vital details like their names and addresses. How the hell could they remember their jobs? Jokes of one surgeon asking another if he remembered where the appendix is went through my head like lightning. Crazy. When the PI wakes from his 6-year freezing sentence, the blend has switched to pure Forgettal with an Addictal boost.

All of this to keep the Karma quotient high and functioning. Mandated good acts force everyone to keep their karma card with them at all times. Irritated Inquisitors (now that name dredges up some interesting ideas and a bit of Monty Python) can deduct karma points at will and without valid reason. Get too low and you can be hauled away for freezing or electronics-induced slavery in one of the many flesh emporiums that are always hungry for new bodies.

News is no longer delivered with any rational sense. Your first dose is a musical rendition of the news. Philip Glass channeling Walter Cronkite I guess. Exactly what you were supposed to glean from this is anyone’s guess. If you really needed more, you could listen to the talking heads spout nonsense. All I could think of was that beer commercial with the news crew who just wants to break for a cold one. The anchor looks into the camera and says something like “Europe” , “The Economy” and “The President”, the weather girl says “Sunny!” and the sports guy says “16 to 10”, “76 to 64” and “tied” and then they scatter. That must be what the spoken news is like because ideas are verboten and printing is outlawed. In the end, even questions and speech are karma reducing offenses that no one indulges in anymore. What a world for a PI to have to live in. Luckily he has his Forgettal. show less

This is tasty futuristic/dystopian noir. It has several of the revolting aspects that make noir darker and seedier than "crime stories." There are things that the story hints at that makes astute readers want to pump the brakes. Such points are real risks that the author took, and I can appreciate that. (Example, what are these evolved animals and how corrupt are the physical interactions these future humans have with them? Taboos and immorality and...and. Are they still brutes if they talk and think and such? Maybe it's a good thing the author left some of this open ended and vague.)

The detective story: a private investigator who is a real louse anyway, gets a case that ends up terribly. Like a good noir story, nobody is saved. It's a show more bad day for everyone.

But the writing is somehow utterly engaging and the world-building with its strangeness is so curious.....

With more payoffs on a few of the elements, this is easily a five star read. Instead, some of the elements just seem too pointless. And this is certainly NOT a novel for *every* reader. It's a bit repulsive at points. But not gore...just cringe. Not crass. Just cringe. All noir (the streets flow with powder and gin). show less

Hard-boiled detective novel mixed with some dystopian/sci-fi.

Conrad Metcalf is a private inquisitor (private investigator). His current case is shadowing his client's wife. But then his client is murdered and the whole case takes a dark turn.

The underlying detective story is pretty straightforward. The twist in this book are the sci-fi aspects.

- Scientists have learned how to force animals to evolve. Many of the characters in the books are animals who are essentially human. They walk, talk, work, wear clothes. But they're still treated as animals and can be owned. Killing one isn't considered murder.

- Similarly science has learned how to force babies to mature very quickly, but only mentally. Physically and emotionally they remain show more babies/toddlers, and are referred to as Baby Heads. It's a seriously weird aspect to the book.

- Everyone is addicted to a drug called "Make" issued for free by the government. This drug is snorted like cocaine, and causes people to forget or accept anything and everything.

- Society is run by Inquisors (police) who are all powerful, accountable to no one and completely corrupt.

- Each individual has a karma card, where good deeds increase karma and bad deeds decrease karma. Once you're out of karma, that's it - your body is frozen and put into storage.

Most of the sci-fi elements fit into the overall detective story. But honestly I have no idea why we're presented with the evolved animals and Baby Heads. Taking them out wouldn't really change this story. This was one of the author's early works and it feels like he was experimenting with some ideas - and this book feels like it may have been building a character and universe as the first book in a series. But no series follows, so we're left with some oddly introduced elements to the story.

The whole book has a snarky and cynical humor running through it which makes some of the dystopian elements feel funny. show less

The style and voice and plot are pure Raymond Chandler, set in a weird future of talking kangaroos and mind-altering drugs. It's a wild ride that's largely successful, though not as ambitious as other futuristic genre mash-ups (for example, China Mieville's The City and The City), in part because it hews pretty closely to a standard Chandler-esque plot and in part because the futuristic elements aren't quite as developed. Still, there are moments of sheer brilliance here.

This was one hell of a trip. If you're into the whole noir-style smart-mouthed jaded detective thing, this hits that note really well, but the near-future world it's set in takes everything to a whole new level. Reminds me a little of The Big Sheep, another novel heavily influenced by Raymond Chandler and Philip K. Dick. I loved both novels, but Gun feels a bit less like self-conscious parody, I'd say. It has a lot to say about society at large, not just the sort of low-life characters who caught up in murder mysteries.

I can't believe I allowed this gem to languish so long. This is noir set in the near-distant future with a cast of characters which includes "evolved" animals ranging from Joey the kangaroo, a vicious thug, to sweet Dulcie the ewe, not to mention "evolved" babies, the Babyheads. P. I. (Private Inquisitor, not Private Investigator; in this future the only people who can ask questions are Inquisitors, Private or Government), Conrad Metcalf has been hired by a man accused of murder (and about to be "frozen" for that crime) to prove his innocence. Conrad must conduct his investigation in a world where everyone, including himself, relies on drugs with varying proportions of Forgetterol, Regreterol, Acceptol, Avoidol etc. etc., but always show more with a heaping dose of Addictol. Everyone must also carry a card showing their "Karma" number, which is constantly subject to reduction by government inquisitors.

What a unique and utterly cohesive world Lethem has created and what a unique genre--sci fi, dystopian, noir?--whatever--it totally works. The tone, too, is unique--depressing but funny. I totally loved this book. Highly recommended.

4 1/2 stars show less

I loved this. It is Lethem's debut novel, and it is so original and quirky that it is amazing that he manages to pull it all off. I will stick with my original description of the novel - Like Raymond Chandler and Philip K. Dick wrote a book together that was then edited by Lewis Carroll. Dystopian with a noir feel. And talking animals. I only wish there were a sequel.