Gun Machine

By: Warren Ellis

Narrated by: Reg E. Cathey

Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

Warren Ellis reimagines New York City as a puzzle with the most dangerous pieces of all: guns.

After a shootout claims the life of his partner in a condemned tenement building on Pearl Street, Detective John Tallow unwittingly stumbles across an apartment stacked high with guns. When examined, each weapon leads to a different, previously unsolved murder. Someone has been killing people for 20 years or more and storing the weapons together for some inexplicable purpose.

Confronted with the sudden emergence of hundreds of unsolved homicides, Tallow soon discovers that he's walked into a veritable deal with the devil. An unholy bargain that has made possible the rise of some of Manhattan's most prominent captains of industry. A hunter who performs his deadly acts as a sacrifice to the old gods of Manhattan, who may, quite simply, be the most prolific murderer in New York City's history.

Warren Ellis's body of work has been championed by Wired for its "merciless action" and "incorruptible bravery", and steadily amassed legions of diehard fans. His newest audiobook builds on his accomplishments like never before, announcing Ellis as one of today's most daring thriller writers. This is 21st-century suspense writ large. This is Gun Machine.

©2012 Warren Ellis (P)2012 Hachette Audio

Hard-edged neo-noir

Gun Machine is an eerie tale of serial murder over several decades, a tale that spins a web of history and police corruption around its protagonist. Warren Ellis is among the smartest and most inventive writers of the new millennium. Here he handles a new genre with his typical ease, with characteristic descriptiveness and intensity. Reg Cathey's gravelly narration is perfect for a gritty noir story like this. If the book has a fault it's that it builds to what feels like something of an abrupt stop at the end, but it'll definitely keep you listening right up to that end.

se7en turned up to e11even.

Any additional comments?

Gun Machine is a dense and fast-paced work, which is perhaps expected from a author who traditionally writes comics and graphic novels, but what most struck me was how complex the characters were and the attention to agency and venue (how they modulated their personalities based on their company, location and situation). It really became apparent in Talia's house, but is seen throughout and is quite remarkable. Similarly this story is a great example of umwelten (overlapping, unique environments created by the perceptions of the characters). Serial killer novels rely heavily archetypes and Warren Ellis does a superb job rendering both the damaged hero and killer's method, mythology and madness.

All-around meh

While I love the narrator as an actor, his reading was a bit flat and made it incredibly difficult to distinguish between characters. Incidentally, the story wasn't very "thrilling," which is what I'd been led to believe. Not terrible, not great.

Great little thriller! Well done!!

I was very pleased with Ellis’ Gun Machine. I picked up “Crooked Little Vein” first after seeing an ad for it in the back of a Warren Ellis TPB comic. “Crooked…” was good but a l little disjointed and rushed with poor character development.
“Gun Machine” was an excellent detective/thriller that read like a modern day pulp fiction novel full of dark humor and constantly seething/brooding police telling everyone to “f*** off”.
Not a novella, but not too long. It’s well written and full of action/engaging dialogue from start to finish. The narration was good. His deep voice is well suited to the 2 main characters (detective and “the Hunter”.
I particularly enjoyed the Hunter’s POV, especially when he’s scraping together trash to fashion weapons and all the things he does to avoid detection in NYC.
To me it read like a screenplay. I think it would make an excellent film.
Anyone who likes detective thrillers will enjoy this.

Gun Machine good could have been better.

What made the experience of listening to Gun Machine the most enjoyable?

The performance of the reader was the highlight of the book.

Would you recommend Gun Machine to your friends? Why or why not?

I would recommend this book to some of my friends who are fans of the detective story but don't get caught up in the "thats not how things are really done." mind set.

What does Reg E. Cathey bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Mr, Cathey performance was great. His voice was able to bring a gritty feeling that am not sure was actually on the page but fit the book well.

Any additional comments?

Overall the book is good. The themes and imagery are fantastic. Weaving in the history of NYC was really cool. Being rather familiar with guns, police procedure and the language of law enforcement. I found some of the elements and language a little odd the characters often refer to them selves or others as "a police" instead of saying cop for example " he was an old school police". Just to nit pick a little some of the gun stuff is just plane wrong at one point a character extracted black powder from 9mm cases, modern firearms use smokeless powder, black powder is used in old school guns like flintlocks and old west era firearms, its not the kind of gun powder you will find in the rounds fired from a pistol made after the 1920's. To be fair most authors don't get gun stuff right either. Overall I enjoyed the book the story was decent but in the end it was a little too familiar and it was not as satisfying as I was hoping for.

Ellis Just Keeps Getting Better and Better

Tighter and more grounded than his previous novel, Crooked Little Vein, there is still plenty of the Warren Ellis outrageousness we know and love. This is an excellent, quick, fun read. Highly recommended.

New Wave Noir

What made the experience of listening to Gun Machine the most enjoyable?

Pretty darn good, gritty, hardboiled, noir detective story with a hint of scifi. Feels like The Wire meets Se7en, with a little William Gibson on the side, a scene or two evocative of Robocop and Silence of the Lambs, and a history lesson that nods to a Neal Stephenson approach. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and look forward to more from this author.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

While the reader's voice was certainly well matched to the "gritty and hard boiled" feel of the novel, the voice characterizations were all too similar and inflected in such a way that I had a hard time differentiating the cast of characters. For the "movie in my head" a Denzel Washington as from Book of Eli or Man on Fire would be perfect in the lead, but the rest of the cast can't all be "the black guy from The Wire" (relax, that's a joke - the reader Reg Cathey is just that). I am just saying that all of the voices sound the same, and you have to pay very close attention to the he-saids to follow some of the dialog. Bronson Pinchot (reader for Matterhorn) on the other hand, for example, disappears into his characters, of many ethnicities and regional dialects, without even a trace of Balki. PLEASE DON'T LET THAT STOP YOU it's definitely a great story and worth a listen or read.

Any additional comments?

Plenty of blood and graphic violence, if that's not your bag.

Amazing

If you're a movie fan, Reg E. Cathey sounds like a dead ringer for Eric Roberts in Pope of Greenwich Village. This is an amazing story, with a perfect marriage of author and narrator. What a great ride.

FANTASTIC.

Exactly what I look for in a great audiobook- a perfect voice actor for the story- plus characters that make you want whole books about them and a tale where the city is as alive as the killer and the detective hunting him. Not too shabby.

great build up, no pay off

Would you try another book from Warren Ellis and/or Reg E. Cathey?

The book started out amazingly.Great hook, some tragedy. Solid character building. The second act brought in some wonderful supporting characters and plot twists that only dragged you deeper into the story. The third act took all of that and chucked it in the bin leaving you with a rehashed and somewhat cliched police procedural. Such a let down from an amazing build up. I can not recommend this book because of that third act.