Title: Machine Man
Author: Max Barry
Publisher: Vintage
Published: August 9th, 2011
Where I got the book: Powell’s Bookstore

From the back cover:

Scientist Charles Neumann loses a leg in an industrial accident. It’s not a tragedy. It’s an opportunity. Charlie always thought his body could be better. He begins to explore a few ideas. To build parts. Better parts.

Prosthetist Lola Shanks loves a good artificial limb. In Charlie, she sees a man on his way to becoming artificial everything. But others see a madman. Or a product. Or a weapon.

A story for the age of pervasive technology, Machine Man is a gruesomely funny unraveling of one man’s quest for ultimate self-improvement.

Review:

Machine Man has the best opening in a book that I’ve ever read. Charles wakes up in his apartment and desperately searches for his cell phone. It’s funny and everybody can relate to his situation. Who hasn’t lost their cell phone at least once and gone through the process of retracing your steps. Eventually, Chales finds his cell phone. Unfortunately, he loose a leg in the process and starts his obsession with prosthetic limbs.

I’ve you’ve read any of Barry’s books before (and by all means you should), then you know what to expect. There’s a cast of flawed characters running around and a big corporation in the background looking out for its own interest regardless of the cost. Charles, being a totally reasonable engineer, is determined to make the best prosthetic leg imaginable. In Machine Man, Charles is employed by Better Future, a company devoted to making the future better. Once they realize that the prosthetics Charles is making could be very profitable, they take a keen interest in his research. Unfortunately, things quickly get out of control as more limbs are lost and replaced with better ones.

This book is fill with a bunch of very comedic scenes such as Charles being taken for a wild ride by his untested robotic legs. These bits are filled with Barry’s trademark humor.

My one complaint about the book is that the main character is not very likeable. He’s a self obsessed jerk who, for the most part, only cares about making himself better through the prosthetists he makes. When his lab assistants manage to improve eyes with Better Eyes, it’s a product he dislikes because he didn’t think of it. In contrast, Charles does fall in love with Lola and for a while she becomes his obsession. However, it’s not long lived because he is easily distracted with prosthetists. In the end, he’s not a character I could root for on a consistent basis which hindered my overall enjoyment of this book.

Closing Thoughts: While not his strongest work, Machine Man is still a very enjoyable, fun read for people looking for something not too serious.

Question: Has anybody played the video game Deux Ex: Human Revolution? I started played it after finishing this book and I am enjoying the parallels.

Max Barry announced on his blog today that his latest book, Machine Man, will be released August 9th. That’s only six weeks away! Normally when I am anticipating a book it is months before it gets released. Take for example Abarat: Absolute Midnight by Clive Barker which comes out September 27th or The Fault in Out Stars by John Green which wont be seeing the light of day until May 1st, 2012. 2012! I think I can live with waiting six weeks for Machine Man.

Max Barry, in case you didn’t know, is one of my favorite authors. He has written three books so far (Syrup, Jennifer Government and Company).  All three of them are fantastic.

Now does anybody know who I can contact at Vintage to get an ARC?

My Top Five Favorite Books

Number One
Company
by Max Barry

I don’t remember what caused me to pick up this book and start reading it. Judging from the cover, maybe I was hungry at the time. Little did I know that Company by Max Barry would open my eyes to the world of middle management and essentially ruin every future job I would have. Somethings can’t be unread.

What is the book about?
At Zephyr Holdings, no one has ever seen the CEO in person. The beautiful receptionist is paid twice as much as anybody else, but does no apparent work. The sales reps use relationship self-help books as sales manuals, and one is on the warpath because of a missing mid-morning donut. In other words, it’s an ordinary big company.

This is the book that asks the questions: When is physical violence an appropriate response to management policy? Why is that one reserved parking space always empty? Taking an extra donut from the team’s basket: is that a sign of a motivated go-getter, or a sociopath? And this sea of incompetence and insanity they call a workplace: it can’t really be that way by accident, can it?

