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    Gun Machine
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    Gun Machine
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    Gun Machine
    Audiobook9 hours

    Gun Machine

    Written by Warren Ellis

    Narrated by Reg E. Cathey

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Warren Ellis reimagines New York City as a puzzle with the most dangerous pieces of all: GUNS.

    After a shootout claims the life of his partner in a condemned tenement building on Pearl Street, Detective John Tallow unwittingly stumbles across an apartment stacked high with guns. When examined, each weapon leads to a different, previously unsolved murder. Someone has been killing people for twenty years or more and storing the weapons together for some inexplicable purpose.

    Confronted with the sudden emergence of hundreds of unsolved homicides, Tallow soon discovers that he's walked into a veritable deal with the devil. An unholy bargain that has made possible the rise of some of Manhattan's most prominent captains of industry. A hunter who performs his deadly acts as a sacrifice to the old gods of Manhattan, who may, quite simply, be the most prolific murderer in New York City's history.

    Warren Ellis's body of work has been championed by Wired for its "merciless action" and "incorruptible bravery," and steadily amassed legions of diehard fans. His newest audiobook builds on his accomplishments like never before, announcing Ellis as one of today's most daring thriller writers. This is twenty-first century suspense writ large. This is GUN MACHINE.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateJan 1, 2013
    ISBN9781619692909
    Unavailable
    Gun Machine
    Author

    Warren Ellis

    Warren Ellis is a graphic novelist, writer, public speaker and author of the bestselling novel Gun Machine (Mulholland, 2014). He contributed the foreword to Penny Red (Pluto, 2011).

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    Reviews for Gun Machine

    4/5

    240 ratings29 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I loved how this book weaved in so many different elements and themes. At its heart, it is modern crime noir, but it also contains a deep understanding of the Native American culture, historical and modern New York City, criminal history, and Crime Scene Unit methods. All the angles come together into one wonderful and exciting story.During another crime, Detective John Tallow stumbles upon an apartment filled with guns. A collection of gun that spans twenty years. And each gun is tied to an unsolved homicide. With hundreds of unclosed cases brought back into the spotlight, Tallow gets assigned the task of figuring out the what, the why, and most importantly the who.The characters in the book are quirky, fun, and realistic as they behave in a manner that is consistent with real people. The CSU team is eccentric and extra fun. And even though she gets only a little "screen time", I loved First Deputy Commissioner; she's a total hard ass but fits the role perfectly. While I loved the book and I look forward to reading more from Ellis, I did have a small issue. When Tallow met the wife of one of his suspects. It was a coincidental meeting and not planned by the characters, but it was also something that was a tad convenient. Coincidence happens and it was handled with subtlety, lines converging from multiple angles to make a big picture, but it was still a tad convenient. As I mentioned though, I look forward to reading more novels by Ellis.
    • 4/5
      I really loved this book. It's a police procedural (which is a genre I don't usually enjoy), but laced with the kind of intricate thought, dark wit, and insanity that you can always expect from Warren Ellis.

      There are some unforgettable characters here, particularly the two CSU techs who steal every scene where they appear.

      My only complaint is that it wraps up a little too quick and neat. The pacing feels like it speeds up too much in the last few chapters that when it ended I felt a little lost, not from not understanding the details, but from expecting a bit more. It's still satisfying, but odd.

      I do take issue with how quickly the hunter returns to a lucid and self-aware state t the final conversation with Tallow. It seems unlikely that a severe mental disorder would respond that quickly to treatment, especially after 20 years. I could be wrong, but it just felt less than plausible.

