Irontown Blues by John Varley
Christopher Bach, a policeman in one of the largest Lunar cities when the A.I. Lunar Central Computer had a breakdown (known as the Big Glitch) which turned into a raging war. When order was restored, Chris turned to private investigation, assisted by his genetically altered dog Sherlock. He works at his craft and emulates the tough guys in the noir books and movies that he loves. Bach takes the case of a woman involuntarily infected with an engineered virus and must track down the biohackers in the Irontown district. He has his work cut out for him especially because he must also confront his own demons to solve the case. Varley is a giant in the genre and this book shows why. Part of his “Eight World” series, this work is a great read and will certainly please Varley’s fans. Action, surprises, and fun characters make this book one to read. For readers new to Varley, a treat is in store. For mystery lovers, this is something different but highly enjoyable.
Review appears in http://mystericale.com/article/fall-2018-reviews/

Published by Ace on August 28, 2018

Much of Irontown Blues is told from the perspective of Sherlock, a cybernetically enhanced bloodhound. Sherlock is honest and a bit snarky. His thoughts are translated by a human who has been trained to interpret communications from cybernetically enhanced animals.

The story starts with Mary Smith visiting Chris Bach. She believes she was deliberately infected with a designer form of leprosy and wants Bach to find the man who infected her. The Sherlock & Bach detective agency is located on the moon, one of the places where humans have dwelled since the alien invasion that claimed Earth.

Bach’s investigation takes him to Irontown, where the dregs of Lunar society live. The story delves into Bach’s past, to a time when the central computer went bonkers, which caused Bach to participate in unfortunate events in Irontown. (A subset of Irontown residents are known as Heinleiners. Unsurprisingly, they are libertarians. Fortunately, John Varley makes clear that he understands the limits of libertarianism. So did Heinlein, but Heinlein's reliance on “personal responsibility” as an alternative to a responsible government is too often honored in the breach by people who think libertarianism means "every man for himself.")

Eventually an organized crime group wants to kill Bach for convoluted reasons that aren’t quite plausible. All the background elements, including the alien takeover of Earth, the revolt of the central computer, the Heinleiners, and the organized crime angle, will probably seem confusing, or at least underdeveloped, to readers who are unfamiliar with Varley’s Eight Worlds universe of novels and stories. I recognized most of the references but the novel still seemed disjointed to me.

I set aside my difficulty suspending disbelief in major plot elements of Irontown Blues for the sake of digging the parts of the story that focus on Sherlock. I’m a sucker for stories told from a dog’s point of view, and while Irontown Blues isn’t one of Varley’s better efforts, I enjoyed it simply because a snarky bloodhound plays a dominant role. Varley captures the sense of loyalty and devotion, the need to be part of a pack and the willingness to view humans as the alpha dog, that makes dogs so special. The novel leaves room for a sequel, and as long as Sherlock is part of it, I’ll advance it to the front of my reading list.

RECOMMENDED

Irontown Blues (Eight Worlds) by John Varley
Review by Sam Lubell
Ace Kindle Edition ISBN/ITEM#: 9781101989371
Date: 28 August 2018
Links: Author's Website / Read an Excerpt / Show Official Info /


Irontown Blues is the third novel in the second version of the author's Eight Worlds series. John Varley wrote the original version of his Eight World series in the 1970s and early 80s, including stories like "The Barbie Murders" and "Picnic on Nearside" and the novel The Ophiuchi Hotline. But when he returned to this setting, in his 1992 novel Steel Beach, he said he would not be limited by past continuity, essentially creating a new version of the setting that he has since used for 1998's The Golden Globe and this new novel. In both versions of his Eight Worlds, alien invaders have kicked humanity off of Earth. Humanity now lives in a variety of habitats on the moon and on a few other worlds and moons in the solar system, including replicas of different historical periods on Earth.

The main character and the (human) viewpoint narrator, Chris Bach, is a private detective on the moon who models his office and look off of the hard-boiled detectives of the 1930s. He has been traumatized by an event in his past that the author slowly reveals and his only friend is his bloodhound Sherlock, a cybernetically enhanced canine (CEC). Sherlock, with the help of a human translator, narrates several chapters in the book. The translator explains that CEC dogs do not think in words but in thoughts that a certified translator can express in words. Easily the best canine narrator since Oberon from Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid, Sherlock's view of the events in Bach's life is frequently humorous. Sherlock accepts Chris Bach as his alpha but disapproves of his drinking and believes all humans, including alpha Chris, can be very stupid in addition to being nose-blind. For his part, Bach believes Sherlock "is one of the laziest dogs in Luna", yet Sherlock finds his way from Bach's office to home faster than Bach does.

