Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Harvest Books (2003), Edition: First, 269 pages
Description
Fantasy. Fiction. HTML: Gumshoe Conrad Metcalf has problems-not the least of which are the rabbit in his waiting room and the trigger-happy kangaroo on his tail. Near-future Oakland is an ominous place where evolved animals function as members of society, the police monitor citizens by their karma levels, and mind-numbing drugs such as Forgettol and Acceptol are all the rage. In this brave new world, Metcalf has been shadowing the wife of an affluent doctor, perhaps falling a little in love with her at the same time. But when the doctor turns up dead, our amiable investigator finds himself caught in the crossfire in a futuristic world that is both funny-and not so funny..
Media reviews
A final note: one might expect that it would be hard to immerse oneself in a novel filled with such outré characters and settings, but that wasn’t the case for me. I fell right in. I don’t know why I’ve not read more Lethem.
User reviews
LibraryThing member elenchus
Gun, with Occasional Music remained on my shelves decades after my first reading. I did not recall specifics, but the premise remained enticing, probably in much the same way I first was persuaded to buy it. Lethem's plot and dialogue follow the gumshoe trope of distracting the reader: they carried
There was nothing to it. The Super Chief was on time, as it almost always is, and the subject was as easy to spot as a kangaroo in a dinner jacket.
The setting, meantime, works on a parallel track: a future dystopia, unclear how far in the future, unstated but presumably our own United States. Like the Chandler epigraph, Lethem does well not to say too much about it, nor about his world except in dribs and drabs. This layer of textual commentary rides shotgun while the shamus goes about his rounds, sketching out the generic reality the detective lives in, and later, the one it evolves into. The sci-fi alternative reality starts out amusingly different from our own, takes a turn, and ends up feeling uncomfortably familiar.
It's a quick read, the barest suggestion of an alien landscape, and all in all, worth keeping in my library for another couple decades.
Show More
me along effortlessly, the banter and interactions among characters amusing, the clues and case developments holding my attention. There was nothing to it. The Super Chief was on time, as it almost always is, and the subject was as easy to spot as a kangaroo in a dinner jacket.
The setting, meantime, works on a parallel track: a future dystopia, unclear how far in the future, unstated but presumably our own United States. Like the Chandler epigraph, Lethem does well not to say too much about it, nor about his world except in dribs and drabs. This layer of textual commentary rides shotgun while the shamus goes about his rounds, sketching out the generic reality the detective lives in, and later, the one it evolves into. The sci-fi alternative reality starts out amusingly different from our own, takes a turn, and ends up feeling uncomfortably familiar.
It's a quick read, the barest suggestion of an alien landscape, and all in all, worth keeping in my library for another couple decades.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jorgearanda
Fantastic dialogue. Follows all the conventions of noir, except of course for the inclusion of karma points as a means to control society, the monstrously adult babies, and the bad-mouthed, gun-happy kangaroo.
LibraryThing member Bookmarque
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
The elements of the dystopian future were quite 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 is Forgettal.
Show More
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 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 is Forgettal.
Show Less
LibraryThing member sturlington
The conceit is an interesting one: a hard-boiled detective story set in a near future where “evolved” talking, dressed, career-driven animals are the norm, punishment for crimes consists of cold storage (literally), and asking questions is terribly rude unless you have an investigator’s
Show More
license. However, the execution leaves a little to be desired. Why wouldn’t an evolved animal, such as a kangaroo, make use of its assets more when in a tight spot, such as those killer feet? What significance does crime-solving have in a world where you can forget the day’s events by snorting the legal and encouraged drug Forgettol? Or maybe the hard-boiled detective novel doesn’t really hold my interest under any circumstances. Regardless, this one is entertaining enough for a throwaway novel, which is all it aims to be. Show Less
LibraryThing member edgeworth
Book reviews can be difficult, which is why a lot of mine are so amateurish. A professional critic will, without fail, hold a book up to the author’s previous works, examine it through the prism of the zeitgeist, or compare it to works that examine similar themes. Ideally all three. I often
Gun With Occasional Music is a surreal, genre-blending tale of a hardboiled private eye in a dystopian future California. Most of the populace is high on government-supplied, mind-controlling drugs, various species of animals have been evolved to a sapient level, and citizens are all issued with “karma” on their ID cards, which will land them in cryogenic freezing if they reach zero for various petty offences.