      Other than those two complaints, it's an enjoyable read that had me glued to the book all the way through, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.
    • 5/5
      Warren Ellis is not for the faint of heart. To say this was one of the more interesting and unusual serial killer novels would be a complete understatement. A police procedural at its core the book is a shotgun blast through the bizarre underbelly of Manhatten.
    • 4/5
      This is one of the grittyiest, graphic crime novels I've read in a long time. It sets the tone almost from teh opening sentence. Detective John Tallow and his partner are responding to a disturbance in a tenement building that leads to a violent exchange of gunfire that leaves his partner and the criminal dead on the stairs. A hole in the wall from a stray bullet leads the police into a whole different kettle of fish. They find a highly secured apartment that is covered floor to ceiling with guns (lots of guns). Tallow and a CSI tem starts to research the trove and find that each gun was used in an unsolved murder. There are blanks in the mosaic, which means the killer isn't done yet.The story style jumps points of view between Tallow, as he discovers a conspiracy that that threatens to undo his investigation, to the killer (only known as The Hunter) on the trail of his snext kill. Its graphic and it has an almost paranormal feel that kept engaged to see where the story was going to go. One thing that Ellis did that was interesting and different, was that every time Tallow was in his car, he turned on the police radio and we got to "hear" snippets of radio chatter about the most extreme crimes that were being reported throughout the city. It was almost like he had a file of all these wild, crazy scenarios that he wanted to get into the novel somehow. Pretty interesting technique that gave me the sense of a larger world that Tallow and his story were just running thru.All in all, a very "enjoyable" story."The Hunter had time to kill. He was experiencing a thing that he'd come to think of as the exhaustion of revulsion"8/10S: 8/24/16 - F: 8/28/16 (5 Days)
    • 4/5
      Somehow, I got an entirely wrong impression of this book from the blurb. I was thinking it would be some kind of thriller with elements of the supernatural. Perhaps not quite Butcher's Harry Dresden but definitely in the vein of Wilson's Repairman Jack. Instead it's just a plain ol' suspense thriller. That's okay...I like those, too.Basically, we have a fairly gritty police procedural, full of the dark moods and cynical outlooks common to noir. I think that Ellis' background as a comic book writer gave him that little extra punch when it came to writing the short, vivid scene. The characters are well-realized and colorful, if not incredibly deep in this first volume (it's easy to see this as the start of a series). The plot moves along nicely and, while you can figure out some of the stuff in advance, there's no sense that the author has given away everything at the start. The scenery is quite evocative of Manhattan, both old and new. Fate assists the protagonist detective a bit too much via luck and coincidence, so the reader needs to turn off the 'Oh, come on!' response a tiny bit. I didn't think the ending had quite the impact that the rest of the book had but it was certainly adequate (and I'm not trying to damn with faint praise).This has that feeling of something that might pick up a bit of a cult following. That wouldn't be bad...it was fun.
    • 5/5
      Do you like Warren Ellis? Of course you do. Then you should read this book.If you don't know who Warren Ellis is, this is still a really great police book with the addition of the kind of real-life crime most people don't like thinking about. It is also one of the few books I've read that actually sounds like it takes place in the last five years, where cellphones are used for texting.The protagonist Tallow is interesting and somehow dodges the entire "gritty and world-weary" trope while still being somewhat likeable. The secondary characters had moments of making me laugh out loud because they are so true to life. The whole thing feels like you could read it in the paper tomorrow (on your iPad via a rss feed).With Crooked Little Vein I could hear Warren's voice narrating the thing, but Gun Machine stands all on its own.
    • 4/5
      I had previously read Warren Ellis' other book, "Crooked Little Vein," which I had enjoyed. It was a strange little book and Ellis' newest novel, "Gun Machine," is just as odd and equally memorable. A fun read!
    • 4/5
      Just a fantastic read. I could not put it down.
    • 4/5
      No, I haven't got it backwards...the title of Warren Ellis's latest novel is Gun Machine.And it was a great book to start off the New Year with a bang. The opening line hooked me......"On playing back the 911 recording, it'd seem that Mrs. Stegman was more concerned that the man outside her apartment door was naked than that he had a big shotgun."Detective John Tallow is sent to investigate and what he finds is more that anyone could have imagined. One of the apartments in the building is full of guns. Not piles of guns, but meticulously displayed and mounted guns, all in a unfathomable pattern. And when the techs start testing the guns they find something even more unthinkable. Each of the guns has been used in an unsolved murder, starting over twenty years ago.Tallow is one of those burned out but brilliant characters I love to discover. "You're at the age where the rush of the job has passed and the grind of the job is taken in stride, and this is the time when you're wondering if it wouldn't be so bad if you just stopped giving much of a shit and rolled along doing as little as possible."Just as intriguing were the pair of supporting characters in the cast - Bat and Scarly - brilliant Crime Scene Unit Investigators, but misfits themselves. Yes, they were a bit over the top, but I really enjoyed them.But, it seems that the higher up really don't want the case solved - roadblocks appear in Tallow's path and the owner of the guns has Tallow in his sights....Ellis has penned a unique entry in the crime scene genre - the characters really grabbed me and I hope he plans to employ them again. The killer was truly psychotic - his view of the world past and present was a technique I quite liked. The killer's views of old Manhattan sent me off to Google to see if it was all true or not. (It was) The plotting is imaginative, conspiratorial and multi-layered - more involved than I initially thought it would be. Ellis has a dark sense of humour that he allows to peek out through some of the dialogue. Be warned - there are some dark spots - the police chatter on the scanner is disturbing. My only complaint would be that the ending happened too quickly for me. Ellis is the author of a number of graphic novels and I could see this book being easily written in that format as well. It had a bit of a noir, off-beat feel to it.Again, I hope Ellis reprises this cast in a future book - I'd love to read another John Tallow story.