Irontown Blues begins, as a proper noir detective story should, with a client entering a detective's life. "The dame blew into my office like a warm breeze off the Pacific." Mary Smith asks Bach to find the date who infected her with para-leprosy. An informant sends Bach to Irontown where people are spreading a bacterium engineered to be near incurable. Irontown, the early, no-frills habitats built by the first few generations to be evicted from Earth by the Invaders, now houses criminals, sociopaths, paranoids, hoarders, and others who have opted out of lunar civilization including Heinleiners, pro-gun and pro-science libertarians who dream of sending a spaceship beyond the solar system.

Irontown Blues is a fun mystery with an interesting portrayal of a protagonist damaged by his past. Even his mother admits "you're not quite right in the head Christopher, and you know it."

Gradually, Varley reveals what Bach did during "The Big Glitch" (as shown in Steel Beach), and why he is afraid of Irontown. The author explains enough in this novel that a reader who has not read his previous books can follow the story; however, this does spoil a major twist in Steel Beach.

The book also has a successful depiction of a superintelligent canine that thinks different from humans in ways that are logical extrapolations from real canine behavior. The investigation demonstrates Sherlock actually is a better detective than Bach, not just by tracking a suspect by scent but also by reasoning when one suspect is replaced by another.

It is worth noting that Ace has released this book as a trade paperback, not a hardcover like the previous two volumes in the series (and the Red Thunder series).

Fans of Varley should snap Irontown Blues up. Readers new to Varley should start with Steel Beach unless they are primarily interested in Sherlock who does not appear in the other books.

This review also appears at https://pixelatedgeek.com/2018/10/review-irontown-blues/.

I read this book months ago and meant to write a review, but I kept putting it off, because in the end I didn’t think the book was very good, but I’m such a John Varley fan I didn’t want to admit it.

Here’s some random thoughts I jotted down when I was planning an official review. (Most of which won’t make sense if you haven’t read his previous books The Golden Globe and Steel Beach.)

There were several sections in the book that fell into the trap that a lot of popular authors fall into: “this was one of my most popular stories ever so now I’ll write it from another person’s point of view.” That wasn’t the entire book this time, thank goodness, but it was a good chunk of it. I think some readers like that though, and certainly a lot of well-known authors have done it (Anne McCaffrey, Orson Scott Card, Anne Rice, Stephenie Meyer, David Eddings, even Stephen King has dabbled in it) so I can’t fault him for it, it’s just not something I personally enjoy.

I felt like the “Junior Heinlein” style (a kind of dated, retro feel, like pulp sci-fi from the 50s) that Varley started using in the early 2000s got stronger as the story went along. Or maybe I was just in denial at the beginning.

There was a lack of contractions all throughout the book. (Which, if you’d ever like to mimic a stilted, old-fashioned style, ditch the contractions. It works wonders. And by that I mean it sounds awful.)

The simplified writing style works well for Sherlock, but with everyone else it feels stiff and unnatural.

I have to ask, why the Ironton/Heinleintown confusion? We know Heinleintown very well from previous books, but this is a different district. Varley makes a lot of effort to explain that while Irontown and Heinlein town are different, they do get confused by the general public, and you may be in one when you think you’re in the other and…I have to ask: was it all just because he wanted to name the book Irontown and not Heinleintown? Because if that’s the only reason behind the muddled storytelling there, I really think he should’ve just gone with a different title.

Why the difference between the main character and Hildy’s version of events in the Big Glitch? What storytelling purpose did it serve, to say Hildy had it completely wrong? It wasn’t a matter of someone having a different opinion of the events, their timelines didn’t match at all. The facts were so different, I don’t think it could’ve been a misunderstanding, someone would have to actually lie about what happened. I didn’t think it made the story more interesting, it just made me conflicted in an unsatisfying way about the characters, and once again muddied the waters for no good reason that I could see.

Why drag Charon in there? It felt like Varley wasn’t satisfied with the Big Bad (the Central Computer) from Steel Beach, he had to drag in the Big Bad from Golden Globe to make things more interesting. I think it took away the culpability of the Central Computer and the humans who’d been the original bad guys of the Big Glitch.

It’s as if Varley didn’t like the idea of a generally nice A.I. having a meltdown, or of regular humans going along with it, he felt he had to bring in a one-dimensional race of people who’ve been bred to be vicious, unfeeling killers, and make them the ultimate bad guy. It was more interesting to have it be regular people who were manipulated, or a computer that went off the rails because of all the personalities it had to manifest to interact with every person on the moon.