It’s clear that this is not, from the outset, a properly realised science fiction world. The sci-fi flairs have about as much substance to them as the average pulp detective story. Lethem definitely nails that part on the head, at least – his prose perfectly captures the cynical and depressing world of the private detective, and the protagonist, Conrad Metcalf, is an admirably pathetic loser who’s always ready with a flippant retort. It reminded me of Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, in the sense that the familiar trappings served as a solid rock for the reader amid a more unfamiliar setting. It was just pulled off with less style and less sense of purpose. (To be fair, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union was written at the height of Chabon’s career, whereas Gun With Occasional Music was Lethem’s first novel).
This is not a bad book, but it’s largely forgettable, and I spent a lot of it wondering why Lethem didn’t just write a hardboiled detective novel. His future dystopia is so thinly sketched out that I often felt like it was a tongue-in-cheek allegory for something, but I’m damned if I can figure out what. In any case, even if he wasn’t a prominent novelist nowadays, the gift for prose that he clearly exhibits in Gun With Occasional Music would be enough for me to read his next novel despite this one’s failings.
Show More
wonder where some of these critics, who are often only in their 30s, found the time to have a thorough background in the classics and still speak with authority about the new field of fiction released every year. This is why, when I read a new author, I often feel like I should start with their very first book. I usually don’t, because most writers take a while to hit their stride (see: Peter Carey’s Bliss) but if the concept seems interesting enough – and if it’s an author I want to read, rather than one I just feel obligated to read – I’ll start with their first book.Gun With Occasional Music is a surreal, genre-blending tale of a hardboiled private eye in a dystopian future California. Most of the populace is high on government-supplied, mind-controlling drugs, various species of animals have been evolved to a sapient level, and citizens are all issued with “karma” on their ID cards, which will land them in cryogenic freezing if they reach zero for various petty offences.
It’s clear that this is not, from the outset, a properly realised science fiction world. The sci-fi flairs have about as much substance to them as the average pulp detective story. Lethem definitely nails that part on the head, at least – his prose perfectly captures the cynical and depressing world of the private detective, and the protagonist, Conrad Metcalf, is an admirably pathetic loser who’s always ready with a flippant retort. It reminded me of Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, in the sense that the familiar trappings served as a solid rock for the reader amid a more unfamiliar setting. It was just pulled off with less style and less sense of purpose. (To be fair, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union was written at the height of Chabon’s career, whereas Gun With Occasional Music was Lethem’s first novel).
This is not a bad book, but it’s largely forgettable, and I spent a lot of it wondering why Lethem didn’t just write a hardboiled detective novel. His future dystopia is so thinly sketched out that I often felt like it was a tongue-in-cheek allegory for something, but I’m damned if I can figure out what. In any case, even if he wasn’t a prominent novelist nowadays, the gift for prose that he clearly exhibits in Gun With Occasional Music would be enough for me to read his next novel despite this one’s failings.
Show Less
LibraryThing member mathrocks
As others have written, this is a sci-fi noir detective novel, complete with intelligent animals and Raymond Chandler cliches in a dystopian future. One is reminded of Philip Dick, William Gibson, and Roger Rabbit, all in the voice of a nouveau Raymond Chandler. Apart from being outrageous and fun,
This is one of Lethem's better books.
Show More
one also thinks of it as warning about how quickly the world can change, and not for the better. One of the most novel ideas is that in this future it is forbidden to ask questions, except for police and the rare private eye. This is one of Lethem's better books.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Ruskoley
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
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 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 More
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 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
LibraryThing member sriddell
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.
- 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 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.
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.
Show More
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 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
LibraryThing member Venarain
I must be missing something, because I found this book silly, boring and frustrating. I stuck through it because I had so many questions about the world the author created.
What are 'babyheads'? Are they baby bodies with adult brains? Do the grow up? Why would people want a babyhead? Why are they
On top of all these questions, the characters were either incoherent with unexplained motivations or caricatures for any hard boiled detective story you've ever read.
