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Machines of Easy Virtue
Welcome to sex, robots, and hot, flying lead.
In the poverty-wracked streets of late 21st-century Chicago, private detective Theodore "Red" Bourbon dodges punks and muggers, scrapes out a living tailing errant spouses, and downs an endless stream of pills to keep his head together. When wealthy heiress Elena Snowe steps into his office and tells him a domestic robot killed her father, his luck takes a turn. Lured by the promise of a fat payday, he agrees to hunt down the servant, not knowing treachery, jail, and murder are waiting around the corner.
In Machines of Easy Virtue, Red Bourbon faces a world where robots've taken most of the jobs and the rich shed their humanity through mind-bending genetic treatments.
In the poverty-wracked streets of late 21st-century Chicago, private detective Theodore "Red" Bourbon dodges punks and muggers, scrapes out a living tailing errant spouses, and downs an endless stream of pills to keep his head together. When wealthy heiress Elena Snowe steps into his office and tells him a domestic robot killed her father, his luck takes a turn. Lured by the promise of a fat payday, he agrees to hunt down the servant, not knowing treachery, jail, and murder are waiting around the corner.
In Machines of Easy Virtue, Red Bourbon faces a world where robots've taken most of the jobs and the rich shed their humanity through mind-bending genetic treatments.
- GenresMystery
113 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 1, 2012
7 people are currently reading
76 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
January 23, 2015
What an unexpected pleasure it was to read this book! I found it as a Kindle Daily Freebie purely by happenstance, and I'm so happy I did.
I've been on a noir kick recently. And though I do love the classics, what REALLY gets me is neo-noir or cross-genre noir mash-ups. I hope you don't hate me for it, Marlowe!
Ok, good.
So this is a futuristic sci-fi noir story involving a murder by a sexy-sexbot. Like if "The Big Sleep" and "I, Robot" had a robot kid, that liked to have a lot of sex.
All the staples are included: the down-on-his-luck gumshoe, the classy dame in distress, the hero getting the shit kicked out of him, and everyone having a secret or two up their sleeve.
Add to that a very well-realized futuristic world, borderline dystopia, with the flashy gadgets and genetic modifications we all secretly hope will be there for us.
I recommend this book to lovers of sci-fi, lovers of hard-boiled fiction, and especially to lovers of the mixture of both.
I've been on a noir kick recently. And though I do love the classics, what REALLY gets me is neo-noir or cross-genre noir mash-ups. I hope you don't hate me for it, Marlowe!
Ok, good.
So this is a futuristic sci-fi noir story involving a murder by a sexy-sexbot. Like if "The Big Sleep" and "I, Robot" had a robot kid, that liked to have a lot of sex.
All the staples are included: the down-on-his-luck gumshoe, the classy dame in distress, the hero getting the shit kicked out of him, and everyone having a secret or two up their sleeve.
Add to that a very well-realized futuristic world, borderline dystopia, with the flashy gadgets and genetic modifications we all secretly hope will be there for us.
I recommend this book to lovers of sci-fi, lovers of hard-boiled fiction, and especially to lovers of the mixture of both.
January 3, 2020
You can't read a robot mystery story without thinking about Isaac Asimov's three laws of Robotics and the Caves of Steel. Jack Price, who apparently wrote this one book and then disappeared from the publishing world, takes Asimov's tricky robot logic and sets it in a dystopian future filled with starving begging masses.
Price then gives the story a twist and fills the future-era story with 1940's pulpiness. The lead character is a down on his luck barely functioning detective and the client if a tall sensuous woman who -forget ethics - he promptly beds.
The story has thus quite a bit going for it including 1940's pulp, futuristic worlds, twisted robots, and starving teeming masses.
The writing couldn't be any crisper.
Price then gives the story a twist and fills the future-era story with 1940's pulpiness. The lead character is a down on his luck barely functioning detective and the client if a tall sensuous woman who -forget ethics - he promptly beds.
The story has thus quite a bit going for it including 1940's pulp, futuristic worlds, twisted robots, and starving teeming masses.
The writing couldn't be any crisper.