Regarding the bits with the dog, I enjoyed the character, but I didn’t think it was always necessary to have the translator break in to Sherlock’s thoughts. Some of the translator notes were a little entertaining, but I think you could’ve done without that character completely. I think the reader should have been given some credit, we know dogs will think differently from humans. Having the translator break in was like someone explaining the joke to you when you already got it.

All in all I think a tighter edit would’ve helped. It’s not a long book by any means, but the flow could’ve been better if it was trimmed: sometimes details add depth to the story, but a lot of times in this book the unnecessary exposition or explanations bogged down the pacing.

I really wanted to like this one (and I do think it’s miles better than Red Thunder) but in the end I was a little disappointed.

Irontown Blues is a riveting detective story, sprinkling bits of 1930's neo-noir onto a science-fiction setting. Varley has laid out a smart sleuth tale, complete with a brilliant canine sidekick and a history that slowly unravels a story much deeper than the simple case our detective set out to solve. There's a lot of brilliance here that begs to be read and imagined.

NOTE: I was provided a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest, unbiased review. I only publish reviews of books I enjoy, and this novel meets that criterion.

IRONTOWN BLUES

John Varley
Ace, August 2018

QUICK SUMMARY

Christopher Bach is a private investigator stuck in the 1930s amidst the sprawling colonies on the Moon. When something smells fishy about a seemingly basic case, he goes to new lengths to solve the mystery. With the help of his faithful bloodhound, Sherlock, Bach travels deep into the underbelly that is Irontown, forcing him to face realities that shake him to his core.

WHY I LOVED IT

A BRILLIANT DETECTIVE STORY

Irontown Blues is a masterful use of the detective genre, beginning as a seemingly simple case and evolving into a many-layered tale of coverups and the bustling underground hiding below the Moon's cities. The action is evenly paced, pairing current-day detective work with narration of past events. Varley inserts just what we need to know, holding back key details to keep the reader wanting more. I was impressed by the back-and-forth and how quickly I flew through this book. It was exciting, dangerous and thought-provoking.

A GOOD BOY SIDEKICK

At first, the inclusion of a dog named Sherlock seems to be pandering to detective fans. I didn't mind. Surprisingly, Sherlock becomes integral to the plot as we learn more about him through translation of his thoughts. This plot device gives the book a new perspective I didn't expect, adding another element that refreshes the ever-popular neo-noir detective settings. As an added bonus, his personality is hilarious and holds nothing back.

A NEW WAY TO THINK ABOUT SMELL

We take our open-aired planet for granted, and Varley makes sure we know it. I've never thought about the impact of smell within miles of enclosed space that has no natural air source. The Moon's smell restrictions are equal part hilarious and fascinating, showing an administrative side I could never have imagined that makes perfect sense. Huge props  for adapting smell as a science fiction plot point.

THE MOON AS A CHARACTER

Varley held nothing back when describing his Moon setting. Gone are the stunted colonies of past literature with angry people trying to adapt to their closet-sized homes and freeze-dried food. He's imagined a truly unique world complete with manufactured canyons and seasonal roofs that re-create Earth. There's a unique system of laws, a thriving economy, a culture far beyond the stuffiness of Earth, and enough unique creations to delight the imagination. I began the book for the story and stayed for the brilliance of the author's creations.

UNBRIDLED ORIGINALITY

I can't get over how original Varley's setting is. There's a lot of imagination here, and these creations keep popping up throughout the book, leaving you excited to discover the next strange invention in this fascinating civilization. It's a future you want to see for yourself.

To start, the themed neighborhoods are a treat to imagine, with people getting the opportunity to live within their fantasies. Interested in living in Hawaii? There's a neighborhood for that. Want to stay within the dark and dreary streets of a 30's detective film? It's waiting for you.

The inclusion of dinosaurs also made for a novel concept. When I typically think of civilizations on the Moon, they're cramped with limited power, space and resources. In this version, there are no limits. Dinosaur pets are the rage, and one of the Moon's oldest inhabitants is an ENORMOUS herbivore living deep under the surface. It's Jurassic Park without the mayhem and the lawsuits.

Varley's take on body modification was especially horrifying. This concept has been quite common in the books I've reviewed over the past few months, but he takes an approach I haven't seen. Instead of enhancements that improve a person, it's popular to scar yourself with diseases of the past. It's a strange, twisted look at bored people exerting originality.

