RJB is so good. It's so good. So atmospheric and bleak but worth it. Like every other Bennett I've read, it can't be as big as it seems--then it is, and the payoff is better than imagined. This grimy, imperfect city has one shining thing at the center, and so does Hayes, and so does this book. ( )

I'm sure I already reviewed this book as I read it about 2 years ago? Wish I could remember what I wrote...
I loved the slow burn of it. My kind of book. It was on the strength of this novel that I read American Elsewhere. ( )

This is a book that is hard to quantify, almost as hard as it was for me to get into, and to be honest I nearly gave up on it several times. It's the story of Cyril Hayes, who can get glimpses of how people think and what they're thinking about after spending some time with them, his policeman friend Garvey and his assistant Samantha Fairbanks. They all live in an alternative America where the McNaughton Corporation builds strange devices that have changed the world. Their guns won the Great War. And near where they started they built Evesden, the city of tomorrow, where every thing lives, both good and bad.

Hayes has to investigate some murders, but what he finds will change everything.

It just didn't really work for me, I kept hoping that there would be some relief from the darkness, some bright and shining light of hope, but no, it just kept feeding me darkness. I didn't believe some of the relationships and some of the sideline characters blurred into one, making me wonder why the author bothered differentiating these people.

It wasn't a bad read but he's not an author I intend to revisit, a later work may catch my eye but I won't be rushing out to find it. ( )

This book takes place in an alternative history. It is 1919 and the McNaughton Corp has become the world’s technological leader. With the increased prosperity also comes increased poverty and there are dozens of murders each month in the city. When a man if found floating in a canal, police detective Garvey contacts Cyril Hayes. Cyril is able to form a telepathic link with people and soon believes that McNaughton's machinery is trying to talk to the city's workers.

I thought the book started off well, but it lost me with its talk of aliens and other such conspiracies. I thought the characters were interesting, but the plot wore on me after a while. Although this wasn't' a bad read, I think it just wasn't for me. Those who like science fiction, paranormal and urban fantasy will probably enjoy this book. ( )

I just finished The Company Man last night. I enjoyed it. I thought the ending left something to be desired but maybe he expects to write a sequel. I finished it relatively quickly. I guess you could say it is a steampunk detective noir novel based in 1919. Michael Berry, who is a SF Chronicle staff writer and reviews science fiction put it amongst the top sf and fantasy of 2011, which is how I happened upon it. ( )