January 23, 2015
Not sure exactly how I ended up with this book on my tablet (had to be free), but I started reading it and found myself finishing it. Had I known before I started it (or looked into it) that it was part of a series, I would have deleted it before I started. But, hey, sometimes fate hands you lemons.
First, the book is really about 3 1/2 stars, but I grade up when in between. The plot is reminiscent of the Mickey Spillane-type novels from decades back. Basically you have a private investigator who is always down on his luck and short of cash who gets hired by a beautiful, rich woman to solve a crime. Only instead of being set in the mid-20th century, this one's set in the late 21st century, complete with a lot of the tech you'd expect 80 or 90 years from now. In short, the rich woman's father was killed by a robot butler and she wants it destroyed. So Red Bourbon (yes, really, that's the PI's name) is hired to go after it. Only...not everything is as it seems. There's more to Elena Snowe than meets the eye (even when she's taking off her clothes, which happens faster and more often than is necessary -- also with more detail than is necessary) however, and Red finds himself in the middle of a situation where people are dying all around him, robots are doing things with other robots that they shouldn't be doing, and his bank account is still pitifully small. In the end, the culprit is caught, Red gets an upgrade in finances, and you, the reader, feel like you need a shower.
There is a lot of good stuff in this book. First, it flows quite well with very few lulls. Second, the plot is anything but straightforward. An astute reader will get it a little over halfway through, but it still has unexpected twists and turns. The dialogue and circumstances are also fairly realistic, so you're not rolling your eyes and yelling "Come on!" while wondering why the heck you're reading this. And, despite the subject matter, there are surprisingly few curse words in the book.
So why only 3 1/2 (4) stars? My biggest gripe is that the basic background to the story is so old and tired that you feel like you're watching an old rerun on TV. Again, the author does a great job with the plot and keeping things moving and interesting, but there's an underlying feeling of "Why does this all sound so familiar?" that keeps you from immersing yourself in the story. And second, the sex. I realize that this is more and more common in modern books (why oh why???), and I know that it worked into the plot, but there was more detail than needed, and parts of it made me go "Eww." Yeah, that's where the shower part came in.
All in all, this is a TV episode in book form. Or rather, a pay-TV show episode in book form. It's good, but that's about it.
First, the book is really about 3 1/2 stars, but I grade up when in between. The plot is reminiscent of the Mickey Spillane-type novels from decades back. Basically you have a private investigator who is always down on his luck and short of cash who gets hired by a beautiful, rich woman to solve a crime. Only instead of being set in the mid-20th century, this one's set in the late 21st century, complete with a lot of the tech you'd expect 80 or 90 years from now. In short, the rich woman's father was killed by a robot butler and she wants it destroyed. So Red Bourbon (yes, really, that's the PI's name) is hired to go after it. Only...not everything is as it seems. There's more to Elena Snowe than meets the eye (even when she's taking off her clothes, which happens faster and more often than is necessary -- also with more detail than is necessary) however, and Red finds himself in the middle of a situation where people are dying all around him, robots are doing things with other robots that they shouldn't be doing, and his bank account is still pitifully small. In the end, the culprit is caught, Red gets an upgrade in finances, and you, the reader, feel like you need a shower.
There is a lot of good stuff in this book. First, it flows quite well with very few lulls. Second, the plot is anything but straightforward. An astute reader will get it a little over halfway through, but it still has unexpected twists and turns. The dialogue and circumstances are also fairly realistic, so you're not rolling your eyes and yelling "Come on!" while wondering why the heck you're reading this. And, despite the subject matter, there are surprisingly few curse words in the book.
So why only 3 1/2 (4) stars? My biggest gripe is that the basic background to the story is so old and tired that you feel like you're watching an old rerun on TV. Again, the author does a great job with the plot and keeping things moving and interesting, but there's an underlying feeling of "Why does this all sound so familiar?" that keeps you from immersing yourself in the story. And second, the sex. I realize that this is more and more common in modern books (why oh why???), and I know that it worked into the plot, but there was more detail than needed, and parts of it made me go "Eww." Yeah, that's where the shower part came in.
