Sign in with Facebook
131st out of 138 books
—
69 voters
Machine Man (online serial)
by
Max Barry (Goodreads Author)
Charlie Neumann loses a leg in an industrial accident. He sees it as an opportunity. Charlie has always thought his body could be better. Stronger. With built-in wi-fi. The next leg to go is no accident. Neither is the hand. No one understands his love of upgrades, except for prosthetics expert Lola Shanks. She's always admired a good artificial leg, and Charlie's on his w...more
ebook, Serial, 185 pages
Published
March 18th 2009
by Max Barry
(first published 2009)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
3,000)
Another, albeit much more recent, addition to my to-read shelf courtesy of io9, Machine Man is sardonic exploration of the symbiotic relationship between humans and technology. I happened to see a copy on the library’s “New Books” shelf, so I took the opportunity and grabbed it. Unlike
Fragment
, Machine Man seems a little more plausible, which makes it much scarier. Max Barry’s main character isn’t someone with whom everyone will identify—he’s rather asocial and unable to empathize—but I think...more
Cyborgs are one of the most recognizable tropes of science fiction, enshrined in the public imagination in films like "Robocop" and in television series like the "Six Million Dollar Man". Any diehard Trekkie or Whovian may speak eloquently about Borg drones and metallic Cybermen; deadly foes, respectively, of Star Trek's Starfleet flagship USS Enterprise and the Time Lord Doctor Who. It is no wonder then that Max Barry has offered his own contribution, a fast-paced Cyborg love story, "Machine Ma...more
A quick read about a scientist who loses a leg and decides to start tinkering with the prosthesis. He believes that the biological human can be improved through technology, and of course it all spins out of control. (Incidentally, it's the same backstory for how Doctor Who's Cybermen began.)
The blurbs describe this book as wickedly funny. I didn't find it remotely amusing. It's terrifying. The technology is, I assume, still a bit advanced for the current world. But everything that happens makes...more
The blurbs describe this book as wickedly funny. I didn't find it remotely amusing. It's terrifying. The technology is, I assume, still a bit advanced for the current world. But everything that happens makes...more
Cory called this light-hearted. The moral core of the book is near the moral core of the protagonist. I have sympathy for people on the autism spectrum, but that sympathy wears thin when they start killing people. I don't think there's much light-hearted about that. The light-heartedness, if anything, is sickening. It's just a whimsical little ol' dystopia. I'll take mine with a little more humanity, thank you very much. Not everyone in the book is incapable of emotion, but you wouldn't know tha...more
I went on the roller coaster of emotions with Charlie Neumann, the main character, even though he was not emotionally capable of experiencing those same emotions. Max Barry did a great job of exploring the unintended consequences of Charlie's actions, with supporting characters that are: supportive of Charlie the person for who he is; someone who asks if just because we can do something, should we; and someone who looks at the financial gain to be made at expense of ethics. All enable Charlie du...more
This book is a dark satire on engineers and their ways of thinking, and on management and their behavior. Everybody behaves rather badly. The engineers think only of the technical aspects of their work, which is designing prostheses. The management people think about nothing except for their bottom line, even when it means killing or maiming employees.
Charles Neumann, the main character in the book, is an engineer. After he first lost a leg in an accident, he designed a fabulous prosthetic leg....more
Charles Neumann, the main character in the book, is an engineer. After he first lost a leg in an accident, he designed a fabulous prosthetic leg....more
May 08, 2012
Alan
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
A man barely alive
Recommended to Alan by:
Previous work
Charles Neumann is a deeply damaged individual... and that's before he loses his leg. He is an MIT graduate and a successful mechanical engineer working with Better Future, a decades-old technology firm with its fingers in many pies and a liking for open-ended research projects, but Charlie also has a body dysmorphia that manifests in the very first paragraph, when he confesses that as a child he wanted to "be a train"—not just to play with trains, but to be the locomotive.
Charlie is also almost...more
Charlie is also almost...more
Note: some might consider this review to contain spoilers or be spoiler-y.
Several reviews have called this a funny book. I would not call this a funny book.