What are 'babyheads'? Are they baby bodies with adult brains? Do the grow up? Why would people want a babyhead? Why are they
Show More
angry? Why would smart animals be useful if they are basically just acting as more humans? If the office takes karma away, who gives it? Are you always watched and some central office gives karma? If so, how does Metcalf get away with so much?On top of all these questions, the characters were either incoherent with unexplained motivations or caricatures for any hard boiled detective story you've ever read.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Nodosaurus
This is a science fiction-mystery-noir-humor story with a hard-boiled detective, I think I missed a category.
The setting is poorly defined and that is part of the reader’s exploration. Conrad Metcalf is a detective, a private inquisitor in a world where (not-private) inquisitors spy on people
Society has created intelligent animals, educated babies and a few gadgets. These are revealed slowly through the book.
At the beginning, the book felt like a detective noir story, it read like a Raymond Chandler story. Conrad is approached by a man panicked, being framed for a murder and no means of payment and low on credits. During the investigation, he encounters kangaroo muscle, holographic houses and a few others.
The extensive use of drugs made me feel like the whole book is a drug-induced illusion. The author reinforces this by making use of bizarre idioms and metaphors that get increasingly peculiar as the book goes on.
The title is a reference to a gun that plays music whenever it is drawn, something to do with advertising.
The book started off amusing and new but started to get old toward the end. It ended just in time.
The setting is poorly defined and that is part of the reader’s exploration. Conrad Metcalf is a detective, a private inquisitor in a world where (not-private) inquisitors spy on people
Show More
doling out or removing credits. Drugs are commonplace and. tailored, people use them to create moods, to forget, to enhance experiences, it seems endless and very personalized.Society has created intelligent animals, educated babies and a few gadgets. These are revealed slowly through the book.
At the beginning, the book felt like a detective noir story, it read like a Raymond Chandler story. Conrad is approached by a man panicked, being framed for a murder and no means of payment and low on credits. During the investigation, he encounters kangaroo muscle, holographic houses and a few others.
The extensive use of drugs made me feel like the whole book is a drug-induced illusion. The author reinforces this by making use of bizarre idioms and metaphors that get increasingly peculiar as the book goes on.
The title is a reference to a gun that plays music whenever it is drawn, something to do with advertising.
The book started off amusing and new but started to get old toward the end. It ended just in time.
Show Less
LibraryThing member TheDivineOomba
An interesting mystery set in the future, where animals can be evolved to human intelligent, everybody is on some drug to help them get through the day, and news is reported through music.
Its a depressing world - In the pursuit of privateness - asking questions is illegal. This allows for the
In this book, Conrad Metcalf is private detective. He unwillingly gets involved with a case that could land him in trouble. As he untangles the mystery, he goes all in, with everything to loose if he doesn't solve this case.
The world building is quite amazing - for a book written in 2001, it feels very much like it was a backlash against today’s very un-private world. The characters are flat - but than, this world is flat. The people in charge want it that way - having a population that doesn't care is easier to manage than one that is angry. Highly recommended.
Its a depressing world - In the pursuit of privateness - asking questions is illegal. This allows for the
Show More
police force (inquisition in the book) to institute a totalitarian type government.In this book, Conrad Metcalf is private detective. He unwillingly gets involved with a case that could land him in trouble. As he untangles the mystery, he goes all in, with everything to loose if he doesn't solve this case.
The world building is quite amazing - for a book written in 2001, it feels very much like it was a backlash against today’s very un-private world. The characters are flat - but than, this world is flat. The people in charge want it that way - having a population that doesn't care is easier to manage than one that is angry. Highly recommended.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Pepperwings
Your average noir-style detective, going about his business, aside from some of the absurdities of life, like the kangaroo that's trying to kill him.
Or those kids who never really grow up, "babyheads" are they doped out, or genetically engineered? None of these questions are truly answered, but a
It's less raunchy than Crooked Little Vein, but it amps up the absurd. Still, quite fun.
Or those kids who never really grow up, "babyheads" are they doped out, or genetically engineered? None of these questions are truly answered, but a
Show More
detective story with a hearty dash of the absurd seems to be the goal of this story. It's less raunchy than Crooked Little Vein, but it amps up the absurd. Still, quite fun.
