Define Containing Books Gun, With Occasional Music
| Title | : | Gun, With Occasional Music |
| Author | : | Jonathan Lethem |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 271 pages |
| Published | : | September 1st 2003 by Mariner Books (first published March 1994) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Science Fiction. Mystery. Noir. Crime |
Jonathan Lethem
Paperback | Pages: 271 pages Rating: 3.78 | 9503 Users | 961 Reviews
Rendition Concering Books Gun, With Occasional Music
Gumshoe Conrad Metcalf has problems—there's a rabbit in his waiting room and a trigger-happy kangaroo on his tail. Near-future Oakland is a brave new world where evolved animals are members of society, the police monitor citizens by their karma levels, and mind-numbing drugs such as Forgettol and Acceptol are all the rage. Metcalf has been shadowing Celeste, the wife of an affluent doctor. Perhaps he's falling a little in love with her at the same time. When the doctor turns up dead, our amiable investigator finds himself caught in a crossfire between the boys from the Inquisitor's Office and gangsters who operate out of the back room of a bar called the Fickle Muse. Mixing elements of sci-fi, noir, and mystery, this clever first novel from the author of Motherless Brooklyn is a wry, funny, and satiric look at all that the future may hold.
List Books To Gun, With Occasional Music
| Original Title: | Gun, with Occasional Music |
| ISBN: | 0156028972 (ISBN13: 9780156028974) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Setting: | Oakland, California(United States) |
| Literary Awards: | Nebula Award Nominee for Best Novel (1994), Locus Award for Best First Novel (1995), IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award (1995), SF Chronicle Award Nominee for Best Novel (1995), Tähtivaeltaja Award (2002) |
Rating Containing Books Gun, With Occasional Music
Ratings: 3.78 From 9503 Users | 961 ReviewsCommentary Containing Books Gun, With Occasional Music
Gum-shoe Conrad Metcalf is a Private Inquisitor, once an Inquisitor (Police with wide ranging & draconian powers), who consolidate their power to completely control the populace at large. Their powers are such that media is rigidly controlled to the extent that newspapers carry photos only (no text) & even the photos promote the successes of the Inquisitors in keeping order, the cases real & imagined. The populace are further controlled by drugs, free of charge. Although there areLike Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs, this is detective story set in scifi setting with some dystopian flavor (all descendent of Asimov's Baley-Olivaw)--that makes it part of the nerd-boiled sub-genre.I suppose nerd-boiled fiction isn't really for me. It's got some cool ideas (articulate animals & infants, lotsa creative narcotics, Hindu ideas for law enforcement), but generally it appears that it solves dystopian fiction's universal problem of slick setting/stupid story by superimposing the
I wanted to like this book, I really did. A nice little mixture of the standard down-on-his-luck detective story and the dystopian science fiction future setting, with some humor mixed in - what's not to like, right? Sadly, it turns out there isn't much I can say for it. Lethem gives us this cobbled-together society with evolved animals, "evolved" babies, this wonderful mixture of government-issue chemicals that pretty much everyone imbibes with regularity, and a karma-tracking system - but why?
When down and out private inquisitor Conrad Metcalf's last client turns up dead, Metcalf takes up the case to find out who killed him. Can he find the killer before he runs out of karma and winds up in the deep freeze?If Raymond Chandler and Philip K. Dick spent an evening together doing hard drugs, this would be the book that would result. Lethem weaves together the sci-fi and noir elements together so tightly that an evolved kangaroo doesn't seem out of place after his first appearance.The
Sometimes its better not to think in questions, but I cant seem to get out of the habit. Jonathan Lethem, Gun, With Occasional Music Science fiction slams into a hard-boiled, noir pulp (imagine 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' written by Chandler and directed by David Lynch'). Fun, quick and in parts even close to brilliant. Lethem is one of those writers I'd stamp with "Most Likely To Disappoint Me". He has a ton of potential, but far too often I see that potential sizzle away. Most of that energy,
A first rate hard boiled detective story that throws in some intriguing elements of speculative fiction to create something special.Starting out, it could just be another hard boiled detective story about a down and out PI on a murder case involving some sketchy characters and a crime syndicate. Yet, Lethem slowly peels back the layers on a world that grows ever more bizarre. Some of this could be considered window dressing - genetically "evolved" sentient animals and "babyheads"; inanimate
For the truly sick individuals that pay attention to my meanderings on Goodreads, you'll note that I frequently take notes as I'm reading. Except when I don't. And I didn't, much, while reading this. Why? Because 1) I was too engrossed in the story, 2) things happened so fast that I didn't have time to process them, and 3) I have no good way of actually conveying what I thought as I read. So, "why", you ask "are you even writing this review, Forrest?" - because: Duty. You see, back in 2017, I
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