Rating: 
Summary: Blade Runner meets The long good-bye
Review: How do you make an hard boiled Sci-fi story?Take a cynical but really golden-hearted (proportions of cynicism and goodness may vary) private-eye in less tan friendly terms whit the official cops,some client in deep [trouble] who's innocent,some big rich jaded family in murky liaison whit ruthless mobsters,some fascinating dangerous babe, some ghastly creep,and you have the hard-boiled part. For a Blade-runner-like scenario you have only to add an oppressive police-state regime, some creepy genetic extravaganza,
an overall gloomy athmosphere...and the cocktail is done. Lethem knows it. What he did'nt know when he wrote this book is how to keep the reader interested. Exasperated,I flew toward the solution of the rather messy story and...my jaw fell to the floor,as I was literally flabbergasted. But I was not amused.
Rating: 
Summary: How to Tell if You Will Like This Novel
Review: Let me say that this is a fantastic novel, one of the most imaginative that I've read in some time. Its so good that anyone liking the following criteria should like this novel:1) Do you like Raymond Chandler/hard-nosed detectives/noir? 2) Do you like imaginative Sci-Fi (i.e. forget the spaceships and add in the evolved kangaroos) 3) Does the line: "His voice sounded like it had been washed with too much bleach" intrigue you? The book is metaphor heavy and many are quite brilliant. 4) Do you like humor? If you have answered yes to the above questions read the book.
Rating:
Summary: LOVING my Lethem
Review: I swear to dogs that Jonathan Lethem MUST stare in the mirror at least once a day and scream "WOW!"
Thats what I say everytime I fall into one of his strangely psychotic yet highly erotic stories.
Gun, With Occasional Music is not MERELY a book, it qualifies as the quintessential "other".
When you read it you will get the uncanny sensation of a stick being jammed into the spokes of the wheels turning in your brain.
Pretty soon your synapses are skidding into pure euphoric revery. Now THIS is my kind of high.
AHHHH! Jonathan Lethem...how do I love thee?
Let me count the Kangaroos.
Infinity.
This aint' science fiction, Lethem is LOVE!
Rating: 
Summary: "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" goes "Back to the Future"
Review: Lethem's first book is a real mixed bag. It has bright ideas and not-so-bright ideas, some of which he develops more than others, a shambles of a plot filled to the brim with clever scenes and memorable characters, and a nice cheeky attitude of a gumshoe novel transported into a warped, Philip K. Dickian future. Sometimes it keeps you glued to the page. Other times you feel like closing it and walking away. First and foremost, "Gun, With Occasional Music" is a highly introverted novel. Lethem toys with a mannered, satirical tone that is sometimes irritating but can generate a chuckle now and then ("the dentist swiveled on his heels and disappeared, leaving me there to massage my jaw back into feeling after its brief, masochistic marriage to the top of my wooden desk"). Like Dick, he tosses around a lot of concepts no one takes seriously at first, but gradually become familiar: his big city is populated in part by "evolved" animals ("she was wearing a bonnet and a flowered dress, but she still smelled like the barnyard") and "babyheads", pre-aged children ("in a babybar, the drinking started early"). In fact, echoes of Dick show up in every part of the novel, from the underlying themes of coming to terms with reality and ambivalent ethics. Lethem even begins by waking his character with a rather bizarre contraption, much like Dick in his "Do Androids Dream...?" (Deckard is woken up by his mood organ, while Metcalf wakes up to the musical interpretation of the news), and drugs figure prominently in both authors' books ("Acceptol with just a touch of Regrettol"). The greatest problem is that all this inherited potential is trapped inside a do-not-resuscitate post-structuralist plot told from the POV of a character that has charisma, but is not taken advantage of. Lethem's hero is technically investigating a murder in his own time (his unique sense of duty won't let him quit), but if Conrad Metcalf is "playing it too existentially", so is Lethem: left without a clue, his hero wanders from place to place, tries to wheedle information from people (sometimes very ominous and powerful people, whom he has no apparent reason to visit), precipitates trouble on himself, and the cycle starts over. The pacing suffers, and the tension slumps when it becomes apparent that Metcalf will keep up his valiant and foolhardy efforts despite his lack of success. For a great length of time it seems that the plot leads nowhere. The novel is saddled with scenes of sophomoric foul language, gruesome violence, and rather meaningless sex. Lethem revives his novel in an unexpected second act that seems as if it was written separately. This isn't the sort of book to have a "Part 2", and Lethem shows great skill in his use of this rather exotic device. "Gun, With Occasional Music" ends with a powerfully written, poignant sequence of scenes that not only resolves every technical detail of the mystery, but also manages to prevent the reader from feeling cheated. Unimpressive, with moments of occasional genius.
Rating:
Summary: First rate book from a first rate author--brilliant!!!!
