7/8/09

The thing I find most intriguing about this book is the use of animals. Gun, With Occasional Music has the moral core of Raymond Chandler in the sense of detective noir, but at the same time it is a science fiction novel as well. I enjoy this type of science fiction because when reading, you don’t really quite recognize it and at times I find that I have to remind myself. It’s subtle and not in your face; like having space ships and aliens blowing up Earth. The balance between the two is something that I have never read before and it is quite interesting to me personally. Also, the use of animals as evolutionary therapy in contrast to humans in regards to the real world is quite interesting as well. As a side note; some people believe that each human has an animal spirit and I like how this kind of contrasts that idea in a way; to relate a specific animal to your human personality. To see the evolution of animals as they relate to humans makes me think of that theory in a sense. To see animals act like an average citizen shows the advanced evolution in regards to a science fiction essence but at the same time makes me relate back to cartoons I watched as a child. I find it hard not to look at these characters in a childlike way at times, just because of characters like Garfield and Winnie the Pooh. And also having advanced infants called babyheads as characters doesn’t help that feeling at all. But I did think it was really interesting to see a character as an ape. It is the closest species to man and believed that humans evolved from them. In contrast to this book it’s almost like as a human, we see an ape as the most elite in comparison to all other animals because they are so close to our species. To me, I unintentionally view this book as childlike at times but at the same time it is intellectually stimulating and it really opens the mind in a very creative way almost like a viewpoint of an advanced child.

-Erin L.