Book Review: Gun Machine - Warren Ellis

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, like Neil Gaiman and Bill Willingham (amongst others) before him, began his author life penning comics. Warren Ellis penned some of the greatest comics of the 1990’s and 2000’s. Titles like PLANETARY, THE AUTHORITY, GLOBAL FREQUENCY, and TRANSMETROPOLITAN have actually help to shape modern comics and set the storytelling level that is now expected from the books. Without people like Ellis, Morrison, Gaiman, Vaughn ect. we wouldn’t have young bucks like Scott Snyder absolutely winning at writing superhero books.

So it’s kind of a no-brainer when someone like Warren Ellis pens a prose novel that a fan like me (I’ve met the man, and he is that awesome) will be picking it up. His first foray into such a media was 2007’s CROOKED LITTLE VEIN, a bizarre, compelling little volume about a washed-up P.I. who is hired to traipse across America’s seedy underbelly looking for a fabled, secret 2nd United States Constitution. I recall what stuck out about it when I read it was the infinite “readability” of it. The story could have been about a sentient washcloth and Ellis could have made it an engrossing read. It just so happens that he finds the most insane, yet interesting stuff to write about. He always has.

And GUN MACHINE (his latest prose effort) is no different.

The premise is wholly clever, bizarre, and interesting in equal measure, but it’s Ellis’ skill evident in his writing that will keep you reading well into the night. He can make the most pedestrian scene or set of events pop off the page like it’s some secret history. In this case VIA characters who are brilliantly fleshed out. The lead is John Tallow a detective at the end of his “caring” rope who is thrown into an unbelievable situation, and two CSU officers join him to solve it all. Scarly is a self-claimed autistic with a potty mouth, and then there is Bat, a nerdy guy with a temperamental stomach and has a penchant for the strange and robotic. There is a churchlike apartment filled with mosaics of guns from throughout history, each of them used in more than one crime and some of them over 100 years old. A madman named only “the Hunter” who crafted that room for his own purposes. John and crew must attempt to get to the bottom of why the Hunter has done what he did, how he’s gotten away with it for twenty+ years, and at the same time deal with more than 100 unsolved cold-case NYC murders that have come to light with the guns.

When I reached the end of the novel, it had followed a progression. Not a guessable one, but neither was it filed with twists and turns. Once you realize where it is headed you won’t be wholly surprised it went there. This is a story that has a compelling mystery at its heart, but its true success lay in Ellis’ prose which is so spot on that even a pint and bite to eat while chatting about the case sizzles off the page. The man is simply a wordsmith, and can craft a sentence that would be at home with literary masters. But what feeds through even that is the sensibility of someone who knows how people talk, communicate, and interact with each other on a REAL level. One imagines it comes from his years of blogging, tweeting and commenting on the internet, but Ellis knows people. In that vein, he then knows characters. So his characters sing, and we listen.

A wonderfully addictive read GUN MACHINE holds up under the most scrutinized eye. It’s at once a thrilling read with tension and danger at the fore, and also a quiet introspective look at inner feelings, turmoil, and personality. John Tallow is a POV character that it’s easy to get behind because even when he’s not being necessarily heroic, he’s being realistically heroic. It makes him flawed, but it makes him better than the more flawed villains. He’s not Sherlock Holmes, but he at least tries to look at things in more than one light at a time.

So, the first proper read of 2013 is Warren Ellis GUN MACHINE and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. It’s out in stores now, so you too can read it!

Comic Re-Reads: Planetary by Warren Ellis (Review Part I)

 

Chris is ill with whatever cold or flu his daughter passed to his unprepared immune system, so there is no Six Sentence Comic Reviews this week. Sorry to the folk who come for those, but I assume he’ll be back as soon as he is no longer Code: Sicky.

In lieu of that though I can offer you something in the comic area. The one comic series I was hopelessly (even when it was on hiatus for a couple of years) devoted to was Warren Ellis’ brilliant PLANETARY. In my run up to the release of the last Malazan volume (THE CRIPPLED GOD), I needed something I had read before to use as a ramp up…So I’m re-reading the aforementioned series (in collected Trade Paperback form), so this post covers Volume #1 (Collected Issues #1-8).

Do you like FRINGE? LOST? X-FILES? THE LOST ROOM? All these mind-bending, mystery shows have one thing in common:

Warren Ellis’ PLANETARY did it first.

Funded discreetly by an unknown benefactor named simply “The Fourth Man”, Planetary is a globe-spanning organization run by 3 key members in the United States. It is a clandestine organization that are “archeologists of the impossible” and within pages of the first trade you see why. Members Jakita Wagner (unexplained super speed and strength), and The Drummer (first name “The” last name “Drummer” can locate and manipulate anything with an electronic signal) recruit cold, cranky, old Elijah Snow as their new Third member. Snow is a Century Baby, born in 1900 amongst a number of other people, each with extraordinary powers. The Century Baby thing is a theme that runs through a lot of Ellis’ DC/Wildstorm comics, including the amazing Jenny Sparks, British leader of The Authority (another comic by Ellis). Snow is whisked right away on his first mission with Planetary where they discover Axel Brass, an American adventurer who should not be alive. Also a Century Baby, Brass was a member of a group of secret scientists and adventurers who (at the tail end of World War II) created a quantum computer called the Snowflake, which showed the Multiverse. Proving that the earth is one of countless earths in countless realities in countless universes, all separated by a thin liquid layer known as the Bleed. The experiment that was The Snowflake went wrong though and our earth was subject to an invasion from the multiverse of superhumans intent on saving their world(s) from the destruction The Snowflake was going to wreak. Brass and his compatriots defend the Snowflake tooth and nail and everyone is killed except Brass who then chooses to stand guard over the still-active anomaly, to prevent other invasions...for the next 45 years.We find out that he learned how to heal his own body and mind over that time which kept him alive.

This was all within the first issue and to be honest this was an easy hook for me. We have action, intrigue, clandestine world organizations, secret societies, quantum science, alternate realities, superhumans and adventurers at the tail end of WWII. From there on out the series only gets stranger, crazier and even more enthralling! The next few issues deal with some very cool stuff, which I’d rather not ruin but I’ll give you some clues: Big Japanese Monsters, Hong Kong Ghosts, Quantum Ships, and even more about Brass and Co. and how they go to where they were when they built their machine.

I have always enjoyed this series, and when people ask me I always tell them that PLANETARY is the very best comic series I have ever read. Ever. I told Ellis that when I met him back in 2004. I also said that HE was the sole reason I started reading comics in the first place and he grinned at me and in his British accent said “I’m really sorry mate.” And we both chuckled.

If you have never heard of it, order it online or go to your local book or comic store and find the first trade beg, borrow, and steal to get your grubby paws on it! Anyone who likes fantasy, history and sci-fi will love it I assure you. The second part of my endorsement comes from the fact that the series is 4 trades long and that’s it. It’s completed now and can be read without fear of having to collect numerous volumes ect. The third part of the endorsement is that John Cassaday’s art is ALWAYS amazing, every panel is so incredibly drawn and shaded that PLANETARY is simply a joy just to look at.

The great news is that this first trade merely scratches the surface of what is to come in the following three volumes. This journey has only just begun, so stay tuned for Part II, III and IV of my re-read reviews on this addictive comic series.