Show Less
LibraryThing member railarson
The January movie trades were abuzz with news that a screenwriter has been picked to adapt Jonathan Lethem’s first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, for the Polsky brothers, Gabe and Alan. For those unfamiliar with the young producers—30 and 33, respectively—they were behind Werner
About the book: one of my favorite things about Lethem’s work is the sense of fun he imparts when playing with the expectations of genre. Gun takes the noir of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler and fuses it with the dystopian science fiction of Philip K. Dick and William Gibson, with a little William S. Burroughs thrown in for leavening.
The life of Gun’s protagonist, futuristic flat foot Conrad Metcalf, gets complicated when his client on a simple peep job ends up murdered. The problem compounds exponentially when the number one suspect, after Metcalf himself, shows up to hire the detective to find the real killer.
This brings unwanted heat from the Inquisitor’s Office, an all-seeing, not-so-secret police force that has the power to remove “karma points” from citizens as they see fit. To let one’s karma fall to zero is to become a non-person and awards the unlucky a trip to the (literal) freezer. Further complicating matters, is the fact that everyone is hooked on the government-supplied drugs “Forgettol” and “Acceptol” which makes getting a straight answer from anyone an interesting challenge.
Not satisfied with a run-of-the-mill paranoid run through one of our possible paths, Lethem ups the ante with super-evolved talking animals, including a gun-toting kangaroo (inspired by a Chandler quote reproduced at the top of the story), a concubine sheep, and disturbing “babyheads,” human toddlers who have had the same mutagenic fast-forward applied to them, making them little alcoholic fatalist assholes.
Lethem would return to the detective genre with the award-winning Motherless Brooklyn, which if I were a Polsky brother and had just blown into Hollywood with an butt load of cash, I would have started there. Talking kangaroos and the like are tricky to pull off without looking ridiculous, and like the creatures in David Cronenberg’s 1991 take on Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, perhaps left to the individual widescreens in our heads.
As for who might be right for the part of Metcalf—why not double down and go with Cage? In for a penny, in for a pound.
Show More
Herzog’s re-imagining of Bad Lieutenant, creatively called Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. Didn’t see it? Me either, mostly because it starred Nicolas Cage whose good movie-to-crap ratio has gotten completely out of whack—still, it is a ballsy proposition to willingly go up against Harvey Keitel’s performance as the original (very, very, … very) bad lieutenant.About the book: one of my favorite things about Lethem’s work is the sense of fun he imparts when playing with the expectations of genre. Gun takes the noir of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler and fuses it with the dystopian science fiction of Philip K. Dick and William Gibson, with a little William S. Burroughs thrown in for leavening.
The life of Gun’s protagonist, futuristic flat foot Conrad Metcalf, gets complicated when his client on a simple peep job ends up murdered. The problem compounds exponentially when the number one suspect, after Metcalf himself, shows up to hire the detective to find the real killer.
This brings unwanted heat from the Inquisitor’s Office, an all-seeing, not-so-secret police force that has the power to remove “karma points” from citizens as they see fit. To let one’s karma fall to zero is to become a non-person and awards the unlucky a trip to the (literal) freezer. Further complicating matters, is the fact that everyone is hooked on the government-supplied drugs “Forgettol” and “Acceptol” which makes getting a straight answer from anyone an interesting challenge.
Not satisfied with a run-of-the-mill paranoid run through one of our possible paths, Lethem ups the ante with super-evolved talking animals, including a gun-toting kangaroo (inspired by a Chandler quote reproduced at the top of the story), a concubine sheep, and disturbing “babyheads,” human toddlers who have had the same mutagenic fast-forward applied to them, making them little alcoholic fatalist assholes.
Lethem would return to the detective genre with the award-winning Motherless Brooklyn, which if I were a Polsky brother and had just blown into Hollywood with an butt load of cash, I would have started there. Talking kangaroos and the like are tricky to pull off without looking ridiculous, and like the creatures in David Cronenberg’s 1991 take on Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, perhaps left to the individual widescreens in our heads.
