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Jan 21, 2012

Stephen rated it:

Faint-hearts and the offendable might just want to sit this one out…the book, mind you, not this review. Acclaimed comics writer Warren Ellis cranks up the “ick” factor to about 11 and delivers a hysterical noir, mystery travelogue through the oddest, most depraved nooks and crannies of the American psyche. It is dark, twisted and no-holds barred...and it is also very, VERY funny.

To give you a sample of the agenda items Ellis uses in his carnival of oddballities, you will will find More...

36 comments like (51 people liked it)

Nov 21, 2007

Noah rated it:

Boy, where do I start with this one? First off, let me warn those who find certain fetishes, or sexual behaviors, to be weird or disturbing, that this novel may bother you greatly. However, it also may change how you view "weird" sexuality. It's not that this book is only about sex. It's not. It's just mostly about sex. What people find pleasurable in a sexual context varies wildly here. We see everything from Godzilla porn, to saline injections into the testicles and labia, to ST More...

2 comments like (8 people liked it)

Aug 28, 2007

Bryant rated it:

Warren Ellis reads the Internet, and if I didn't read the Internet I could learn a lot about the perverse side of society by reading this book. Unfortunately, I do read the Internet, so it's not really news.

And then there's the point at which a bunch of people tell the protagonist he needs to shut up and participate in their particular kink or they won't give him the information they need. This is not depicted as a negative thing, oddly. Isn't there a word for that?

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Sean rated it:

Hard-boiled, down-on-his-luck, borderline alcoholic chain-smoking detective meets young, promiscuous female ambassador of Lower East Side counterculture. Adventure and rancid dick jokes inevitably ensue.

I love Ellis. Love the man. He's a mix of Thompson with more animus and Vonnegut without that pesky undercurrent of charming humanism. That said, this novel will not for a second surprise anyone familiar with his work. 'Crooked Little Vein' has a well-fueled plot engine, scenes that c More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Toby rated it:

Wow, was this book disappointing. What should have been Ellis's introduction to the print world became a collection of hey-guys-look-at-this-crazy-shit-I-found-on-the-internet-and-posted-on-my-blog-already, strung together by the thinnest of narratives. There are occasional sentences that smack of the author's way with words, but it's hardly worth the trudge through the rest of the book.

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jan 02, 2008

Jason rated it:

(My full review of this book is much longer than GoodReads' word-count limitations. Find the entire essay at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:].)

All hail Warren Ellis! Er, don't smack me for saying that, Mr. Ellis! For that's a big reason why so many people so passionately love this "weird" author, gonzo blogger and comics veteran; because he takes no sh-t, rarely grants interviews, calls people to the carpet in public when they're in the w More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 10, 2007

ally rated it:

like a really horrible, pretentious attempt at a Penny Dreadful. trying to be sick and weird for the sake of being sick and weird. any point/lesson was blatant and repeated/shoved down throat. painful to read

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 20, 2011

Kemper rated it:

Well, this is just all kinds of messed up…..

Mike McGill is a private detective with bizarre luck that has him constantly getting mixed up in things he’d rather not know about like guys who have sex with ostriches. The creepy and corrupt White House chief of staff wants to use Mike’s tendency to be a ‘shit magnet’ to help him track down a book that contains the Secret Constitution of the United States that the administration will use to stop all the weirdness that has been going on s More...

11 comments like (14 people liked it)

Dec 30, 2009

Ceridwen rated it:

So, sometimes you read poetry, and the poet does surprising things with language. They use nouns, verbs, and direct objects, in something approximating their natural occurrences, but it's entirely unexpected. Leaves of grass holy crap! the wine-dark sea perfection! petals on a wet, black bough how the hell did he just do that to my brain!

In Jagged Little Vein, Warren Ellis kind of does this, only with the American landscape, and the kind of perversity most people troll the Internet More...

5 comments like (7 people liked it)

Sep 27, 2008

Dirk rated it:

Not too long ago I posted a rant against Warren Ellis and said I wouldn’t buy this book because he was a dog hatin bitch. I was blogging under the infuence though and I did end up buying the book. I like his writing and lots of people were saying this was a fun book. Also, we were just about to take off for the coast (the softcover edition of the book came out the day before our trip) and I really wanted something fun to read for the 5 hour drive. So, there ya go.