I found the main theme of this book to be the potentially dehumanizing impact of technology. Technology distracts the main character to the point that he is alienated not only from other people but from his own body. It literally consumes him.
The book is well written and thought out, which made the resulting actions of the characters profou...more
Several reviews have called this a funny book. I would not call this a funny book.
I found the main theme of this book to be the potentially dehumanizing impact of technology. Technology distracts the main character to the point that he is alienated not only from other people but from his own body. It literally consumes him.
The book is well written and thought out, which made the resulting actions of the characters profou...more
This was just an okay novel in my mind, and definitely not one of my favorites of Max Barry's work. While I like the premise of the story - a scientific man finds that machine parts are more efficient than his biological parts and takes matters into his own hands. Pretty sweet concept in my opinion, but I don't think the characters and their relationships were that well developed especially compared to his earlier works (NOTE: A lot of this may have to deal with how this story was written/develo...more
Well written sci-fi book that makes you sympathize with a character that you wouldn't expect too. The main character's arguments make sense and have a logic to them but are just off enough to make you the hopefully socially adjusted reader want to step in a say but... there's another way to look at this. At the same time that the main character is pushing himself in one direction with machine technology the book also shows a company and individuals within that organization that both enable him a...more
Oct 22, 2011
Pete
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
petestopof2011,
reviewed
Brief summary of the first dozen pages:
Super logical engineer dude gets his leg crushed in an industrial accident, loses it. The prosthetics he’s presented with are crap, so he builds his own new leg. He then find his flesh leg inferior and incompatible with his new leg. What’s a fella to do?
I had fun with this book. Max Barry knows how to write something that keeps moving along without being completely plot-driven.
Some would say it’s philosophy 97 (4 less than 101), but I’d say the idea of whet...more
Super logical engineer dude gets his leg crushed in an industrial accident, loses it. The prosthetics he’s presented with are crap, so he builds his own new leg. He then find his flesh leg inferior and incompatible with his new leg. What’s a fella to do?
I had fun with this book. Max Barry knows how to write something that keeps moving along without being completely plot-driven.
Some would say it’s philosophy 97 (4 less than 101), but I’d say the idea of whet...more
1 like · like · see review
Max Barry's latest acid trip of a book, Machine Man, was a break-neck thriller with a fine dose of ego-checking commentary about our society's dependence on technology.
Barry captures the epitome of said dependence in his main character, Dr. Charles Neumann, a brilliant recluse. His insistence on efficiency leads him to some odd, and very grotesque, decisions.
The story opens with Dr. Neumann neurotically looking for his cell phone and begs readers to view themselves on this ritualistic hunt and h...more
Barry captures the epitome of said dependence in his main character, Dr. Charles Neumann, a brilliant recluse. His insistence on efficiency leads him to some odd, and very grotesque, decisions.
The story opens with Dr. Neumann neurotically looking for his cell phone and begs readers to view themselves on this ritualistic hunt and h...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
boy, nobody knows how to take a what-if to the very furthest point of its logical conclusion better than max barry.
in this book, the question begins with a dissatisfaction: the flawed engineering of the human body. then it asks: what if we could re-engineer it? via mechanical and computer engineering, not nano- or biotech. max barry's answer to that question will undoubtedly surprise you.
this book is both thoroughly outrageous and logically relentless. the main character is a nerd on nerd stero...more
in this book, the question begins with a dissatisfaction: the flawed engineering of the human body. then it asks: what if we could re-engineer it? via mechanical and computer engineering, not nano- or biotech. max barry's answer to that question will undoubtedly surprise you.