Why is it in my top five?
This book changed my life forever. Namely, it has made me more cynical of companies. I was working at a bank during the period when I was reading this book. It was scary because I started to notice parallels between the fictitious Zypher Holdings from the book and my real job. I was disturbed. It eventually became impossible for me to take my job seriously any more and I quit. Since that fateful day I have never looked at middle management in the same way. But isn’t that what satire is? Exaggerating situations to point out the ridiculousness of something? I love all of Max Barry’s books, but this one if by far my favorite.

Top 5 Favorite Books:
5) sex.lies.murder.fame. by Lolita Files
4) Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman
3) Apathy and Other Small Victories by Paul Neilan
2) I Am Not Myself These Days by Josh Kilmer-Purcell
1) Company by Max Barry

While shopping at Powells last week, I managed to find a hardcover, first-edition copy of Max Barry’s Jennifer Government. My paperback copy suffered some unfortunate water damage, so I needed a replacement copy. When I got home I found this (New Yorker?) cartoon between the pages. It made me worry slightly.

Anyway, I’ll probably still read the book with minimal worry. However, if I do contract SARS or something equally as deadly, please blame the used book industry.

Speaking of Max Barry, did you see that Darren Aronofsky is set to direct the movie adaptation of Max Barry’s latest book, Machine Man?

I’m super annoyed.

I just dropped one of my favorite books in toilet water. It was clean toilet water but still. I have standards. It was Jennifer Government by Max Barry. I’ve read the book previously (my review) but felt the need to re-read it after I finished Company. This gives me an excuse to buy the book it in hardcover instead of my UK paperback. Max Barry is one of my favorite authors which is why I allow myself to re-read his books. Since there are so many books out there waiting to be read, I typically never re-read a book. There’s something new out there waiting to be discovered why go back to something where you already know how it ends.

Luckily, I tend to read more than one book at a time so I still have Susan Henderson’s Up from the Blue to finish which apparently has a book trailer.

So far I am enjoying the book.

Company (Hardcover)
by Max Barry
Doubleday, February 2006
338 Pages

It’s Monday. It’s the start of another work week. For most people there are five days to go until the weekend when we can forget about punching the time clock and working for “the man”. Don’t fret though, I have a book that changed the way I viewed work place monotony that I recently re-read, and I must share it with you.

First, some backstory. A few years ago I was working at a big corporate bank. For the sake of avoiding slanderous lawsuits I will refer to this big corporate bank as BIG BANK. I was working in the credit card phone customer service taking incoming calls and hearing people complain about their APR or how they maxed out their card or how they need an increase in their credit line so they could buy a Playstation 3. I did this for eight hours a day, five days a week. I felt as if I was shackled to my desk by the cord of the telephone headset I had to wear. Then along came Max Barry’s Company.

In Company, the fictional company of Zephyr Holdings has just hired Jones as a Sales Representative. The company has had a hiring freeze in effect. To get around the freeze Jones is hired and categorized as paper for the copying machine. Once he settles in he goes around asking questions like “What do we do here?” and “Who are our customers?” and quickly discovers that nobody knows the answers. Possibly worse, nobody cares. His co-workers accuse him of rocking the boat and that the only reason he’s asking such questions is because he’s new. Things don’t add up and as Jones investigates Zephyr Holdings, he discovers the true purpose behind the company’s insane business decisions. Insane business decisions like having the receptionist on the first floor tell a majority of the company that they’ve been laid off or why the buttons on the elevator are upside with the ground floor being level 30 and the top floor level 1.

What I love most about Company is the way Max Barry is able to explain the logic behind the company’s thought process. The reader is suppose to relate to Jones and agree with him that the company is making some real bad decisions and their problems could easily be solved if they used some common sense.

Anyway, back to my job at BIG BANK. I was reading this book and I started to notice some parallels between BIG BANK and Zephyr Holdings. It was then I realized that my time at BIG BANK was over and I put in my two weeks notice.

I highly recommend this book in general and especially to anybody who is disgruntled at their job.

Note: He did a reading at Google which is worth checking out.