Review: One of the most bizarre, creative books I've read in a long time. This is basically a 1940's variety hard-boiled PI mystery set in a distant, science fiction future, Orwellianesque Oakland. In the future, both animals and infants routinely speak and behave like adults thanks to "evolution therapy". Conrad Metcalf is a jaded private investigator whose latest case pits him against both the police and local gangsters when his most recent client, a wealthy urologist, is found murdered. After the prime suspect, already condemned and scheduled for long term hibernation for another cime, convinces Metcalf he's not his man, the case gives Conrad's gumshoe instincts a workout. He's led down a meandering trail upon which he meets the victim's widow and an evolved baby who may--or may not--be hers, and discovers a sinister blueprint for a backroom barracks designed to house other evolved babies for nefarious purposes. This novel is a sparking pastiche of Chandleresque detective fiction, Orwellian political fiction, and Gibsonian science fiction displaced to an almost comical yet chilling postmodern landscape. Amid its smartly delivered first-person narration and crackling dialog, even a tough-talking kangaroo hit-man that intermittently tangles with Metcalf seems plausible. Truly fascinating!
Rating: 
Summary: more style than substance
Review: Complicated murder mystery. The ideas that are supposed to make this book "science" fiction are not explained and are no integral, logical part of the story.
Rating:
Summary: Extra points for Karma
Review: As usual I was turned on to this book by a friend. My reading style varies, and the one thing that keeps me enthralled is the curiosity of what is to unfold. Gun with Occasional Music fulfills that need. The gumshoe detective life of Conrad Metcalf reminded me of Pulp by Charles Bukowski while dealing with animal mutations on a batch of 'make' was something out of the Naked Lunch. A random sequence of events in another time and place. Truly ingenious.
Rating:
Summary: Better Than Most, But Not Lethem's Best
Review: I guess I hold a minority view here, I was somewhat disappointed by "Gun, With Occasional Music." The "comic noir" angle seemed overplayed, and the "forced evolution" trick served no real purpose I could discern. All the audaciousness and bold experimentation we've come to expect from Lethem was here (in spades... Sam Spades) but unlike, say, "Girl In Landscape" or "The Wall of the Sky" in this book they just made it seem mannered and self-conscious. Still a very entertaining read, and way beyond run-of-the-mill, but as someone who has written some of the most inventive current fiction, he has far outdone this book in later works.
Rating:
Summary: Lethem's First, and quite probably still his best.
Review: Lethem's first novel, "Gun, With Occasional Music" still remains my favorite work of his, as he manages to master a genre so few others have, the Future-Noir. Most writters tend to simply put their hero in a cyberpunk future and slap a hat and trenchcoat on them, but Lethem actually creates a future landscape that feels both old and new, a confused era where technological advancements also seem like steps backward.
Much like the good old days of of the 50's, when elaborate Labor Saving Devices and Technical Marvels to Simplify Life flooded a market hungry for luxury, Lethem creates a reality where psychological comfort is the main goal. Less Orwellian than it is Feel-Good Legislation run amok, Letham's world has outlawed questions and reading, removed facts and words from news reports, and placed karmic justice under government control. This world is a happy place, like it or not, and it is illegal to rock the boat. Of, course, this sort of environment is no place for a detective, and that is where the true appeal of Gun shines through. A man totally out of his element, a private eye in a world where no one wants answers, he's a character that most people can identify with on some levels, a man who clings to a purpose that society has decided to make obsolete. If any detective deserves his own series, this one does.
Add to this Letham's excellent writting style, with his ability to crank out memorable descriptions and lines of dialogue that will claw at your skull long after you put the book down, and you have a novel you'll be recommending to friends for years to come. "Gun, With Occasional Music" belongs on the top of any reading list.
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Summary: An Impressive Debut By One Of Our Best Fiction Writers
Review: Jonathan Lethem's vivid prose soars in his remarkable debut novel; which is a sly, humorous homage to Raymond Chandler and Philip K. Dick. It is also the funniest cyberpunk novel published since Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash". Lethem gives a dazzling, unique view of a future San Francisco where sentient animals sound just like Chandler's rogues. And his hero does come across as a latter day Philip Marlowe. Lethem grapples with themes such as drugs and biotechnology that are recurring motifs in Dick's work; incidentally, they are found as well in Gibson's, yet Lethem's prose isn't quite as dense and opaque as Gibson's in "Neuromancer". Jonathan Lethem is a fine writer whose best work truly transcends genres. Although he is best known for his science fiction, his love of language and keen eye for detail pervades all of his work, most notably in his award-winning mainstream detective novel "Motherless Brooklyn". Those who were introduced to Lethem's work in "Motherless Brooklyn" will find "Gun, With Occasional Music" an essential part of Lethem's ongoing oeuvre of fiction.
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