Gun, with Occasional Music

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Gun, with Occasional Music (1994) is a novel by Jonathan Lethem. It blends science fiction and detective fiction.

Plot introduction

The novel follows the adventures of Conrad Metcalf, tough guy and wiseass, through a futuristic version of Oakland and Piedmont, California.

Plot summary

Metcalf is hired by a man who claims that he's being framed for the murder of a prominent urologist. Metcalf quickly discovers that nobody wants the case solved: not the victim's ex-wife, not the police, and certainly not the gun-toting kangaroo who works for the local mafia boss.

Characters in \"Gun, with Occasional Music\"

Conrad Metcalf

Major themes

Lethem's future

Thanks to technology, children can become smarter and more cynical than adults; such children are known as baby-heads. Animals, too, can be given the intelligence of a human being through bioscientific techniques, a concept explored previously by David Brin in his Uplift novels and Roger Zelazny in Dream Master. Lethem's animals stand midway between these two; like Brin's, they have clearly delineated and delimited rights; like Zelazny's, however, they are part of a darker symbolism.

Another technology Lethem envisions is nerve-swapping, in which couples trade erogenous zones for purposes of sexual experimentation. The protagonist of Gun, with previously underwent such a procedure, and is now trapped with a woman's neuro-sexual apparatus because his girlfriend skipped town with his male one.

People are more sensitive in Lethem's future; asking questions is considered astonishingly rude, making private detectives, whose job involves prying, social pariahs. Rather than broadcast bad news to squeamish listeners, the radio plays ominous music instead. (Handguns also come with threatening violin soundtracks.) And everyone is "on the make"--make being a snortable drug available in a dozen different blends (Acceptol, Avoidol, Forgettol) in stores called makeries.

Release details

• 1994, U.S., Harcourt, ISBN 0151364583, Pub date 01 March 1994, Hardcover
• 1995, U.S., Tor, ISBN 0312858787, Pub date 01 March 1995, Paperback
• 2003, U.S., Harvest, ISBN 0156028972, Pub date 01 September 2003, Paperback

Sources, references, external links, quotations

[Review of the novel] by Steven Silver

 

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