this book is both thoroughly outrageous and logically relentless. the main character is a nerd on nerd stero...more
Max Barry wrapped up his serialized novel this week, and I feel several ways about it all at once. Firstly, I do feel it was a satisfying ending. I liked the story overall, and it felt similarly to his other novels in that it's not meant to paint a complete picture of anything, it's a perspective-dependent story, with plenty of interesting ideas and a fun adventure-driven plot. In short, I loved it. However, it did feel short. This could be misleading, as this is definitely the first truly seria...more
In my reviews of Barry’s Jennifer Government and Company, I called his style “a bit stark, a bit plain, matter-of-fact.” Here in Machine Man, the narration is in first person, so this same style comes across as slightly autistic (or as if the narrator has Asperger’s, for those who insist on term for the popular understanding of socially functional autism). Perhaps a bit of a stereotype for lab engineer, but then Barry doesn’t seem interested in bogging down his novel in superfluous details, so w...more
This was the first audiobook I ever, uh, heard. It took me 9 hours over 3 days and it was a unique experience, just walking around while at the same time reading a book, or should I say, following a story. The added layer of voice and sound effects makes it more of a temporal experience than reading the book, with all the good and bad that fact might imply.
Machine Man tells the story of a thirty-something end-all be-all nerd, the kind of person that wanted to be a train when he was a child (yes,...more
Machine Man tells the story of a thirty-something end-all be-all nerd, the kind of person that wanted to be a train when he was a child (yes,...more
Max Barry is one of my favorite authors. In fact, if I had to make a list of my top 5, he would definitely be on it, no question. I first read Syrup back in 2005, and the style of that book completely hijacked the way I write my own fiction, so I to say Barry is a literary influence on me would be an understatement, but whatever. Enough of that. I had been waiting for a long overdue fourth novel from him in 2009 when we got the serialized version of Machine Man, which was brilliant. One page a d...more
Jun 09, 2011
Jennie
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
sci-fi fans, speculative fiction junkies
I've been a fan of Barry since Jennifer Government, and Machine Man doesn't disappoint. In fact, it might be even better.
The story is told from the perspective of Charlie, an anti-social scientist who opens the door to the possibility of "upgrades" after an unfortunate accidental amputation of his leg. Barry expertly captures Charlie's single-minded focus on engineering, his awkward ignorance of human empathy and emotion, and his obsessive possessiveness of his projects. His clinical, cold, and...more
The story is told from the perspective of Charlie, an anti-social scientist who opens the door to the possibility of "upgrades" after an unfortunate accidental amputation of his leg. Barry expertly captures Charlie's single-minded focus on engineering, his awkward ignorance of human empathy and emotion, and his obsessive possessiveness of his projects. His clinical, cold, and...more
Macine Man irritated me. What starts off as a fun dark comedy soon degrades into "Oh look! Aren't I clever and satirical" and ends up as a terrible video game boss fight.
The premise of the book is that a materials scientist has an accident which removes one of his legs. He ends up building his own prosthesis which he believes is better than flesh and so decides to start removinng parts of his body. Cool concept. Could have been written so much better.
By mid way through the book I ended up with...more
The premise of the book is that a materials scientist has an accident which removes one of his legs. He ends up building his own prosthesis which he believes is better than flesh and so decides to start removinng parts of his body. Cool concept. Could have been written so much better.
By mid way through the book I ended up with...more
After I escorted Lola back aboveground, I returned to Lab 4 and sat on the floor beside my leg. I had thought Lola might like my leg, but you never knew. Her reaction exceeded all my expectations.
Then I felt depressed. It was the opposite of a logical reaction but there it was. I always felt like this at the end of a project. I would be frantic and determined and excited then sad because it was over and there was nothing left to improve. I stared at the leg. It occurred to me that I hadn’t escap...more
Then I felt depressed. It was the opposite of a logical reaction but there it was. I always felt like this at the end of a project. I would be frantic and determined and excited then sad because it was over and there was nothing left to improve. I stared at the leg. It occurred to me that I hadn’t escap...more
Sep 23, 2011
Pers
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
People who like comicbook movies
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
This is the third book I've read by Max Barry besides Syrup and Jennifer Government. Machine Man is a love story between Charlie and Lola. Charlie's main issue is that he is super smart and thus a bit awkward in all other social constructs. His discombobulation over his lost cellphone at the beginning of the story is humorous in that so many people have become so dependent on such a small thing for everything (from keeping time, to setting an alarm, to their schedule, and even knowing their own...more
I’m a huge fan of Max Barry, so I’m sure it will come as no surprise when I say that I absolutely loved this book.
