Crooked Little Vein
by Warren Ellis · first published 2007
50% recommend25% neutral25% critical
Burned-out private dick Michael McGill needs to jump-start his career. What he gets instead is a cattle prod to the crotch. The president's heroin-addicted chief of staff wants McGill to find the Constitution—the real one the Founding Fathers secretly devised for the time of gravest crisis. And with God, civility, and Mom's homemade apple pie already dead or dying, that time is now. But McGill has a talent for stumbling into every imaginable depravity—and this case is driving him even deeper into America's darkest, dankest underbelly, toward obscenities that boggle even his mind.
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"I opened my eyes to see the rat taking a piss in my coffee mug." -- Crooked Little Vein, Warren Ellis
on “What makes a great opening line?” ↗…Singularity Sky by Charles Stross. Singularity stories. House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski. Supernatural meta-fiction with half the story in the footnotes. Reminiscent of the movie Donnie Darko. Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis. Private eye gets retained by the White House to track down the other U.S. Constitution. To quote William Gibson, "Stop It. You're frightening me." Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg.…
on “Ask HN: Great books you read in 2009?” ↗Hah! I'm an Ellis fan, or at least a fan of his Comic Books (or are they Graphical Novels, I never learn), but I didn't really get along with Crooked Little Vein. I honestly don't remember a single piece of the plot (it's 15-ish years since I read it), but I do remember that I got the feeling that his main objective was to gross me out. A bit like Garth Ennis,…
on “What makes a great opening line?” ↗…Another old SF book. This one wasn't very fresh, seemed like two or three different novels stapled together, with bits and pieces that might work pretty well if it weren't for the other bits and pieces. Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis. Not a lot of surprises, if you know what Warren Ellis tends to write. Basically a road trip novel through various degeneracies in America. Fun, but tends to go for gross-out warrenellisisms…
on “Ask HN: Great books you read in 2009?” ↗