    • 4/5
      This is a very entertaining mystery/thriller that involves a grizzled veteran New York cop who falls from grace after he witnesses his partner's murder and subsequently murdered the killer. After drifting by for some time Detective Tallow gets assigned to an impossible murder investigation that links throughout the New York City's industrial structure.
    • 3/5
      Gun Machine by Warren Ellis is a well-executed mystery/thriller set at the intersection of old Manhattan and New York City. Detective John Tallow loses his partner in a crazy-man dustup, but the bullet holes lead to the discovery of a cache of old guns exotically arranged in a nearby apartment. Turns out this is the den of a high volume serial killer who's operating under obscure theories that seem to be connected to Native Americans and the old, bucolic Manhattan underlying the metropolis we now know.This ER book is a page turner by an experienced writer who comfortably and professionally takes us on an entertaining ride. On the negative side, although this genre often has plots driven by helpful coincidence, this one had more than the usual share from my point of view, including the detective happening across one previously unknown key player in distress on the street, and getting her cooperation after he helps her. The sheer number of different characters who know something important about old Manhattan and Native Americans in the New York area also challenged my suspension of disbelief. One woman Tallow barely knows remarks that the edge of his precinct is "an old Lenape walking trail . . . the oldest road in Manhattan." Of course.John Tallow is an appealing character, doggedly laboring on while being set up for a fall by his superiors and doing his best to outwit them. His bachelor apartment is strewn with books and cds,and someone getting into the back of his car has to shove over the landslide of books there. He's not in great shape, getting out of the car "like a dying crab", and it's going to be his wits that save him, if anything does. There are relatively few clunkers in this simile-filled noirish tale, although at one point a courier's teeth-grinding has the unlikely sound of "paving slabs being rubbed together."The villain is interesting and scary, and this is an author who knows how to keep the pages turning. If you like this genre, and can get over the coincidences, you'll find plenty to enjoy in this fast-moving story.
    • 4/5
      Ellis takes us on a memorable ride through an apparently near-future New York where the crime rate has spiraled well beyond even how bad it was before Disney cleaned up Times Square! In the opening scene, a detective loses his partner to a man on a rampage because he is being kicked out of his apartment building, which is being sold. The detective, Tallow, dispatches the killer, but in the melee, a hole that has been blasted in the wall of a nearby apartment reveals an incredible cache of guns--but more than that, it is basically a temple of guns. (Perhaps the NRA museum in Fairfax is like that. I'll have to go see.) Things really begin to spiral out of control when the analysis of the first few guns reveals--well, no spoilers from me, you'll have to read the book. The detective, who was basically going through the motions of his job before losing his partner, discovers a new energy as he tries to track down the killer who lovingly kept and arranged all the guns in the apartment. This quest partners him with a couple of well-drawn Crime Scene Technicians, and their interactions make for some of the best scenes in the book. The narrative focus shifts frequently, and we often find ourselves following the killer, who is also a fascinating character, at least until he opens his mouth. Ellis isn't able to make his words nearly as effective as his description of the killer's perception of New York City, which mingles the present with the Manhattan of pre-Dutch times. Tallow is the most interesting character, however, and I would welcome his appearance in another novel.The book isn't perfect. Though very well-written, the plotting does help Tallow out a little too much during his investigation as he seems to run into the right people (or right flower shop) just when he needs to. The question of exactly when the book takes place is also a bit disconcerting. But the originality of the story, the non-stop pace of the investigation, and the memorable characters make this a real page-turner by the time you are halfway through.
    • 3/5
      An interesting book about a veteran police officer whose partner gets killed in front of him and he in turn kills the person who shot his partner. This police officer has been drifting through the last several years of his career and is thrown into a case that seem impossible to solve and involves several influential people including a high ranking police officer. Tallow, the police officer, involves two CSU to help him in his quest to solve the crime he faces while also facing the fact that the case he is on in one intended to end his career. A good read.
    • 3/5
      Great plot, mediocre ending, unimpressive voice acting. A bit of background to the hunter would have been interesting...
    • 4/5
      I'll read damn near anything Ellis writes. So I was quite eager to read this. Not quite as out there as Crooked Little Vein, but with the same amazing voice, Gun Machine is a great, and a very fun read. I don't think Ellis is capable of creating a dull character and that's what fascinates me. His plots, while always containing some magic, are mostly pedestrian. But the characters that he runs through them? Absolutely fascinating.