As for who might be right for the part of Metcalf—why not double down and go with Cage? In for a penny, in for a pound.
Show Less
LibraryThing member nbmars
GWOM is wildly different and creative. This is a scifi/noir/detective story, but those categorizations only begin to describe this book that, as a Newsweek critic wrote, “marries Chandler’s style and Philip K. Dick’s vision.” And indeed, the opening lines of the second chapter of Raymond
GWOM is set in a futuristic California in which evolved animals perform the menial tasks; where the population is kept subdued by legalized addiction to “make” (drugs like “Forgettol” and “Acceptol”); and where words in newspapers have been outlawed and replaced by only pictures. (Music is also acceptable for the expression of ideas. For example, when an evolved baby (called a “babyhead”) or perhaps a kangaroo pulls out a gun and points it at you, the gun might play a few bars of “ominous, pulsing violin.”) In this new world, criminals are frozen for the length of their term, citizens have to accrue karma points to stay out of trouble with the Inquisitor’s Office, and personal formulae for addictive drugs are kept on a computer at a “makery” where you pick up your supply of “make.”
Conrad Metcalf is a P.I. (here meaning, Private Inquisitor) who is, like most other citizens, addicted to "make" (but because of his job requirements, lays off the Forgettol, opting instead for Regrettol). He is looking into the murder of Maynard Stanhunt, who had hired Metcalf just a week earlier to investigate his wife, Celeste, a typical noir mystery “dame”:
"Celeste Stanhunt was a nice-looking woman who became something more when you were being paid to peek through her windows. To put it simply, there hadn’t been any need to undress her in my mind.”
Indeed, at one point, Celeste, in an attempt to manipulate Metcalf, “applied herself to the front of my body like a full-length decal…”
But like all noir, there is darkness, as with this scene reminiscent of the movie “Blue Velvet”: "For Celeste, I knew as surely as our hips had ground together, danger was the intoxicant, and if there wasn’t danger there would have to be something else, some other malign aphrodisiac. I wanted to hit her as much as I wanted to fuck her, and she probably wanted to be hit as much as she wanted anything.”
Metcalf quit the Inquisitor’s Office to go private because, besides the usual noir mystery reasons of the protagonist being a loner and having an adverse reaction to authority, Metcalf maintained that “the inquisitors specialize in nifty solutions at the expense of truth.…” But one of Metcalf’s enemies points out Metcalf is no different: "’The Office and the makery – they’re one and the same to me,’ he said. ‘Make is a tool for controlling great masses of people. It homogenizes their response to repression, don’t you think? You consider yourself an outsider, a seeker of truth amidst lies, yet you’ve bought into the biggest lie that can be told. You snort that lie through your nose and let it run in your bloodstream.”
Metcalf prefers to say that he is “looking at the world through a rose-colored bloodstream…”
As Metcalf closes in on the truth of what happened to Stanhunt, there are a lot more deaths, as well as informative encounters with ewes, apes, and the kangaroo named Joey. Metcalf keeps losing his karma, and the only question is, will he also lose his life? Or has he already lost it?
Evaluation: This was fun, but a little too deliberately constructed for me to lose myself in the story. Nevertheless, I was starting to get invested in the main character by the end, and thus was disappointed when the author dropped the inchoate emo angle and went back to cold cynicism. And yet, it is cold cynicism that characterizes the genre, and as such, was entirely appropriate.
Show More
Chandler’s final book, Playback, served as the inspiration for this one, as elucidated by the epigraph: "There was nothing to it. The Super Chief was on time, as it almost always is, and the subject was as easy to spot as a kangaroo in a dinner jacket." GWOM is set in a futuristic California in which evolved animals perform the menial tasks; where the population is kept subdued by legalized addiction to “make” (drugs like “Forgettol” and “Acceptol”); and where words in newspapers have been outlawed and replaced by only pictures. (Music is also acceptable for the expression of ideas. For example, when an evolved baby (called a “babyhead”) or perhaps a kangaroo pulls out a gun and points it at you, the gun might play a few bars of “ominous, pulsing violin.”) In this new world, criminals are frozen for the length of their term, citizens have to accrue karma points to stay out of trouble with the Inquisitor’s Office, and personal formulae for addictive drugs are kept on a computer at a “makery” where you pick up your supply of “make.”
Conrad Metcalf is a P.I. (here meaning, Private Inquisitor) who is, like most other citizens, addicted to "make" (but because of his job requirements, lays off the Forgettol, opting instead for Regrettol). He is looking into the murder of Maynard Stanhunt, who had hired Metcalf just a week earlier to investigate his wife, Celeste, a typical noir mystery “dame”:
"Celeste Stanhunt was a nice-looking woman who became something more when you were being paid to peek through her windows. To put it simply, there hadn’t been any need to undress her in my mind.”
Indeed, at one point, Celeste, in an attempt to manipulate Metcalf, “applied herself to the front of my body like a full-length decal…”
But like all noir, there is darkness, as with this scene reminiscent of the movie “Blue Velvet”: "For Celeste, I knew as surely as our hips had ground together, danger was the intoxicant, and if there wasn’t danger there would have to be something else, some other malign aphrodisiac. I wanted to hit her as much as I wanted to fuck her, and she probably wanted to be hit as much as she wanted anything.”
Metcalf quit the Inquisitor’s Office to go private because, besides the usual noir mystery reasons of the protagonist being a loner and having an adverse reaction to authority, Metcalf maintained that “the inquisitors specialize in nifty solutions at the expense of truth.…” But one of Metcalf’s enemies points out Metcalf is no different: "’The Office and the makery – they’re one and the same to me,’ he said. ‘Make is a tool for controlling great masses of people. It homogenizes their response to repression, don’t you think? You consider yourself an outsider, a seeker of truth amidst lies, yet you’ve bought into the biggest lie that can be told. You snort that lie through your nose and let it run in your bloodstream.”
Metcalf prefers to say that he is “looking at the world through a rose-colored bloodstream…”
As Metcalf closes in on the truth of what happened to Stanhunt, there are a lot more deaths, as well as informative encounters with ewes, apes, and the kangaroo named Joey. Metcalf keeps losing his karma, and the only question is, will he also lose his life? Or has he already lost it?
Evaluation: This was fun, but a little too deliberately constructed for me to lose myself in the story. Nevertheless, I was starting to get invested in the main character by the end, and thus was disappointed when the author dropped the inchoate emo angle and went back to cold cynicism. And yet, it is cold cynicism that characterizes the genre, and as such, was entirely appropriate.
Show Less
LibraryThing member cmwilson101
Very enjoyable book about a near-future dystopian society where one's value is based upon good karma points, and those who have run out of karma are taken out of society and frozen by repressive, restrictive rulers. Our protagonist is a private eye with a rebellious streak which gets him in trouble
Show More
-- both with the officials and the criminals (including evolved animals). The dialogue is fast and snappy, the plot moves right along, and the world-building is detailed & imaginative. Good fun. Show Less
LibraryThing member kinsey_m
I was really looking forward to reading this one, until after 30 pages or so I ran into what has to be the most sexist comment I've read in the last few years (and this is not the opinion of one of the characters, which would be fine, the way it's written, it's the authors opinion).
Basically, the
Moreover, this comment put me in such a bad mood that I decided to stop reading the book, and I'm not likely to start reading it again any time soon, which is pity ass it had potential.
Basically, the
Show More
protagonist and a previous girlfriend decided to get an operation done which leaves you with your genitals intact but you have the sensitivity of the other sex. That is, men get to experience female orgasm and women experience male orgasm. This could be mildly interesting, but as it turns out the author must think that all females are anorgasmic, since the girlfriend runs away before the operation can be reversed (apparently now that she's got a penis she's not going to give it up), and the detective gives sex up altogether, because what would be the point? I just have to wonder about Mr Lethem's sex life, if he really thinks that women don't or can't enjoy sex. Moreover, this comment put me in such a bad mood that I decided to stop reading the book, and I'm not likely to start reading it again any time soon, which is pity ass it had potential.
Show Less
LibraryThing member PaulBerauer
"Gun, with occasional music" follows private detective Conrad Metcalf in his investigation into just what happened to his former murdered boss, especially after the supposed murderer hires Metcalf to clear his name. The book is certainly an interesting take on the classic noir, with the dystopian
However, the addition of mind altering drugs, highly evolved animals and strange, partially grown baby-things, while interesting, only distracts from the main story. In fact, a lot of times it seems almost an after fact, as if Jonathan Lethem threw them in just to make his book seem more like science fiction than than a normal crime noir.
Overall, an interest book, and one you should check out if you like sci-fi and crime noir.
Show More
near-future world adding a certain amount of flair.However, the addition of mind altering drugs, highly evolved animals and strange, partially grown baby-things, while interesting, only distracts from the main story. In fact, a lot of times it seems almost an after fact, as if Jonathan Lethem threw them in just to make his book seem more like science fiction than than a normal crime noir.
Overall, an interest book, and one you should check out if you like sci-fi and crime noir.
Show Less
LibraryThing member rrriles
Anthropomorphic apocalyptic sci-fi decective novel? Um, yeah, and Lethem pulls it off with noirish panache. [book:Fortress of Solitude] it ain't, but it beats the pants off most so-called genre fiction.
LibraryThing member iamiam
Classic noir (complete with dames, flatfoots, and molls) with Philip K. Dick influences as mentioned by others in reviews. The ending even has the required 'justice is done on the hero's terms' bit of bitter righteousness. Brilliant.
LibraryThing member JWarren42
If Philip K Dick and William Burroughs had a love child, it would grow up to be this novel. I'm not much on who-dunnits, but tue science fiction is so powerful, here, that I still loved it. The gender issues that the protagonist faces are extremely interesting. HIGHLY recommended.
LibraryThing member Move_and_Merge
It's essentially a noir private-detective story set in a wildly speculative future California. Hilarious, witty, and intensely disturbing, Lethem's future landscape is populated by human infant 'babyheads' who've undergone evolution therapy. Certain animals who have also undergone the treatment
Show More
walk upright and possess the rights of legal personhood. Unlicensed questions are considered impolite and border upon the illegal. The Inquisitor's Bureau runs a semi-Orwellian police state in which state-sponsored drugs are the nose candies of the average citizen and a defunct karma-card earns you a spot in the freezer. Whats's more, the protagonist's sense of metaphor is flawless. It's entirely possible that this novel inspired Radiohead's 'Karma Police' and I'm virtually certain that Robert Shearman borrowed some of its major ideas and feelings for his 'Maltese Penguin' script. Show Less
LibraryThing member misericordia
I just couldn't like this book. Just a little to over the edge. The edge of believable? No I read a lot of unbelievable books. Over the edge of possible? No I read a lot of books with impossible things. It just was not my flavor of unbelievable impossibility. Just too many bunnies and babies.
LibraryThing member g026r
I'll admit, I have a hard time with hardboiled private investigator pastiches, in that frequently I find the prose overwrought to the point of unreadability. Even if I don't generally enjoy his work, Lethem is a (IMO) a better writer than most who attempt it however, and the prose never quite sinks
My problem with it more fell into the line that I didn't really think the plot itself was very compelling: standard private investigator plot, with a final twist/revelation you can see coming from far off, combined with very '90s sci-fi elements that only serve to make it feel dated and diminish any attempt at social commentary it may have had.
Onto the "sell" pile it likely goes.
Show More
into the usual cliches and heavy-handedness that so many other pastiches do.My problem with it more fell into the line that I didn't really think the plot itself was very compelling: standard private investigator plot, with a final twist/revelation you can see coming from far off, combined with very '90s sci-fi elements that only serve to make it feel dated and diminish any attempt at social commentary it may have had.
Onto the "sell" pile it likely goes.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jediphil683
Certainly one of the more gleefully weird books I've come across in the remaindered section. I think he relies on his idea to carry his writing a little more than he should, but it's a strong idea, so we should forgive him for that, and enjoy reading the book anyway.
LibraryThing member amaraduende
This is so weird. Very black humor. Liked it.
Subjects
Awards
Nebula Award (Nominee — Novel — 1994)
Locus Award (Finalist — First Novel — 1995)
IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award (Winner — 1995)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1994
Physical description
7.96 x 0.74 inches
ISBN
9780156028974