Crooked Little Review

Hi,

So I just finished up Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis. Mr. Ellis is mostly known as a writer in the field of comic books and has written some of my favorites (of which, I enjoyed Global Frequency the most). Here he turns his hand to a short novel.

So if you know Mr. Ellis, you know what to expect from the book. Only without the slightest concession to comic book codes real or imaginary. Which means that the book is a headlong plunge into the disturbing and bizarre. It's like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but with a much stronger kinky sex bent than a drug bent.

There's also some pontificating on how the weird is the mainstream and what does it mean to be "underground", when any fetish you dream up automatically has a web site and way too many pictures in the moment you think of it.

The story itself concerns Mike McGill, a private detective whose cases always take a turn for the disturbing. He gets hired to hunt down a book containing the secret constitution of the United States and it just goes right down the rabbit hole from there.

It was a fun read and a rich mine of ideas for an Unknown Armies game (I'd say a twisted game of Unknown Armies, but that's redundant). I suspect that most people who like Ellis's comics would like the book and it's a short, quick read so even if you hate it, you won't have wasted too much time on it.

later
Tom

Crooked Little Review

Hi,

So I just finished up Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis. Mr. Ellis is mostly known as a writer in the field of comic books and has written some of my favorites (of which, I enjoyed Global Frequency the most). Here he turns his hand to a short novel.

So if you know Mr. Ellis, you know what to expect from the book. Only without the slightest concession to comic book codes real or imaginary. Which means that the book is a headlong plunge into the disturbing and bizarre. It's like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but with a much stronger kinky sex bent than a drug bent.

There's also some pontificating on how the weird is the mainstream and what does it mean to be "underground", when any fetish you dream up automatically has a web site and way too many pictures in the moment you think of it.

The story itself concerns Mike McGill, a private detective whose cases always take a turn for the disturbing. He gets hired to hunt down a book containing the secret constitution of the United States and it just goes right down the rabbit hole from there.

It was a fun read and a rich mine of ideas for an Unknown Armies game (I'd say a twisted game of Unknown Armies, but that's redundant). I suspect that most people who like Ellis's comics would like the book and it's a short, quick read so even if you hate it, you won't have wasted too much time on it.

later
Tom