The book is fun. I d More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 22, 2011

Marco rated it:

My review: This is a fun and insane book, a tourist guide through the most classic of American genres, the detective novel. Mixed in with one of those American road trips and a skin in the vein of what Chuck Palahniuk used to do so well and now does so cliche (in fact, I'd go so far as to say that Ellis makes Palahniuk look like Judy Blume with this book). It's also a parody of those books where someone from a more erudite and critical culture (usually the Brits) points out how sick we are and s More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 30, 2007

Rose rated it:

I'm still not sure why I read this. Probably because I really enjoy a lot of the comics he's behind: Hellblazer is one of my favorite series, Planetary and The Authority were well-done, and Global Frequency was great if disappointingly short-lived. There's a lot I don't like about his comic book work, too: it's over-the-top, immature, kind of misogynist and pretty egoistical. As it turned out, I disliked Crooked Little Vein for the same reasons. Purple prose, one-dimensional characters masquerad More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 28, 2007

Michael rated it:

Look, if you've read any Warren Ellis, then you've read this book. However, the structure of this first novel was more like an episode of The Family Guy than Transmetropolitan. Similarly to Transmet however, there is a lot of preachy bits on societal sub-cultures, but not as well done. The story is frormed around a very thin treasure-hunt plot with endless "cut-scenes". It wasn't a bad novel -- in fact, it is wholly recognizable as something Ellis might write... but maybe too much More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 15, 2011

Simone rated it:

Non aspettatevi Transmetropolitan e nemmeno Authority. Non aspettatevi Doom 2099, per Dio. Questo non è un libro per mammolette, ve lo dico forte e chiaro. Se siete minimamente sensibili al turpiloquio, lasciate perdere, non sfogliate nemmeno la prima pagina. Se invece siete in cerca di delirio sessuale, un linguaggio degno del peggior Tarantino strafatto di crack e tonnellate di sana (sanissima) ultraviolenza vecchio stile, mettete mano al portafogli e acchiappatevi questo capolavoro.
Mike McGi More...

0 comments like

Dec 30, 2010

Franco rated it:

A differenza del mio amico nero (http://nero.noblogs.org/post/2009/12/22/...) non riesco a definire Con tanta benzina in vena come noir. E' un libro di viaggio, questo di Ellis, un meraviglioso, eccitante, fantasmagorico, crudo, vero, romanzo di viaggio. Di viaggio nel senso della quest, della ricerca, anche dell'iniziazione, senza però l'eroismo macho e fascistoide del fantasy, anzi.
Mike McGill, detective con le ore contate - nel senso che è in condizioni tali che le sue speranze di sopravviven More...

0 comments like

Nov 14, 2010

Paolo A. rated it:

L'investigatore privato Michael McGill, ex Pinkerton e ora freelancer fallito, accetta di ritrovare la Costituzione degli USA per conto del cocainomane estremo che, non si sa come, è finito a capo dello staff della Casa Bianca. Non la costituzione che tutti conoscono, ma una sua versione alternativa, magica e segreta che Jefferson e gli altri avevano lasciato a protezione della fibra morale del paese: una fibra che – guarda caso – si è indebolita progressivamente proprio da quando Nixon ha cedut More...

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Jan 12, 2009

Miami University rated it:

"Crooked Little Vein" is a darkly satirical, wildly explicit, barely serious crime novel that I found to be ridiculously humorous in places – and I am no big fan of humorous novels . The plot is straightforward enough, and there is an attempt, all too obvious, to summarize the politics and issues of contemporary America. But really, the novel works best as a genre-influenced joyride. Warren Ellis' style is not entirely unlike Andrew Vachss mixed with Mark Twain's wit and William Gibs More...

1 comment like

Jan 11, 2012

Daryl rated it:

"I opened my eyes to see the rat taking a piss in my coffee mug." Thus begins Warren Ellis' novel Crooked Little Vein. Sometimes you can tell from the opening sentence what a novel is going to be like. This is one of those times. Ellis is best known as a comic book writer, for Transmetropolitan, among other things. His foray into prose fiction bears all the hallmarks of his best comic book work. It's odd, sexually disturbed, frightening, and humorous, all at the same time. This is a no More...

0 comments like

Oct 11, 2011

Mfred rated it:

When I picked up Crooked, I was looking for something that could stand up to the decreasing ability of my brain to pay attention on a 7-8 hour flight. Certain aspects of Crooked seemed to fit this criteria— mainly, I was promised:

- “dark, demented fiction debut”
- “absurdist catalog of fetish porn and depravity”
- “Not for the faint of heart”
- “scatological brilliance”

via all of the editorial comments from the first page.

