30 July 2008

Warren Ellis – Crooked Little Vein

Posted by Dirk under: books .

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 don’t think it’s as good as some of the raves (and blurbs) say, but that’s all opinion and everybody gets those for free. Basic story, this detective is a ‘shit magnet’. Weird stuff, usually bad weird stuff, happens to him all the time. He’s about to throw in the towel when the President’s Chief of Staff hires him to find a lost ‘secret Constitution of the U.S.’ and gives him a huge expense account to find it with.

And off it goes. Sort of a road trip detective novel with a bunch of weird stuff throw in. And by weird stuff I mostly mean strange sexual fetish type stuff. Honestly, reading about that kind of stuff is usually not my cup of tea but Ellis is a good enough writer to pull it off and make the book fun.

I liked the book and if Warren Ellis writes another novel, I’ll probably read that one too.

However… I know the author has little if any control over the pricing of a book. Harper Perennial is the publisher of the softcover version of the book and I blame them, the greedy hos. This book is not the standard large trade paperback size nor is it the standard small regular back pocket paperback size. It’s somewhere in between. The book is one of Harper Perennial’s “P.S.” books, that means at the end of the book it has some supplemental material. In this case that is 10 pages of crap like ‘meet the author’, ‘A conversation with Warren Ellis’ and ‘In the kitchen with Warren Ellis’, which makes up the bulk of the supplemental material with 6 pages of recipes by Warren Ellis. Whatever. It’s a bullshit lameass excuse to crank up the price on the book.  If you’re interested in this Warren Ellis apocrypha, go to his website like everybody else does. There’s a ton more of that kind of stuff there and it’s free.

This book is kind of short, I thought. It’s 275 pages and it seems like the font is kind of big or something. I read it fast. I would have finished it in the 5 hour trip to the coast if I had kept reading, as it was I finished it while sitting around the camp the next day. The total cost of this freaky softcover confection? $13.95. It’ll be the last book I buy from Harper Perennial and I’m saying that cold sober, so it’s law. Yah, I should have noticed all this when I bought it but I was in a hurry and stoked about getting the book. Anyway, not something Warren has any control over, unlike his hatred of dogs, the bastard.

One Comment so far...

Jonathan Maberry Says:

31 July 2008 at 1:06 pm.

I read Crooked Little Vein in two sittings. Warren Ellis has a wonderfully twisted mind and I’m very pleased to see him writing crime novels. Can’t wait for more.

Jonathan Maberry
Bram Stoker Award Winning author of
ZOMBIE CSU: The Forensics of the Living Dead
Citadel Press
Available Everywhere September 1

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