Trike's Reviews > Machine Man

So here's a story about a guy, an engineer, who suffers an industrial accident and has to get an artificial leg. He decides that's asymmetrical and arranges to "lose" the other one. Then he gets the idea that maybe other parts of him could stand some improving....

I had my doubts early on because the story seemed to get more and more preposterous, but danged if Barry didn't stick the landing. I would have enjoyed it just for its absurdist commentary on body modification and plastic surgery, but then he brought all the weird ideas to an explicable conclusion, tying off the various subthreads into a neat package.

Parts of this reads like the Wallace & Gromit short film "The Wrong Trousers," which neatly segues into something more Robocop-esque. I was less interested in the action scenes than delving into the odd personality of the lead character, who is accidentally snarky and has a genuinely logical yet utterly bizarre outlook on life.

Every once in a while it's very funny. To wit:

I wished I was better at reading faces. Whenever someone looks me in the eye and speaks earnestly, I believe them. I have no siblings.

Or

“Good man.” For a second I thought he was going to punch my arm. But he didn’t. He strode briskly away, to do whatever it was the managers did. Have meetings, I guess. Make phone calls. It was hard for us on the technical side to understand why the company required so many managers. Engineers built things. Salespeople sold things. Even Human Resources I could understand, kind of. But managers proliferated despite performing very few identifiable functions.

When all is said and done, I really liked the end result.