B Schrodinger's Reviews > Machine Man

Macine Man irritated me. What starts off as a fun dark comedy soon degrades into "Oh look! Aren't I clever and satirical" and ends up as a terrible video game boss fight.

The premise of the book is that a materials scientist has an accident which removes one of his legs. He ends up building his own prosthesis which he believes is better than flesh and so decides to start removinng parts of his body. Cool concept. Could have been written so much better.

By mid way through the book I ended up with zero empathy for the main character, nor any for his silly 2D girlfriend. The plot gets more ridiculous chapter by chapter until you just want everyone to die and the book to end already!

The book left my brain with the equivalent feeling your stomach has after eating at McDonalds. Cheap and abused.

In the Acknowledgements Barry indicates that the motivation for the book came from a fan online harassing him to produce more work. I think a great rule for authors with an online presence is to ignore these types of fans. Take your time and write well.