However, on the long More...

0 comments like

Sep 23, 2011

Tom rated it:

Lots of conflicting thoughts on this book. The mystery, detective elements showed promise, but there wasn't actually a whole lot of detection on the part of the characters. The search for this powerful lost book was quite direct, just connecting dots and following the one hot lead. So not much peripety here. The characters weren't too interesting, nor did they grow too much, but this book wasn't supposed to be a character study anyway.

This book reminds me of two things. The first being More...

0 comments like

Sep 08, 2011

Paul rated it:

First off I have to say Warren Ellis is one of my favourite comic book/graphic novel writers. Virtually everything I've read by him (the authority, planetary, transmetropolitan, down, mek, red, global frequency etc.) is gold. So yes I am very biased.

On to the book. If you've ever read any of Ellis' work or even his blog then you'll know to expect a foray into the perverted and seedy underbelly of the world. So if you're easily offended or have a weak stomach you may want to hold o More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 28, 2011

Márcio rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

Nov 27, 2010

Owen rated it:

Warren Ellis is not for everyone. In fact, unless you know he's for you from his graphic novel work, I would actually recommend avoiding this book. That said, if you enjoy his work on Transmetropolitan, you will love Crooked Little Vein. It is essentially a present-day Spider Jerusalem caper - the protagonist has a different name, but the reactions to situations, the quips, the self-doubt, and even the general structure of how the story flows are similar.

Seeing Ellis forced to build h More...

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Sep 25, 2010

g026r rated it:

At it's core, Crooked Little Vein could have been a decent pulpy detective novel: the Founding Fathers wrote a secret book, the true Constitution that can control the people of the US. Its loss in the '50s is being blamed as the cause of the changes in society since then, and high-ranking government members (think the old man from Desolation Jones, if you want a mental image) want it back.

Ignoring the massive logistical/plot holes in that that even a few seconds of pondering will br More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 01, 2010

Lize rated it:

Highly recommended (although certainly not for everyone) this one is by graphic novel deity Warren Ellis, although it's not a graphic novel itself. Where has this guy been all my life? I obviously need to spend more time around the graphic novel genre, as this put a grin on my face that I couldn't chisel off for hours. I remember cackling, "He's covered heroin, the Fashion Channel, super rats, Enya and tantric sex with ostriches, and I'm only on page 12!" If I had to compare it to some More...

0 comments like

Jul 15, 2010

ICPL added it

The first line, "I opened my eyes to see the rat taking a piss in my coffee mug", sets the tone for this entire book. The humorously disturbing images contained within are not for children or those with weak constitutions.

That is in fact the basis of the story. Our Constitution has become weak and America is full of perverse degenerates. The heroin addicted Chief of Staff forces unlucky Private Investigator Mike McGill to search for the other Constitution, a secret document More...

0 comments like

Jun 20, 2010

Margaret rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 18, 2010

Kelley rated it:

I almost didn't read this book. I got about twenty pages in and put it down for something else. Warren Ellis is an opinionated guy. He's not shy about expressing his opinions either. I don't always agree with his views. He's one of those writers I want very much to hate.

But I couldn't stay away from Transmet, and I couldn't stay away from this.

There's not a whole lot to the book. A PI teams up with a slutty but intelligent gal. Together, they go off looking for a very spe More...

0 comments like

May 01, 2010

Andrew rated it:

Before I begin, as much as I respect Warren Ellis as a writer, if I ever get offered a chance to shake his hand, I will be antibacterializing that entire limb as soon as possible.

Anyway.

Crooked Little Vein is something akin to historical ficton, a neat little collection of the author's anecdotal horrors from his life of spent trolling the dark side of the earth, rearranged with new names and faces into a pleasant little romantic mystery adventure. Conceptually it covers a More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 21, 2010

Chris rated it:

The world is a weird place. This is as true now as it was fifty years ago, but there's one big difference between us here in the twenty-first century and our primitive twentieth-century forebears: they didn't have the internet.

With the democratization of information, what was once only whispered about is now available to anyone who wants to see it. What few people knew, they can now share with the world. This is certainly true of science and history, culture and arts, but what concer More...

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