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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780156028974
ISBN number: 0156028972
Label: Harvest Books
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 288
Printing Date: September 01, 2003
Publishing house: Harvest Books
Sale Popularity Level: 251963
Studio: Harvest Books
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Product Description:
Gumshoe Conrad Metcalf has problems-there's a rabbit in his waiting room and a trigger-happy kangaroo on his tail. Near-future Oakland is a brave new world where evolved animals are members of society, the police monitor citizens by their karma levels, and mind-numbing drugs such as Forgettol and Acceptol are all the rage.
Metcalf has been shadowing Celeste, the wife of an affluent doctor. Perhaps he's falling a little in love with her at the same time. When the doctor turns up dead, our amiable investigator finds himself caught in a crossfire between the boys from the Inquisitor's Office and gangsters who operate out of the back room of a bar called the Fickle Muse.
Mixing elements of sci-fi, noir, and mystery, this clever very first novel from the author of Motherless Brooklyn is a wry, funny, and satiric look at all that the future may hold.
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Rated by buyers 
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In Gun, With Occasional Music, Jonathan Lethem gives us science fiction's worthy successor to Raymond Chandler. Though this is the easy take-home message from nearly every quoted newspaper columnist, book jacket blurb, and miscellaneous reviewer -- they also all happen to be right. Even a cursory familiarity with Chandler's pulp noir will ring through with startling clarity to readers of this novel. The cadence of the narrative, the hard-boiled dialogue, the archetypal characters... Lethem's Conrad Metcalf is a well-executed Philip Marlowe cover song with just a little bit of record scratching thrown into the background for texture.
On the other hand, those same columnist quotes, blurbs, and reviewers all seem to liken Lethem to Philip K. Dick. Personally: not seeing it. It's a bit of a stretch, some optimistic name-dropping to match up Lethem's mystery/noir heritage with some similarly classic science fiction antecedent. The ubiquitous drug use? Sure, okay -- that's a bit Dickian. A Möbius fold of reality unraveling around the narrator in some palpable and thoroughly eldritch fashion? Not so much. More than PKD, the scenes in this novel played out in my imagination as fearfully symmetrical to Cronenberg's take on Burroughs` Naked Lunch -- substitute Jim Henson-esque "evolved" animals for Mugwumps but otherwise that's it, right down to Peter Weller as Conrad Metcalf.
Or maybe this certain GoodReads.com reviewer has got it down: "It's Blade Runner meets Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"
Where was I? Oh right...
A part of me desires to do a chapter-by-chapter deconstruction of the text, to get all scholarly about it and run the blockade of Chandler's lineage here. I want to look for the hidden significance of the doctors as urologists, to get semiotic on names like "Catherine Teleprompter" and "Danny Phoneblum". But instead I'll just give a positive nod. It's a fun, noirish scifi romp with all the right moves and delivers slightly better than expectations.
Rated by buyers -
This is a Brave New World influenced book that was very original in the fantasy department. I loved it, but then to know what that means, I also like Murakami's Wild Sheep Chase and Hard Boiled novels. Alegorical, symbolic and left open to the mind of the reader to follow or imagine the story. Drugs, detective, women, animals, and cops with a plot and Mickey Spilane type scenario on mescaline. Its a fast read.
Rated by buyers 
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What a blast! My very first exposure to Lethem has me hooked.
I am sure this is the very first time I ever thought there could be some connections between drugs, guns, karma, kangaroos, and a few others you have to read to believe (probably the last time, too, unless he has written a sequel).
This is a very funny mix of science fiction, fantasy, detective, dystopia, noir and a few more genres, I'm sure. Lethem told his story tightly, with an unbelievable group of Characters ("C" not "c").
Toward the end, I had to make myself slow down so it would last just a little longer. I highly recommend this book to all who enjoy off-beat, hard to label reads.
Rated by buyers -
Lethem's very first book doesn't crackle and sparkle with the literary virtuosity of his later works ("Motherless Brooklyn" and "Fortress of Solitude"), but it is a fine example of the nimbleness of his creative spirit.
"Gun" follows private inquisitor, Conrad Metcalf, around a futuristic California, where animals and babies are forcibly evolved, societal compliance is enforced with measurable karma, and it is no longer acceptable to ask questions. Metcalf's latest client has been killed, and the case is being pasted to a patsy by the big dogs in the government pound. Metcalf makes things uncomfortable (for himself as well as everyone else) in his pursuit to uncover the truth.
It's not an easy task. Metcalf is dogged by a trigger-happy kangaroo, the loss of his masculine nerve endings (literally), and people who take legally-sanctioned drugs designed to induce amnesia. He skims off the dross with typical flat-footed panache, employing the standard P.I. lingo (and glum stubborness) made famous by Chandler and Bogey (although not with quite as much skill).
Although, at heart, this is a tribute to the world of literary noir, Lethem gives us a glimpse of his future import by sewing hefty totems into his weird (but fully realized) world. Orwell it ain't, but it sure comes close; Lethem has more to say about how we enslave ourselves, rather than how others do the enslaving for us.
By turns funny and fast-paced, clever and creepy, slick and sharp, "Gun" is a great diversion. It's certainly not an example of an artist at the top of his game, but it IS an example of an artist learning quite deftly how to break all of the rules. More than anything else, this is Lethem showing us just why he's a writer to begin with -- because he loves it. In the hands of someone as talented as he, it's hard for a reader not to share his enthusiasm.
Rated by buyers -
It seems that all I ever read these days is Jonathan Lethem and bizarro authors like Carlton Mellick III. The bizarro guys are pretty good and fun to read in a freaky surreal-ish kind of way, but they aren't master craftsmen of the written word. Lethem is. Gun, with Occasional Music is his very first book, but probably the 7th I have read. After getting used to the style of his recent work I can really tell how strong his writing has become. He is an excellent author. Even with his very first book, you can tell he is an excellent author. But he has definitely improved over time.
PROS: 1) If you like classic crime noir and weird science-fiction, you'll love this book. It is a mixture of those two. Basically, it is just your usual old time crime novel set in a future of mutants and intelligent anthropomorphic animals 2) The mystery unfolds quite nicely. Not only the mystery of the plot, but also the mystery surrounding this odd world Lethem has created. 3) Once you get into it you won't be able to put it down.
CONS: 1) While the writing is good, it is still pretty mediocre in comparison to any of his other works. 2) It was originally published by a sci-fi genre publisher, so it feels like run-of-the-mill genre fiction. So if you are a fan of the literary elements of Lethem's work more than the sci-fi elements you might be disappointed. 3) Though it was intentional, the characters are pretty cliche to that of classic detective stories. This might be a good thing or bad thing. Since I am not a fan of detective fiction, it was more of a con for me.
Overall, I give this book 4 stars. It is definitely worth reading. It's just not as good as most of Lethem's other work. I might have enjoyed it a bit better than As She Climbed Across The Table, but it wasn't as unique and smart as that book. Casual readers might like this one best, so start with here if you don't read a lot of literary fiction. Otherwise, start with Girl in Landscape or Motherless Brooklyn.
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