GoodReads Review: The Automatic Detective

[bobquasit]

The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fredric Brown meets Terry Pratchett.

Or, 1940s detective pulp noir fiction meets a wacky science fiction universe.

Either way, The Automatic Detective is a light, funny, well-written novel. It never goes awry. Considering the sorry state of modern genre publishing, that's an achievement in itself.

The adventures of Mack Megaton, an erstwhile killing machine burdened with free will and a conscience, make for a good read. A. Lee Martinez hits the right notes and nods to the classic elements of the pulp noir detective story. I did note a few passages that seemed oddly repetitious - enough to make me wonder if the book had first been serialized in a magazine, and then imperfectly fixed up - but these are only the mildest of flaws. I hope to see a sequel, or several, and I'll keep an eye out for more by Mr. Martinez.

View all my reviews.

Comments

[yendi]

I really liked this one, and one thing that has impressed me about Martinez is his ability to shift genres easily (although always writing humor). I haven't disliked any of his books yet.

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

He's done several other books (and this one, which I reviewed last year is one of his best). He does a lot of fantasy themes stuff, though also some horror, all with a humor twist to them. He doesn't do sequels, as far as I can tell.

I don't know if his material was originally serialized or not though, I'm not up on the current crop of the surviving Sf and Fantasy related magazines, only getting an odd issue now and then around convention season.