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.

What happens if you take the classic noir detective story and put it into an American future characterized by perverse pleasure? You get this novel.

First the positive. If you like a traditional tough-guy detective story told in the first person, this has got that. It’s even set in the Bay Area and incorporates all of the necessary elements, damsels in distress, a seductress, tough guys jawing at one another, a morally flawed main character, etc. In fact, early on in the book I thought that I would rate it fairly high simply because Jonathan Lethem had done such a tremendous job of matching the trope. I was particularly taken with his deft touch on the snappy tough-guy repartee, if this were a movie there would be many quotable lines.

That said, I found it a little lacking at points. Frankly there were a few points where the book just lost my attention. These points seemed to be primarily where he left the main detective plot line and immersed the reader in world building. More importantly, I could never quite figure out how the world Lethem created served the story. For instance, you can expect the main character in this type of novel to hit the bottle or have an addiction, but everyone had an addiction and I’m still wondering how, other than occasionally making some people harder to question, that served the story. Another example of this was a series of genetically mutated animals. They were an interesting set of characters to play with and read about, but I can’t say that I felt like they added depth to the plot in anyway, which I see as a strong negative in a murder mystery. There was also a backdrop of Karma Points, which when it was first introduced I thought was an interesting concept, but it just never seemed to go anywhere intriguing.

As I think this through, it seems to me that the writer must have wanted to write a noir detective story, which is cool. Then he decided to place the story in a really funky world and the problem is that the world doesn’t end up facilitating the story, it came off to me as simply arbitrary.

Don’t get me wrong because of the strong first-person narration and appropriate incorporation of the genre’s tropes, it is an entertaining read. It just falls a little flat in the end. My official rating for this is 3.5 stars, but since most sites won’t let you do half a star I’ll click the three star button because I simply do not feel strongly enough about it to make it four stars.

As with all Lethem's books, it's not the story that entertains, it's the writing. His books are all an interesting turn of phrase.

...although, I'm not sure that I would say that it was good. Actually, I think the author may have written this book on a dare. At its heart, the book is a hard-boiled detective story. However, the author seems to go out of his way to insert the most bizarre and unbelievable events and characters into the story for no obvious purpose. As a result, his vision of the future often seems to be more of a joke on the reader than an actual place.

For example, at one point the protagonist goes to visit another detective who had previously done some work on the case. Only the other detective is a monkey. No particular reason. It doesn't really add anything to the story. The detective is just a monkey.

Maybe I'm missing the inner meaning of all the strangeness, but I doubt it. In the end, the plot was fine and characters were fine, but all the goofiness was just distracting.

The story is set in a retro future with land lines, phone books, and specialized cocaine. I loved the silliness and the satire, but it never reached beyond it's genre of noir. It would be fun if this was a series, but its not. It goes to show Lethem's ability to make you feel like there are many other stories to tell in this world, and he paints the picture quickly enough that you can step into it within the first hour.

My favorite aspect of the world were the science experiments the government or powers that be were enacting on the population and how they were almost not vital to the story. Letham is able to use walking talking animals in place of Dick Tracy villains but describes each wrinkle the same way the comic strip did with lots of tiny lines.

The narrator's performance is slow and simple for my taste and often had strange inflection. I think the story would have suited a subtle performance rather than the gum shoe cartoon voice that's used. As with many of noir titles in first person, the narrator's often have gruff voices that make their children and women character voices conjure images of men in drag with fake high pitched voices.

All in all, good fun.

Hammet , Drugs and a Kangaroo

Quaint amusing plot introducing science gone Wrong mutated animal characters it was extremely enjoyable listening to the wonderfully drawn caricatures of the inhabitants of this bay area bizarre family. It was not a story glorifying drugs but rather a scene of the future of psychopharmacology industry It was very well done and it's a shame that it's still not in a series run

The detective, the kangaroo ,the baby heads ,the gorilla and every last other one of the players

I was in shock and awe at how close this came to my InVisioning of the future

Laythan should rearrange his priorities and write this in full series of fun and laughter

There's no denying the quality of Lethem's writing. His mimicry of the hard-boiled, Raymond Chandler type, simile-swinging detective is spot on. The novel's concept is clever and engaging--at first. After the first surprise of discovering the old-fashioned PI juxtaposed with a dystopian society, I found the story gets old, the characters are trite and undeveloped, and I got bored.

Classic Private eye story set in a future where animals have been evolved into creatures that speak and do tasks that humans won't do any more.

How our hero Conrad Metcalf , not only deals with problems but with his addictions to legal drugs That is a part of the story and how he has his own personal blend.

Conrad Metcalf, he really pulled off all the character voices but you really felt Metcalf's angst.

A few laughs and some extreme reactions to some brutal murders but all in all a really good story. Well worth what I paid for it. (got on sale and would still recommend) excellent urban future fantasy.

SPOILER; I would love to see a second book about this character after he get's out of the freeze, in the future.......I hope.

I really enjoyed this book, although it's definitely not for everyone. It's a detective story (very Bogart) set in a world with much like Orwell's "1984". I loved it. The narrator is great!

I wrote this review because I thought the other review was a little harsh. Entertaining book in the Sc-Fi genre. Didn't think the reader did as bad a job as in the previous review.