All in all, this is a TV episode in book form. Or rather, a pay-TV show episode in book form. It's good, but that's about it.
June 14, 2013
Snappy futuristic novella, June 13, 2013
"Machines of Easy Virtue" reads like a 1940s detective story - but set in the late 21st century.
A 6'6" rich dame in a Versace suit and a veil, a down-and-out detective named Red Bourbon, robots and automation doing most of the jobs that people used to do, a mysterious murder that then multiplies to more murders...what more could you want?
A well drawn protagonist and nice plotting. There are no huge surprises but this is a fun quick read with some sexy parts thrown in.
"Machines of Easy Virtue" reads like a 1940s detective story - but set in the late 21st century.
A 6'6" rich dame in a Versace suit and a veil, a down-and-out detective named Red Bourbon, robots and automation doing most of the jobs that people used to do, a mysterious murder that then multiplies to more murders...what more could you want?
A well drawn protagonist and nice plotting. There are no huge surprises but this is a fun quick read with some sexy parts thrown in.
May 21, 2016
A futuristic neo-noir; think ‘I Robot’ meets ‘The Big Sleep’ with a dash of ‘Blade Runner’ It reads like a classic, pulpy detective story, albeit set in the borderline dystopian world of the late 21st century where robots do most of the work and humans are on drugs (including the protagonist private dick Red Bourbon) it seems a though all humans are scraping by while the rich kids are proud owners of designer genes (not the denim type)
It’s safe to say that I’ve never read anything like this. A mashed –up of genres. The druggie gumshoe, meets the knock-out babe who hires him to solve the murder of her father. The book may not be for everyone; however it is an interesting take on the old detective mystery. It has the classic detective tropes plus cool gadgets, sex bots, and an unnerving future.
I stumbled upon this book as a Kindle freebie. It’s a surprisingly good read.
It’s safe to say that I’ve never read anything like this. A mashed –up of genres. The druggie gumshoe, meets the knock-out babe who hires him to solve the murder of her father. The book may not be for everyone; however it is an interesting take on the old detective mystery. It has the classic detective tropes plus cool gadgets, sex bots, and an unnerving future.
I stumbled upon this book as a Kindle freebie. It’s a surprisingly good read.
October 4, 2019
A fun read
Three stars may be a bit harsh but the characters and the world they live in do seem to be a little two dimensional. That said I wasn't even slightly interested in reading anything heavy so this hit the spot. The story jogged along nicely and was fun to read, it didn't bog you down with excessive detail but didn't leave you lacking either.
Three stars may be a bit harsh but the characters and the world they live in do seem to be a little two dimensional. That said I wasn't even slightly interested in reading anything heavy so this hit the spot. The story jogged along nicely and was fun to read, it didn't bog you down with excessive detail but didn't leave you lacking either.
February 27, 2017
Even better than the cover suggests
The pulpy cover on this one sold me even before I figured out what it was about. It looks like a private eye story but turns out to be a private eye story... in the future. The wealthy heiress who hires Red Bourbon is half machine, and the guy who killed her dad is a household robot.
Jack Price has taken tropes from different genres and created something that is entirely his own, and that really works. You expect twists and turns in a pulp mystery, but the sci-fi setting of Machines of Easy Virtue lets these twists and turns veer off in unexpected directions. Red Bourbon is a noir detective in a Philip K. Dick world.
The pulpy cover on this one sold me even before I figured out what it was about. It looks like a private eye story but turns out to be a private eye story... in the future. The wealthy heiress who hires Red Bourbon is half machine, and the guy who killed her dad is a household robot.
Jack Price has taken tropes from different genres and created something that is entirely his own, and that really works. You expect twists and turns in a pulp mystery, but the sci-fi setting of Machines of Easy Virtue lets these twists and turns veer off in unexpected directions. Red Bourbon is a noir detective in a Philip K. Dick world.
November 28, 2015
This is a classic hard-boiled detective novel, set in a dystopian future where everyone's on drugs and rich kids can get designer genes. Yeah, those kind of genes. Robots have taken all the jobs and most people, including the protagonist, is scraping to make ends meet. But then in walks this dame ...
