The Company Man

By: Robert Jackson Bennett

Narrated by: Richard Poe

Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's Summary

A trolley car pulls into the station with eleven dead bodies inside. Four minutes before, the inhabitants were seen boarding at the previous station. All are dead. And all of them are union. The year is 1919.

The McNaughton Corporation is the pinnacle of American industry. They built airships that cross the seas. Guns that won the Great War. And above all, the city of Evesden. But something is rotten at the heart of Evesden. Caught between the union and the company, between the police and the victims, Hayes must find the truth behind the city before it kills him.

©2010 Robert Jackson Bennett (P)2011 Recorded Books, LLC

Steampunk Noir - Puts the Punk Back in Steampunk

There’s an argument these days that the “punk” in steampunk is really superfluous – that generally, the genre isn’t punk at all. It's not attempting to rebel against anything. Instead, we get comfortable (often fun) stories dressed up in Victorian clothes. As Cherie Priest succinctly put it, “Steampunk is fun with hats.”

For those of us looking for steampunk with a little more edge and cynicism, steampunk that doesn’t just glorify the fashions or monarchies of the past, we have Robert Jackson Bennett’s The Company Man. Granted, its set a bit later than steampunk usually is, but its façade contains that shiny, retro golden age of science fiction - only with sensibilities and characters that would be at home in Gibson’s Neuromancer.

In the early 1900s, the city of Evesden, Washington has almost become a small country. Thanks to the McNaughton Corporation, electrical cars zip across the street, airships line the sky, and World War I was averted (or at least, with little American casualties and involvement). Of course, other world powers are eager to see what makes McNaughton's inventions tick, and so company security agents are hired with the explicit purpose of keeping the company’s assets and investments secrets, at home and abroad. But when a trolley car pulls into the station filled with dead union workers, the tensions between the union and the company bosses becomes more fraught and dangerous than ever.

Cyril Hayes, the titular company man, hears voices in his head. He’s not quite telepathic, in that people’s minds are not an open book to him, but given the right proximity, he’s granted certain insights into their thoughts. As a result, he doesn't like other people in general, and avoids crowds. Due to some sabotage, McNaughton assigns Samantha Fairbanks to keep Hayes off the booze and drugs that help him get by, and assist him in a number of investigations. As the mysteries pile up, we follow Hayes and Fairbanks through the slums of this supposedly golden city, down into the mysterious, vast tunnels that connect to underground factories, and possibly elsewhere, in a timely noir of corporations and the working man.

In the end, The Company Man really earned my admiration, which was difficult, because it took me a lot longer to get invested in the story and characters than I would’ve liked (at least 3 hours). Hayes is not the most sympathetic character (which is definitely not a crime in my book), but initially I didn't find him all that interesting. That the mysteries he’s investigating at the beginning – a murder and possible union saboteurs – seemed to drag on without much tension probably didn't help. But around the time the grisly trolley car is discovered, it became incredibly compelling. Bennett kept me guessing like a happy X-Files fan about who was conspiring with who, and even what the conspiracy was. Best of all, the revelation of what happened on that macabre trolley ride surprised me, and I found the humanity Bennett gave those events and characters, as well as the closing of the story, genuinely moving.

Richard Poe gives the book a solid, straightforward narration. There’s not a lot of theatrics here, and I think given the tone of the story, it works well. Though it's took me a little while to get into, I think The Company Man is a book that's going to linger with me for some time.

Originally posted at the AudioBookaneers

Mediocre Science Fiction novel wins Edgar award

I was looking for a new mystery writer to try on, so I went to Audible's list of Award Winners and clicked on Edgar Awards. What it says there is the award is for "the best in mystery fiction." And this book was Edgar Award Winner, Best Paperback Original, 2012.

What I got was a science fiction novel, and not a very good one at that. It's a mystery only in that there's a policeman involved with some dead people. Beyond this, the only remaining mystery is what the folks on the Edgar Award committee were thinking.

You know those old sci-fi stories where some super-race comes from a galaxy far far away in the far far distant past of the earth, and affect the course of human civilization? Some times they built the pyramids and left runes with incredible wisdom, other times they planted a sort of time capsule that opens and saves the world in a distant future. Yeah, it's one of those.

The publisher's summary highlights the eleven bodies in the trolley. You think some cop is going to poke around in the seedy underbelly of Evesden, or charge through the boardroom of the McNaughton Corporation, looking for clues and piecing it all together? Nah. This mystery gets solved as a twist on the old what-happens-when-the-wise-aliens'-powers-aren't-handled-right shtick, or something like that. I admit I wasn't paying much attention by the time the explanation came.

Richard Poe is a very good narrator, although he didn't have much to work with here. The story was so lame that I found myself paying more attention to Poe's accents than to the story line. And that's sort of bad news for Mr. Poe, because he doesn't do British all that well. He pronounces "been" as "bean", but that's about it.

It did get me wondering though, why is that when a Brit does a bad American accent it sounds sort of cute and charming, but when an American does a bad Brit accent it sounds pretentious and ... well, stupid?

Oh well. Bottom line, if you're looking for a good mystery, keep looking. And don't assume just because a book wins an award that it deserved it.

Ratings: 2 stars for the story. I used to read a lot of science fiction, and if I had known this was actually sci-fi I would have been more charitable. The younger me might have liked it. But only 1 star overall, because I was deceived.

Deus Ex Machina

SPOILER WARNING
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We start with a murder. Our titular character is a drug addict psychic corporate security guy, paired with a worse-for-wear boyscout detective. The psychic gets a handler, due to being about as professional as most black ops corporate security drug addicts, introducing our innocent character and love interest for the detective. The murder leads to a burgeoning conflict between the Company and the Union…which is obviously just a cover for something. You’d like to think it was related to the Big Mystery, but it’s not.

Things fall apart in the second half.

The Union/Company struggle that’s built up evaporates completely as a manufactured crisis…if even that. Company invents Union. Company wants to embarrass Union and have reason to crack down. Company arms Union with super secret sci-fi guns…rather than just some Enfields and grenades. If you think any of this is important, you’re wrong. It barely even matters to the resolution of the book. Just remember, technological advancement is bad, because of the natural tendency of people to commit convoluted suicide.

Conspirators brought to justice? Nope. Murderer brought to justice? Sad case of exposure carelessly designed alien technology. Sentient machines, the one that couldn’t keep it power under control, mind-warped a kid into a time-displaced psychotic, and was the technological linchpin for the evil company…it’s here to save humanity. Our story is completed with a machine imparting unspecified alien savior wisdom, which will save some small fragment of humanity...in some other story.

The story is just messy. I feel like the author got trapped trying to preach a sermon about the evils of modern society, but didn’t like the idea of going back to horse and buggy, so…alien wisdom! Since the author doesn't appear to have a thesis on what such humanity saving wisdom would be, we don't even get to see a vision of this future. I’d have given this one star, but it really is good prose. The author may be better served by pairing with someone who’s good at plots and cohesive story.

Creepy and Suspenseful

This is one of his weaker books and it’s still worth reading. The characters and plot are fully developed. Narration and production values are also strong. I’ve enjoyed many of Bennett’s books and I intend on eventually reading all of his novels. He’s a great writer with very unique ideas.

Great read!

I liked T Ryder Smith better as narrator for Mr. Shivers, but this was a really solid story. Robert Jackson Bennett is making some waves in the genre.