      Good job, Mr. Ellis.
    • 4/5
      Gun Machine has an awesome premise; an NYPD detective stumbles upon a bizarre apartments lined with guns from floor to ceiling, arranged in intricate patterns. Each gun is not only linked to a famous murder, the entire collection also seems to correspond to a seemingly unrelated homicide from the past 20 years. When the entire case is dumped on his shoulders, Tallow finds himself tracking a killer who may have connections to the most powerful people in New York City.Unfortunately, the actual story ends up seeming smaller than initial premise suggests. While the initial set up suggests something much larger and possibly supernatural, the actual solution to the case is smaller and more mundane. The guns and their overall meaning is more incidental to the conspiracy backing the killer.While the killer ultimately remains an enigma, his identity is never a mystery. The story is instead more of a cat and mouse game, where Tallow and two eccentric CSU officers must ultimately outwit not only the murderer but his wealthy and powerful connections. It’s definitely enjoyable, and I’m glad I read it, but I still came out a bit disappointed.
    • 2/5
      "I was building a ritual machine that, when completed, would do the work of the Ghost Dance. When it finished and ran, or danced or told itself or whatever, it would restore Manhattan to old Mannahatta, the island of many hills, and my people would return.”

      “You’re not actually Native American, are you,” said Tallow.

      “Not even a little bit,” the hunter agreed.

      “And you built a machine out of murder weapons to destroy New York and replace it with the Happy Hunting Ground.”

      “In my own defense, I was completely insane.” The hunter smiled.
      Ellis pulled a Lost with the ending here. The eerie setup, a room full of guns, carefully arranged in patters, I expected something like Seven, maybe crazy but with its own internal logic. Enjoyed the journey, but the final reveal felt like a gyp.
    • 3/5
      A book full of action that is a quick read to boot! Nice, strong characters, like The Hunter, Detective John Tallow, and CSU agents, Bat and Scarly. The story is that three men turn a crazy killer on the loose in Manhattan, but the killer views it as both the modern Manhattan, and the older Mannahatta. And, the killer likes to keep the guns too - one gun for one kill that he carries out. When Detective Tallow accidentally stumbles upon the weapons cache in apartment 3A, arranged in a wampum pattern, all heck breaks loose! Fast and furious, the chase between Tallow and The Hunter burns up the pages right until the end!
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book. It has good pacing and interesting ideas. I've read some of Warren Ellis' comic book works so I was familiar with his pacing. The only thing is since I am familiar with his work I couldn't help but notice something about the main characters. After I finished the book I thought about how this compares to his previous comics work. I realized that Tallow, Scarly and Bat were very similar to the main characters in Planetary. Snow, Jakita Wagner, and the Drummer seem to be the faces that I had in my mind when thinking about the characters in this book. The Lieutenant seemed very Jenny Sparks like. And the antagonist had some Spider Jerusalem elements to him. I don't mind any of this as I think Planetary is the best comic series since Watchman. Better than Watchman in some ways. But still it's something to keep in mind should you want to read his comics works.
    • 5/5
      My first contact with Warren Ellis.

      When I started reading the book I only knew that the movie “Red†with Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren was based on a book written by him. Apart from that I had no idea who Warren Ellis was (now I know...), that is, what kind of books he'd written, what his Weltanschauung was, etc, etc.
      What a fantastic book. Visceral" is the word that comes to mind after having finished it. Hard-boiled fiction of the highest calibre.

      One the things that I really liked was his ability to make the main character, Tallow, make his realisations and advancements at the same moments as me the reader. There is no tiresome wait for the main character to realise what is really going on.

      While reading it, I also kept thinking about one the best books I've read in 2012, "A Dark and Broken Heart" by R. J. Ellory. Both books impart the same gritty, shitty reality. Ellis also has a knack to make the most pedestrian scene or set of events pop off the page like it’s some secret history in the making. We get the feeling that something lurks under the surface. It's quite palpable and it's one hell of an experience.