One of the things I really enjoyed about Machine Man is that throughout the story, everything Charles Neumann does makes sense. There’s never a point where you step back and think, “Woah! That’s crazy, man!” But by the time you get to the end of the book, you realise that somewhere along the way, at some point, something must have gone wrong in Charlie’s head because it’s just insane...more
One of the things I really enjoyed about Machine Man is that throughout the story, everything Charles Neumann does makes sense. There’s never a point where you step back and think, “Woah! That’s crazy, man!” But by the time you get to the end of the book, you realise that somewhere along the way, at some point, something must have gone wrong in Charlie’s head because it’s just insane...more
It took me a while to decide what I thought about this book, and it left me with an extremely unsettled feeling. I think that what Barry is trying to do here is the same thing JG Ballard was going for in The Atrocity Exhibition - that is, to tell a disturbing story from inside the head of someone who is mentally ill. The body dysmorphia shown by Charles is extreme, and the out-of-control pacing of the events of the story leaves the reader with lingering unanswered questions about the nature of c...more
Charlie Neumann is a scientist and inventor for a company called Better Future. He creates new things to make the human world a better place. So after losing his leg in a freak lab accident, it is only natural that he develop a new leg. One that is faster, stronger, better than the original. When he is successful with that, Charlie endeavors to build himself a pair of legs. And why stop there? Legs, hands, skin, eyes... the possibilities are endless! Unfortunately, with every new creation, somet...more
I'm a big fan of Max Barry's works, with Company being one of the funniest and snarkiest books I've read. I remember when Barry started Machine Man. He wrote then published one page at a time on his website. It was an experimental approach to novel writing. I read for awhile then but got a little bored. I wanted to read more in one sitting and felt the story was too fragmented. Then he put up a pay-wall and I lost interest. Now that it was out in print, I decided to return to it. Indeed, I made...more
What begins as a devastating accident when research scientist Charlie Neumann loses his leg after getting it trapped in an industrial clamp, quickly spirals out of control into a quest to build a better body. Neumann’s employer is a military contractor, a company that doesn’t mind operating outside the legal norms, and with the resources to allow for research into extreme prosthetics. The company sees a potential fortune in profits, but Neumann just wants to build a more efficient body for himse...more
I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this book!!! I was lucky enough to obtain an advance reader copy, even though I have been reading it after publication. Either way, I was very nervous that this book would have some kind of massively disappointing ending, cause how could it not? Had any other writer written this book, the ending would have surely been anticlimactic and disappointing, and that really sucks when a book is great until the end. It really angers me as a reader, and as I got closer to the end of...more
Interestingly, this book was born on a blog and grew into a novel. An interactive achievement occurred when fan followers and the ever-accessible author, Max Barry, collaborated. What started as a rouse to get Barry off his butt and writing turned into a philosophical science fiction marvel that is both compelling and thought-provoking. The main character, Charlie, as part of Better Future cannot help but view human biology as flawed and with the aid of a freak accident perpetuated by the mispla...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ask Max Barry | 36 | 614 | May 30, 2013 08:08am | |
| SciFi and Fantasy...: For those who are finished (Spoilers) | 8 | 44 | Oct 28, 2011 12:02pm |
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
“I read once that you need two things to be happy: any two of health, money, and love. You can cover the absense of one with the other two... But now I realized this was unmitigated bullshit, because health and money did not compare with love at all.”
—
11 people liked it
“I guess it's always uncomfortable to discover you're not as individual as you thought. But it really bothered me. From one perspective, I was an independent animal, exercising free will in order to elicit predictable reactions from an inert vending machine. But from another, the vending machine was choosing to withhold snacks in order to extract predictable, mechanical reactions from young men. I couldn't figure out any objective reason to consider one scenario more likely than the other.”
—
3 people liked it
More quotes…
as for break my heart....not so much. it should've, but it just didnt. maybe i absorped a logical engineer brain by t...more
Nov 18, 2011 09:44am