INDIVIDUALITY UNDER ATTACK

There's an interesting sub-story here about individuality and the lack of it in a highly enhanced population. People look the same with their body modifications and their similar lifestyles. While the Moon seems like a great place filled with freedom, the past events prove otherwise. True freedom isn't something most people have, and those who lived on the outskirts were prosecuted for becoming too advanced. It's a conversation on the dangers of a society that is fully integrated digitally. When we begin to lose what makes us unique, what's the point of it all?

CONCEPTS

Detective, Neo-Noir, Moon, Future, Technology

A fun read with amusing characters, a fast pace, and plenty of governments to get mad at... This won't make you think too much but you might find yourself looking back and realizing the questions raised were a bit deeper than you realized as they flew by. John Varley's been around a while and this latest book was no disappointment.

Some twenty years after he last wrote about the Luna colony and the Big Glitch that almost destroyed it, John Varley returns to the Eight Worlds series with a science-fiction noir detective novel. Irontown Blues follows Steel Beach and The Golden Globe, both published in the 1990s. At least passing familiarity with those books will help readers orient themselves in Irontown Blues, but they aren't strictly required reading. The climax of this novel, though, wraps up business that was initiated in those earlier novels.

Humanity has scattered to the planets and moons of the solar system after being forcibly evicted by aliens known as Invaders, who claimed Earth for themselves. Only a few thousand humans survived the invasion, but in the intervening centuries they have proliferated and prospered. Now, Luna's society is opulent; energy is cheap and unlimited, almost all labor is automated, and you can design and print virtually anything your heart desires. If a person wants to live in a neighborhood modeled after something historical or fictional, he need only find a few dozen like-minded individuals, and it will be created for them.

Irontown Blues' protagonist is Chris Bach1, and his sidekick is a Cybernetically Enhanced Canine (CEC for short) named Sherlock, an eighty-pound bloodhound who tells his part of in the story via a translator. Bach is a fan of Chandler, Hammett, Rex Stout and others, and his working life has become a literal clone of that world. His private detective agency is located in a neighborhood called Noirtown in the 1930s sector. He talks the noir detective talk and walks the walk. His latest client is a mysterious woman calling herself Mary Smith, who claims she was attacked with a weaponized form of leprosy, something unheard of since all disease has been eradicated.

Bach realizes something doesn't ring true about her story, and his client may have had a nefarious reason to enlist his help. Bach and Sherlock attempt to track her down, but enough time has passed that the trail is cold. All avenues, though, seem to lead to Irontown, a dangerous part of the colony occupied by paranoids, criminals, sociopaths, hoarders, cultists, anarchists and self-professed political refugees, which means Bach will have to confront a dark part of his past.

Bach's mother was former Chief of the New Dresden Police. She has now retired and raises reverse-engineered dinosaurs. The Big Glitch involved a fault in the artificially intelligent Central Computer (CC) that ran the colony, interfacing with every human on Luna. The raid on Irontown that followed the Big Glitch was her idea. She wanted to clean up all of the dangerous sections of Irontown, but the CC had another motive: it wanted to eradicate the Heinleiners, a rebel group in possession of a coveted piece of technology. Bach's mother has never forgiven herself for the way things turned out. Bach was also involved in the raid and was severely injured. Now he has to revisit that traumatic time and is forced to confront the reality that nothing he knows about his world is as it seems.

Once Bach returns to Irontown, the "private detective" aspect of the novel falls away for the most part and the science fictional aspects kick into overdrive.

While much of the story is told from Bach's viewpoint, intervening chapters are from Sherlock's unique perspective, filtered through his interpreter, Penelope Cornflower, who often comments or expands upon Sherlock's text. She explains how many of Sherlock's concepts are impossible to translate and how his vocabulary for smells is something akin to the myriad words the Inuit suppsedly have for "snow." Sherlock benefits from neural implants that allow him to understand some human dialog (although many concepts elude his grasp). Unbeknownst to his master, his interface also allows him to open virtually any door on the colony, which explains why Sherlock can always get places faster than Bach can. Sherlock also has a wry and oftentimes corny sense of humor. Whether or not a person enjoys these sections will go a long way toward determining whether they'll enjoy Irontown Blues. This is definitely a book for dog lovers.

1. Bach might be named for a dog trainer who writes about perfecting the relationship between people and dogs

3 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary:
On the moon, a hard-boiled detective and his dog are hired to find justice for a mysterious woman nefariously infected with a virus. Naturally, they find more than they anticipated.

Review:
I’m a fan of some of John Varley’s work. The Gaea Trilogy was an eye opener for me, but I also loved The Golden Globe. I liked The Ophiuchi Hotline and the Thunder and Lightning series but wasn’t bowled over by them. Still, Varley doesn’t write a lot, so when I saw this on NetGalley, I picked it up. It fits fairly well in the ‘liked, but didn’t love’ box.

Irontown is listed as an Eight Worlds novel, which is apparently a shared universe including The Golden Globe and Steel Beach, though I hadn’t known it. Despite having read one (perhaps both) of those books, this felt very much like a sequel – heavy on references to the backstory. It was well presented and not confusing, but it often felt like an inside joke.

The story is told in part from the viewpoint of the dog, and, rather to my surprise, that worked fairly well, as does the narrator’s own self-deprecating humor. The society is reasonably credible, if thinly sketched. Unfortunately, the plot is just as thin. A good part of it is told in flashbacks, and significant portions are told only by implication. There’s quite a bit of reliance on happy coincidence. Overall, it was mildly amusing, but I didn’t really come away with anything. It was effective time filler, but a story that will vanish from memory almost immediately.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Four big stars, two thumbs way up, two snaps, a circle and a bag of chips.

Great SF from one of the best writers this side of Alpha Centauri.

John Varley, Hugo and Nebula award winning author of the Gaean trilogy, first introduced readers to his Eight Worlds universe in 1977’s Opiuchi Hotline. The idea that Earth had been made uninhabitable and Humanity had spread out to the other planets and the Moon must have influenced other writers like The Expanse writing team and Rhett Bruno.

Varley returns to this idea in his latest novel set in this world building and we find our hero living on Luna working as a private eye. Luna is as Robert A. Heinlein imagined it in Moon is a Harsh Mistress, full of burrowed habitats and getting along quite nicely thank you very much.

And speaking of Heinlein, Irontown Blues is a homage to the late Grandmaster as Varley explores many RAH themes like libertarianism, a sentient computer and generational ships. There is even a section of Luna called Heinlein Town full of a loss confederacy of Loonies called Heinleiners, free thinking do-it-yourselfers all.

The warrens of Luna can be thematically consistent, such as a habitat devoted to being like Switzerland and others crafted to resemble a time and place. It is in a neighborhood devoted to being like the 1930s, 40s and 50s that we find the protagonist, dressed up like Sam Spade, open for business looking for cheating spouses, lost kids and misplaced Maltese Millennium Falcons. Chris Bach and his intelligence augmented bloodhound get mixed up in finding a bad guy, hired by a dame paying cash, that things get very interesting.

Some chapters are taken from his dog, Sherlock’s perspective. Like Kevin Hearne’s wildly popular Iron Druid series, Varley gives much of the best narrative space to a dog. In aside paragraphs we get part of the story from Sherlock’s POV, told from an animal interpreter. Sherlock is a dog who has been augmented with special intelligence and his chapters are rare gems and easily steal the show.

This makes me think? What are some of the best animal POV books? Certainly Hearne’s Oberon is a great example of animal perspective writing, but I also very much like Faith Hunter’s chapters about Beast in her Jane Yellowrock series. This is particularly fun because the writer describes the sounds and especially the smells of the predator. Varley may have one upped Hunter as Sherlock has categorized literally hundreds of smells and the translation from his thought to text is all the more entertaining because the interpreter concedes that there is no ready to parlay conversion for the thought expressed. Varley, through the voice of the interpreter, describes the procedure as translating an alien thought process and some of the thoughts and emotions conveyed cannot be accurately nor adequately adopted to our language.

This would be cool if it were just a noir SF book set in the burrowed living spaces of Luna, but this is John Varley after all and things are not always what they seem. Like Philip K. Dick, Varley is able to pack a lot of story and detail in as well as a cornucopia of ins and outs and what haves you. We run into plenty of genetic engineering, some biotech tomfoolery and (reminiscent of his Gaea books) an AI with sanity issues.

A very good book, highly recommended.

Mr. Varley is new to me; I hadn’t even heard of him until I saw this book. So, I had zero expectations going into this book. I am not sure how to review this book. The book was well-written, intriguing, and had a very interesting plot. At first, I was confused as to why we had Chris’ dog’s point of view as well as his, but I went with it figuring the author was going somewhere with it. We did, but we didn’t find out until the very end. I really liked the noir feel of the book, and Chris’ love of the time period. Going into this book, I did expect an urban fantasy, but the genre kinda took a left-hand turn at the end which is why I’m not sure how to review this book: the genre change at the end (don’t want to give away much as I don’t want to spoil it) threw me for a loop. All-in-all, I really did enjoy this book, and I am intrigued enough with the ending (wow, what a fascinating ending) to read more in the series. If you like urban fantasy/sci-fi/tech genres, give this a try! Highly recommend! I was provided a complimentary copy of the e-book which I reviewed voluntarily.

Luna has a thousand faces.  Whether you want to live in a 1930s style noir city or a modern metropolis, all is available.  If you want to change, lose or add body parts you can. Chris, for his own reasons, and his ultra smart enhanced bloodhound Sherlock run a 1930s style pi office.  Most of his business is following cheating spouses until a mysterious woman arrives with a case that if true is a major threat to life on Luna. What ensues is a far more complex case than Chris ever imagined - linked to one of the most terrible times in Luna history.  Thankfully he has Sherlock to watch his back.


Part of what makes this novel fascinating is how Varley alternates between Chris and Sherlock’s POVs.  Sherlock’s approach is distinctly dog, though his elevated intelligence makes his thoughts accessible. In many ways Sherlock is the stronger partner - his love and support enable Chris to function despite his traumatic past.  I applaud Varley for making Chris trans. It isn’t played up or exaggerated, merely accepted that when Chris became a teen she formally switched to he. Irontown Blues wasn’t what I expected it to be, and was all the better for challenging my expectations.  Luna is a fascinating, quirky world, and the perfect setting for Varley’s narrative. There are also some extremely fun parts where Sherlock is interacting with other dogs during his search for Chris - I loved those.


Irontown Blues is character driven science fiction with just the right dose of noir.  Fresh, unusual, touching and sometimes funny, I highly recommend Varley’s new novel.


5 / 5


I received a copy of Irontown Blues from the publisher and Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.


— Crittermom

Christopher Bach was a cop in one of the largest Lunar cities when the Central Computer suffered the Big Glitch, and became a war larger than anyone expected. Since order has been restored, Bach's life hasn't been the same. Now he is a private detective a la his favorite hard boiled and noir characters and his partner is his dog Sherlock, a genetically enhanced and super smart bloodhound. His newest case will require him to track biohackers to the infamous Irontown, if he wants to catch the people who afflicted his client with an engineered virus. If he can get in and out in one piece that is.

Irontown Blues is my first John Varley book, and I enjoyed it so much that I highly doubt that it will be my last. This new sci-fi noir novel is set in the same universe as his Eight Worlds series, but you don't need to be familiar with it to follow this all new story. Honestly, all I needed to hear was sci-fi noir since I have a soft spot for noir and the right combination of those two genres can be great. I didn't really have any expectations though since I'm not at all familiar with the author, but I thought this was such a cool twisty story. I didn't know exactly how much I needed this book. As much as I liked Chris's story and learning about his background, I have to admit I was the most invested in Sherlock's story and his version of events. It's quite creative how Varely translates the super smart Sherlock's thoughts to the page - and Sherlock gets some of the best moments. Usually I read dogs to sound like either Dug from Up or Manchee from Chaos Walking by Patrick Ness, but for some reason, I totally had Korg from Thor: Ragnarok in in mind when it came comes to Sherlock here. Finally, I have to mention how much I loved all of the references to classic noirish books and movies, especially when it comes to His Girl Friday.

Overall, Irontown Blues by John Varley is a fun genre mashup of a couple of my favorite classic styles. I love that the author is so expertly able to blend key elements of the genre together and still keep it fresh. I don't know about you, but I would love to see more of these characters in the future, particularly Sherlock the bloodhound. If you like classic noir novels and/ or movies adaptations like The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, and Double Indemnity as well as movies like Minority Report and Blade Runner, I have a feeling you'll like Irontown Blues. I'll have to check out more of Varley's work in the future, especially the first story set in the Eight Worlds series, The Ophiuchi Hotline, to see what started everything.

In John Varley’s Eight Worlds novels, alien invaders have treated the humans of Earth much like the Europeans treated the First Peoples of North America – after killing most of them off, humankind was allowed to remain on any of the other planets and moons in the solar system, provided they stayed out of the way of Earth’s new masters. The largest of the human settlements is on Luna, where the cradle of humanity remains in sight but depressingly out of reach.
Irontown Blues is the fourth novel Varley has set in the Eight Worlds backdrop, its guiding assessment of humanity’s course – big guy squashes little guy, little guy survives and adapts, bigger guy comes along, repeat and rinse – living at the tortured core of its hero, ex-cop turned private eye Christopher Bach. Like most of human society on Luna, Bach is obsessed with the popular culture of pre-invasion Earth, especially the hard-boiled film noir of the 1940s and 1950s. He self-consciously models his speech patterns after classic noir heroes like Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade, and sometimes other people are amenable enough to play along.
Bach also has a partner: his dog Sherlock, a Cybernetically Enhanced Canine (CEC) who has the intelligence level of a low-IQ human. A CEC’s thoughts can be relayed to human language via computer but are mostly incoherent until interpreted by a human translator, and Bach has neither the cybernetic implants nor the training to do so. Sherlock can only communicate with Bach through arfs and barks and other typical dog noises, though he understands far more human speech, and human behavior, than a non-enhanced dog can, and is often a greater help to Bach than even Bach is aware. Sherlock is no mere sidekick/foil for his nominal master – in many ways he is a co-protagonist. The chapters in Irontown Blues alternate between Bach’s perspective and Sherlock’s, with an interpreter named Penelope editing and providing a meta-commentary on his thoughts.
The novel begins the way any classic noir film would, with a woman and a case for Bach to solve. In this instance, someone calling herself Mary Smith breezes into Bach’s office with a tale of woe. She had recently gone on a date with a man who wore genetically engineered leprosy like a fashion accessory. Unfortunately for Mary, he was also part of a sub-subculture of disease carriers who had illegally infected himself with a communicable version of the disease, so he could pass it on to unsuspecting people like her, a shits-and-giggles trend known as “exporting”. Mary nearly died from the attack and is now badly crippled and disfigured and needs expensive therapy to repair the damage. She wants to find the sick bastard who did it to her and get the justice she deserves. The one problem is, the guy disappeared into the murky depths of Irontown, a refuge for outsiders and antisocial malcontents who distrust authority and prefer to stay off the radar. People who live in Irontown don’t like being looked for, and the residents there work to keep it that way.
Irontown is to Chris Bach what Chinatown was to Jake Gittes, an allegory Bach explicitly makes for the reader. He was once a member of the police strike force that infiltrated Irontown as part of the nervous government’s crackdown on a group of separatists known as the “Heinleiners”, an invasion that quickly went south. The disaster was compounded by the fact that the circumstances were being manipulated by the Central Computer, the once benevolent AI overseer of Luna that fractured and went partly insane, which also sent in its genetically enhanced foot soldiers in the Charonese Mafia. Historically, the incident is referred to as The Big Glitch. During the invasion, Bach is near-fatally wounded saving the life of a 10-year-old girl named Gretel, who in turn rescues him from certain death.
At this point, anyone who has read Varley’s 1992 Hugo-nominated classic Steel Beach recognizes what’s going on here. Irontown Blues functions as something of a standalone sequel to that novel; Hildy Johnson, the reporter hero of Steel Beach, even makes a cameo in Bach’s Big Glitch flashback. It is not necessary to have read Steel Beach to understand what is happening in Irontown Blues, though having done so may provide a greater context for appreciating the events that spin out from it. Once the connection to Steel Beach is made, the narrative’s trajectory alters dramatically. Steel Beach was also something of a mashup of classic cinema stylings and Heinleinian libertarian political transformation (Hildy Johnson is the main character of the news media satire His Girl Friday; the Central Computer recalls “Mike”, the sentient supercomputer of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress), and Irontown Blues packs a whole lot of common sci-fi tropes (uplifted animals, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, generation ships, milSF, colony narrative, and so on) into its compact word count it’s no wonder its crime novel engine veers off course halfway through.
That new course offers something of a mixed bag for readers, especially in the last third of the story, when some of the explanation for the plot’s inciting incident gets a little flimsy. The strongest elements of Irontown Blues come in the long, traumatic flashback to events of The Big Glitch, and in the tender, affecting relationship between Bach and Sherlock. This novel will most likely be as appealing to dog lovers as it is to sci-fi nerds, and a boon to people who happen to be both. Luckily, the heart of Irontown Blues outlasts its sometimes too obvious, but still modestly effective plotting.

I've waited more than 20 years for this book. Wish I could say it met my expectations, but it was not as serious as it should have been, and the style with the multiple narrations was jarring. Should have just been Sherlock telling the story.

An interesting book with an intriguing insight into a dystopian future. Irontown blues a story about a man and his dog sherlock. He pictures himself an old-fashioned private eye in a futuristic world when a mysterious dame comes into his office with a possible case but all is not as it seems...

John Varley always gives great plot in a fantastic setting. Irontown Blues was a fast-paced, dark SF tale of a hardboiled detective and his enigmatic hound. Loved it and will read the next one!

"Irontown Blues" eBook was published in 2018 (August) and was written by John Varley (https://varley.net). Mr. Varley has published 14 novels. This novel is set in his "Eight Worlds" universe. 

I categorize this novel as ‘R’ because it contains scenes of Violence and Mature Language. The story is set in the future on the Moon colony. The primary character is Christopher Bach a sometimes cop and part-time private detective. His genetically enhanced bloodhound Sherlock is also a significant part of the story. 

Bach lives as though he is part of the 1930s-40s era mystery genre books and movies he loves. He is engaged by a woman to investigate a crime but finds himself involved in a hunt of biohackers in the dangerous Irontown district of the Moon colony. 

I thought that this was an odd 6 hour read of 304 pages. It is both science fiction and a mystery, though mostly mystery. I finished the novel, though I am not sure if I liked it very much. The cover art seems appropriate. I give this novel a 3.8 (rounded up to a 4) out of 5.

Further book reviews I have written can be accessed at https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/.

My book reviews are also published on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/31181778-john-purvis).

Intriguing plot and strong characters (including the cyberdog Sherlock), but that plot line is prolonged and convoluted. Amazing amount of detail that often isn't needed to advance the plot.

Overall, well-written and engaging if verbose.

I have been reading (and enjoying) the works of John Varley since the mid 1970's. He is one of the very small handful of authors whose books I will purchase as soon as they come out because a) I want to encourage more books from the author and paying cash for the books is my way to let the author and publisher know that, and b) I can be pretty sure that I will get a quality, entertaining story.

Forty years later and that still holds true!

In <em>Irontown Blues</em>, Varley blends genres as this sci-fi story of a detective has a very classic noir feel to it. The story center around Christopher Bach, a former police officer now working for himself as a private detective. Being a PI and living in a world where you can manipulate things around you, he sets up his office to resemble the world of the tough PI's from the old movies.

Keeping Bach company, and working alongside of him, is his dog, Sherlock. Sherlock is a CEC — a Cybernetically Enhanced Canine. He is enhanced enough that part of this story is narrated by Sherlock (though transcribed by someone else). Bach doesn't seem to realize just how smart Sherlock is, though that will change over the course of the investigation.

At the start of the story, Bach (and Sherlock) are visited by a woman...er...a <em>dame</em>...who is asking for the PI help to track down a man who gave her an unwanted case of leprosy. The leprosy itself is not that big a problem - she'll regenerate new limbs as necessary, of course. But Bach's investigation into finding the bio-hackers takes an unexpected turn and Bach - and Sherlock - will need to take advantage of every possible resource to get out of trouble. But then...will they really want to...?

One of the things I love so much about Varley's writing is that it is extremely accessible and yet there are layers that are surprising upon reflection. On the surface this reads like a fun sci-fi mystery in noir fashion. And that's what it's supposed to read like. And there are the CTPP (Cool Things Per Page) items that make you nod and think 'ah, that's pretty cool' and then there's the <em>real</em> story that surfaces the closer you get to the end.

Varley creates interesting, real, dynamic characters (even dog characters) that you can easily rally behind and care about. His world building is, as it has been in every work of his I've read, tremendous - again, it might appear simple on the surface, but scratch that surface and you will come to see the depth that Varley works in.

Fans of the genres will get a kick out of his homages to some of the legends in the business.

I am thrilled that John Varley is still writing and thankful to Ace for publishing this.

Looking for a good book? Irontown Blues by John Varley is a book you will feel good about reading and you'll likely want to recommend it to everyone you know. If you've never read Varley before, this is a great place to start. If you are already familiar with Varley's work you know that you're in for a good time.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

I'm a longtime fan of John Varley's novels, and have read two (possibly three) of the Eight Worlds novels. I wasn't really aware that it was a series, and Irontown Blues didn't require me to remember the earlier books. The protagonist is Christopher Bach, a former policeman on Luna who is now working as a private detective (in the classic noir fashion, in a neighborhood patterned after that era on Earth). His partner is a cybernetically enhanced bloodhound named Sherlock, who comes to contribute to the narrative (via a translator). A woman who claims to have been infected with a resistant virus hires him, and his investigation to uncover her true identity leads him to the titular area of Irontown, a sector of Luna occupied by outsiders. In the end it all leads back to his time as a policeman before the Big Glitch, a massive AI failure. Just as everything is coming together a second Big Glitch begins--leading Bach to a life-changing decision, one which begs for a sequel.

NetGalley provided an advance copy for this review.