      Also on the plus side was the fact that it wasn't filed with the usual twists and turns so in vogue nowadays. Once you realize where the novel is headed you won’t be wholly surprised it went there. But what a ride it was!

      One other thing that popped R. J. Ellory into my mind was the fully fleshed characters in the book: Tallow, Scarly, Bat, the Hunter,...

      In my mind what remained after I finished it was not the story in itself, compelling as it was, but the quality and verve in Ellis’ prose.

      "Crooked Little Vein" is already on the top of my 2013 TBR pile...
      "
    • 4/5
      I bought this novel without reading anything about it, simply because it was written by Warren Ellis. I was not disappointed.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 3/5
      I was hooked by the beginning excerpt (the trailer and endorsement by Wil Wheaton didn't hurt either).However, the story fizzles after the first 33%. It's a fantastic draw-in, just like any good comic book writer should do. There's no real twists or gotchas through the plot. Everything you thought was happening is what's happening. I guess my problem was that the promises set up by the beginning don't reflect the ending.And what you think might be bizarre or supernatural turns out to be normal realism. It's called "Gun Machine" but there is no machine, much less one made of guns. Big locked door, guns in circles. You're thinking aliens? Cult ritual? Something ethereal (at least based on the trailer). And it turns out to be mundane.That being said, the characters (especially the CSI forensics team) are fantastically written, as are the antagonists and the smart protagonists. It's a crime thriller written by a comic book writer, one who subscribes to the Neil Gaiman school of writing. That means it's sharp, short, and witty. I think it's worth a try.
    • 2/5
      I enjoyed the story, but found many of the leaps of logic far too coincidental for dramatic crime fiction. I liked the characters. Tallow, Bat and Scarly are an investigative team I'd enjoy visiting with again. I also liked the premise of the hunter and his gun machine of wampum magic.

      However, the elements that bring it all together felt forced and lacking. Ellis provides a core team of a detective and two CSIs, but there isn't a lot of detective work done, nor a lot of scientific investigation that the reader gets to see. We know prints get run and previous cases are tied in through searching in computer databases...but it all feels a bit dry. And the big breaks are where the incredible happens...not because the team is good at what they do, but simply because they are lucky.

      It's difficult to care about the central conflict when the main characters are succeeding because they are in the right places at the right times. There is very little in this book that made me feel as if the good guys wouldn't win. There just wasn't enough difficulty thrown in front of Tallow. Everything breaks his way. That doesn't make for tense reading.

      I like Ellis and loved Crooked Little Vein. This felt like a watered down crime drama without direction or difficulty for the main character. It was entertaining, but not in a "I can't put this down" sort of way.
    • 4/5
      Original and a little weird plot, interesting characters. I found sometimes author going on a tangent and in those cases it was becoming boring. Fortunately, there were not that many places like that.
    • 4/5
      mostly, an awesome thing to be reading while I visited NY. Except the micro stories of the police scanner.
    • 4/5
      This has been getting a lot of buzz, and while I admire its verve, I can’t say as I’m as blown away as some. I’m a huge fan of Ellis’ first novel Crooked Little Vein, a nasty little satire that hit all the right spots. Gun Machine, a crime thriller about possible the greatest serial killer in history, is more concerned with quirk than crime, and while I’m a great fan of quirk, it never falls completely together for me. It’s a good ride, don’t get me wrong, and worth reading, but I wanted something just a bit meatier.
    • 5/5
      A fine combination of noire, police procedural, and "what sick bastard would think of doing that?" is here combined by the excellent writing of Warren Ellis. A stronger, more connected narrative line than his first novel — Crooked Little Vein — this tale is rooted in Manhattan and combines local history and a security company-based conspiracy to form an excellent, and tightly woven tale of intrigue. Characters (both normal and colourful) are fully formed, and the settings are expertly detailed to bring things to life in your head without heading into Proust-like territory. Fabulous, and highly recommended for anyone, with little restriction for age, gender, or tastes: something for everyone here.
    • 4/5
      While I have enjoyed Warren Ellis’s comic work greatly I was a bit uncertain if his “style” would transfer over effectively to pure prose... I am quite happy to report any worries I had were wholly unfounded. This book kicks some ass! Seriously, entertaining with something to say, this is a book I can recommend without reservation. Now I want to see Ellis write less comics and more books.