I liked the hero by the time the ending rolled around, even though he's on drugs and not above sleeping with his client. There are a few very clever lines and an interesting twist about two thirds through that I didn't see coming.
The book for me has some issues, though. Most of the ending came out of left field, the sex scenes left me thinking the main character (and his client) were robots too, and a few plot points (like his cell phone conveniently working/not working when needed to drive the plot) made me not like this as well as I wanted to. A few details near the beginning (like, for example, that cryo-chambers are commonplace in this world) would have made the book flow more smoothly for me.
If you're a Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler fan (which actually, I'm not), you'll probably like this quite a bit. I liked the main character well enough, though, that I want to read the next installment, just to see what trouble he gets into next.
I received a free copy from the author in exchange for an honest review.
I liked the hero by the time the ending rolled around, even though he's on drugs and not above sleeping with his client. There are a few very clever lines and an interesting twist about two thirds through that I didn't see coming.
The book for me has some issues, though. Most of the ending came out of left field, the sex scenes left me thinking the main character (and his client) were robots too, and a few plot points (like his cell phone conveniently working/not working when needed to drive the plot) made me not like this as well as I wanted to. A few details near the beginning (like, for example, that cryo-chambers are commonplace in this world) would have made the book flow more smoothly for me.
If you're a Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler fan (which actually, I'm not), you'll probably like this quite a bit. I liked the main character well enough, though, that I want to read the next installment, just to see what trouble he gets into next.
I received a free copy from the author in exchange for an honest review.
December 1, 2015
This was a fun read. The atmosphere is quintessential SF-noir. You are immediately drawn into the dregs of a post-scarcity society where human workers have nearly completely been replaced by robots. Red Bourbon is the classic down on his luck PI and his client is the classic beautiful, high-class heiress.
The plot doesn’t stray far from the noir norms, but does introduce some excellent and unexpected science fiction elements.
Unfortunately, looking past the overarching plot and the atmosphere, some flaws rear their heads. Red frequently fails to even wonder about basic questions (for example, why did she choose to hire him?) which could easily be explained and simply accepts one major plot point that would leave any semi-normal person puzzling over its cause.
The pacing is also sporadic. Some chapters are two paragraphs or less and could easily be wrapped into the prior chapter without interrupting the flow.
This is worth reading if you are a fan of SF-noir, but not a good starting point if you are new to the genre. I look forward to Price’s future works to see if the rest of his writing matures to match his plotting and ability to set a scene.
The plot doesn’t stray far from the noir norms, but does introduce some excellent and unexpected science fiction elements.
Unfortunately, looking past the overarching plot and the atmosphere, some flaws rear their heads. Red frequently fails to even wonder about basic questions (for example, why did she choose to hire him?) which could easily be explained and simply accepts one major plot point that would leave any semi-normal person puzzling over its cause.
The pacing is also sporadic. Some chapters are two paragraphs or less and could easily be wrapped into the prior chapter without interrupting the flow.
This is worth reading if you are a fan of SF-noir, but not a good starting point if you are new to the genre. I look forward to Price’s future works to see if the rest of his writing matures to match his plotting and ability to set a scene.
February 8, 2015
Probably more like three and half stars, interesting sci fi/mystery book, but it's not going to work for everyone. It is more of an adult content for a sex scene or two, not explicit but enough that if this bothers you then stay away. Liked the main character and interesting to see where it might go in the future books.
March 23, 2015
Nice twists
This was a refreshing and welcome change. Cops, mystery, murder, and robots...what's not to like? For sci-fi fans that like robots.
This was a refreshing and welcome change. Cops, mystery, murder, and robots...what's not to like? For sci-fi fans that like robots.
July 19, 2015
Glad I read this.
It took a bit to set everything up, but rolled like a snowball afterwards. Quite a story. I would like to see it made into a movie.
It took a bit to set everything up, but rolled like a snowball afterwards. Quite a story. I would like to see it made into a movie.
August 14, 2015
I wrote a review for this book on my iPad while I was on vacation. I tried to upload it with unreliable internet service and apparently lost it.
Darn it.
Darn it.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews