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standardman's review against another edition
4.0
Entertaining, off-beat thriller and very Warren Ellis, for good or ill.
coffeechug's review against another edition
4.0
My Thoughts
Man, I never thought I would go 2/2 with solid, gritty, exciting crime thrillers. This one is much different than Ghost Man by Hobbs, but I like this one almost as much. This is my first read by Ellis and he grabbed a new fan. This book had an action sequence at the beginning that just made me glued to the pages. I could not let the book go. Despite not having much more action sequences of violence afterwards I was hooked until the end. The language and the way the characters spoke to one another sold me. The gritty, raw, and dark humor/sarcastic dialogue I just loved. I wish I could recite a few of my favorite lines, but this post might get blocked!
The story line was very intriguing and I was just not sure how things would play. If you are looking for the next great crime thriller and you have not read this book, then you must put this next on your TBR pile. Great characters, great dialogue, good action, and story line that will hold you until the end. I hope to see a few of these characters in the future again.
Man, I never thought I would go 2/2 with solid, gritty, exciting crime thrillers. This one is much different than Ghost Man by Hobbs, but I like this one almost as much. This is my first read by Ellis and he grabbed a new fan. This book had an action sequence at the beginning that just made me glued to the pages. I could not let the book go. Despite not having much more action sequences of violence afterwards I was hooked until the end. The language and the way the characters spoke to one another sold me. The gritty, raw, and dark humor/sarcastic dialogue I just loved. I wish I could recite a few of my favorite lines, but this post might get blocked!
The story line was very intriguing and I was just not sure how things would play. If you are looking for the next great crime thriller and you have not read this book, then you must put this next on your TBR pile. Great characters, great dialogue, good action, and story line that will hold you until the end. I hope to see a few of these characters in the future again.
laterry75's review against another edition
3.0
I'm a fan girl, so I was excited to see Warren Ellis' name on a bookjacket; I love his stories in the comic book world.
I don't know what to think of "Gun Machine." It was an interesting concept filled with some standout characters. Something about the execution of it was off.
With an intriguing villain at center stage, there was a rather mundane motivation driving him.
I don't know what to think of "Gun Machine." It was an interesting concept filled with some standout characters. Something about the execution of it was off.
With an intriguing villain at center stage, there was a rather mundane motivation driving him.
jasonfurman's review against another edition
4.0
A compelling, creative premise for a police procedural--a cop stumbles on a shrine in a secure apartment in a Pearl St. tenement. The walls and floors are all covered with guns that, upon test firing a few of them, turn out to be linked to unsolved homicides.
In some ways it is a standard police procedural set in New York City. In other ways, it is a much darker, more surreal New York--every time he listens in to the police radio he hears about a string of brutality well beyond the magnitude/frequency served up the real city. And the villain of the book is responsible for hundreds of completely unsolved murders. And all of this is surrounded by "Manahhata"--the ancient Manhattan when it was populated, or co-populated, by Indians.
All of this makes for a fast-paced, interesting read. There is not much whodunnit suspense, you basically meet the character early on and his confederates are all pretty obvious too. It is more a question of whether and how he will be tracked down and stopped and what is the greater meaning of the "Gun Machine" he is building.
In some ways it is a standard police procedural set in New York City. In other ways, it is a much darker, more surreal New York--every time he listens in to the police radio he hears about a string of brutality well beyond the magnitude/frequency served up the real city. And the villain of the book is responsible for hundreds of completely unsolved murders. And all of this is surrounded by "Manahhata"--the ancient Manhattan when it was populated, or co-populated, by Indians.
All of this makes for a fast-paced, interesting read. There is not much whodunnit suspense, you basically meet the character early on and his confederates are all pretty obvious too. It is more a question of whether and how he will be tracked down and stopped and what is the greater meaning of the "Gun Machine" he is building.
boleary30's review against another edition
3.0
great premise for a book, a times flirted with pulling it off, but it never really all came together in a consistent manner.
cafedetinta's review against another edition
3.0
Tengo sentimientos encontrados con este libro.
Mientras lo leí, captaba totalmente mi atención, pero una vez lo cerraba, no necesitaba volver a él para saber qué pasaba con la historia. La idea del cazador y su visión de la ciudad era una buena idea pero al final me daban ganas de saltar sus capítulos... En el fondo es una buena historia, y me encantan Bat y Scarly.
Mientras lo leí, captaba totalmente mi atención, pero una vez lo cerraba, no necesitaba volver a él para saber qué pasaba con la historia. La idea del cazador y su visión de la ciudad era una buena idea pero al final me daban ganas de saltar sus capítulos... En el fondo es una buena historia, y me encantan Bat y Scarly.
andrewgraphics's review against another edition
2.0
An NYC cop discovers a huge cache of guns in a seemingly abandoned apartment, each of which has been used in unsolved murders that go back for decades.
The main character, John Tallow, is Ellis' typical loner "smartest guy in the room", in this case someone who happens to know a lot of trivia about the founding of NYC, which is paramount to the case. This time around, it turns out that key people around Tallow also know the same things, so when he tosses out a reference they not only understand it but can continue the thought. here are also a couple of cases of extremely unlikely incidents that would have been leaps in poorly-written episodic TV, let alone a novel written by someone with 20 years of experience. This book is really only for people who love Ellis' writing.
The main character, John Tallow, is Ellis' typical loner "smartest guy in the room", in this case someone who happens to know a lot of trivia about the founding of NYC, which is paramount to the case. This time around, it turns out that key people around Tallow also know the same things, so when he tosses out a reference they not only understand it but can continue the thought. here are also a couple of cases of extremely unlikely incidents that would have been leaps in poorly-written episodic TV, let alone a novel written by someone with 20 years of experience. This book is really only for people who love Ellis' writing.
btmarino84's review against another edition
4.0
Can Reg E. Cathey read all of my books to me please?
A detective fiction, but...it's Warren Ellis doing a detective fiction so it's full of eccentrics and a team of weirdos that you love and become buddies. It's also, as you would expect, full of an obsession with history and technology and culture on micro levels, it's protagonist a "reader" who sounds a lot like Warren Ellis in his habits. A fascinating and spooky villain (although, of course, there are more villains than just he).
He did a really good job creating something that is uniquely his but also fits firmly into a thriller I could maybe even give to my dad. I'm glad Ellis is back to writing more comics again but I'm also glad he keeps dipping into prose from time to time and I'm excited to see what he'd do next.
A detective fiction, but...it's Warren Ellis doing a detective fiction so it's full of eccentrics and a team of weirdos that you love and become buddies. It's also, as you would expect, full of an obsession with history and technology and culture on micro levels, it's protagonist a "reader" who sounds a lot like Warren Ellis in his habits. A fascinating and spooky villain (although, of course, there are more villains than just he).
He did a really good job creating something that is uniquely his but also fits firmly into a thriller I could maybe even give to my dad. I'm glad Ellis is back to writing more comics again but I'm also glad he keeps dipping into prose from time to time and I'm excited to see what he'd do next.
bellatora's review against another edition
5.0
I totally thought this would be a sci fi thriller with a time-travelling serial killer, like [b:The Shining Girls|16131077|The Shining Girls|Lauren Beukes|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1352227705s/16131077.jpg|21956898]. Not sci fi at all. The serial killer just liked using guns from a lot of different periods (he was kind of a poetic killer, using a gun that somehow connected to the victim, like using a police gun on a police officer or a Korean-made gun on a Korean-born man or a gun from the first murder in upstate New York on a victim from upstate New York) and he was schizophrenic so he just thought he was travelling through pre-colonial New York instead of actually being able to travel between times/dimensions or whatever. And his giant murder-gun sacrifice design used as kind of Ghost Dance to end the white rule of New York was ALSO just part of his schizophrenia and there weren’t really old gods that existed. So all the potentially speculative elements were really just a result of the murderer's mental illness.
I’m not disappointed that it wasn't the sci fi book I'd thought it was. It was a good mystery/thriller, with the right amount of blood/gore, stoic cop and interesting story telling/character development.
The book opens by establishing that Detective John Tallow and his partner are good friends and good partners and then proceeds to kill off Tallow’s partner with a shot by a random nobody during a response to a call about a guy going crazy in an apartment complex. This serves to establish Tallow to be a Broken Bird who is in pain because his partner is dead. It also frees him to do some solo-investigating, and more importantly leads the police to the apartment of the serial killer (they got into the apartment because one of the stray bullets from the shootout went through the apartment’s door and they had to check that the bullet hadn’t killed anyone). That act breaks open a decades-old conspiracy with the serial killer, who is working for a mysterious cabal AND who uses the cabal's assassinations for his own schizophrenic reasons.
Good solid read and good way to pass the time.
I’m not disappointed that it wasn't the sci fi book I'd thought it was. It was a good mystery/thriller, with the right amount of blood/gore, stoic cop and interesting story telling/character development.
The book opens by establishing that Detective John Tallow and his partner are good friends and good partners and then proceeds to kill off Tallow’s partner with a shot by a random nobody during a response to a call about a guy going crazy in an apartment complex. This serves to establish Tallow to be a Broken Bird who is in pain because his partner is dead. It also frees him to do some solo-investigating, and more importantly leads the police to the apartment of the serial killer (they got into the apartment because one of the stray bullets from the shootout went through the apartment’s door and they had to check that the bullet hadn’t killed anyone). That act breaks open a decades-old conspiracy with the serial killer, who is working for a mysterious cabal AND who uses the cabal's assassinations for his own schizophrenic reasons.
Good solid read and good way to pass the time.