Auf den ersten Seiten wirkt Brett Savorys "A Perfect Machine" ein wenig wie eine "erwachsene" Version von James Dashners "The Maze Runner". Statt einer Gruppe Teenager, die Tag für Tag ein mysteriöses Labyrinth erkunden, sind es hier jedoch zwei Fraktionen, die sich gegenseitig Nacht für Nacht durch die Stadt jagen. Die "Runner" nehmen dabei die Rolle der Flüchtenden ein, die von den "Huntern" gejagt werden - und diese Jagd fällt in der Regel ziemlich bleihaltig aus. Der Sinn dieses nächtlichen Katz-und-Maus-Spiels ist keinem so richtig klar, allerdings wissen alle Beteiligten genau was passiert, wenn man sich diesem wilden und gewalttätigen Treiben verweigert: tritt man nämlich nicht zur Jagd an, so verschwindet daraufhin ein naher Angehöriger spurlos. Trotz Waffengewalt und alltäglicher Schusswunden ist das alltägliche Duell aber weniger gefährlich als es scheint, denn die Verletzungen der "Runner" und "Hunter" heilen für gewöhnlich innerhalb weniger Stunden. Allerdings nimmt der Bleigehalt ihrer Körper mit jeder Kugel immer mehr zu...

Man merkt bei Savorys Werk recht früh, dass es sich der Autor mit seiner Geschichte sehr einfach gemacht hat: Erklärungen und Hintergrundinformationen gibt es nämlich abgesehen vom Grundaufbau des ewigen nächtlichen Duells so gut wie keine. Wer steckt hinter diesem Spiel? Wer ist für das Bestrafen und Verschwinden der Angehörigen verantwortlich? Warum sind die Protagonisten praktisch unverwundbar? Wie können Menschen zu fast 100 Prozent aus Blei bestehen? Derlei Fragen stellen sich während der Lektüre nahezu ständig, Savory beantwortet davon aber praktisch nichts. Gut, das war bei Dashners "The Maze Runner" auch nicht anders, aber da hatte man zumindest immer das Gefühl, das hinter allem etwas Großes und Mysteriöses stecken würde, das sich irgendwann mit voller Wucht enthüllen würde.

Dieses Gefühl hat man hier hingegen so gut wie nie, auch weil den Protagonisten selbst völlig egal zu sein scheint, warum sie zu Marionetten in diesem Spiel geworden sind – sie folgen einfach ihr ganzes Leben lang wie Lemminge blind den Regeln und scheinen nichts zu hinterfragen. Lässt man einmal die absurde Idee beiseite, dass angeschossene Menschen den Bleigehalt der in ihren Körpern eingeschlagenen Kugeln absorbieren und irgendwann zu weit über 90% aus Blei bestehen, ohne äußerliche große Spuren davonzutragen, so verhalten sich die Charaktere auch sonst völlig irrational. Als Beispiel sei hier die Frau genannt, die gerade ihren Freund offenbar tot im Bett gefunden hat und kurz danach davon relativ unbehelligt wieder ihrem ganz normalen Alltag folgt – während sie die Leiche des Totgeglaubten einfach liegen lässt. Erklärt wird so ein Verhalten vom Autor dann meist mit einer übersinnlichen Verklärung, die bei "normalen" Menschen ihre Begegnungen mit "Runnern" und "Huntern" nach kurzer Zeit hinter einer geistigen Nebelwand verschwinden lässt.

Man kann gar nicht einmal sagen, dass "A Perfect Machine" ein sonderlich schlechtes Buch sei. Trotz offenkundigster Mängel liest sich die Geschichte über weite Strecken recht unterhaltsam und ist mitunter sogar spannend. Das Problem ist vielmehr die völlige Sinnfreiheit dieser Story, denn das meiste in der Handlung scheint total willkürlich zu geschehen und Brett Savory gibt sich kaum Mühe, diese Geschehnisse einigermaßen glaubwürdig zu verkaufen oder vernünftige Erklärungen zu liefern. Alles passiert einfach, weil es eben passiert. Das könnte man vielleicht noch verschmerzen, wenn wenigstens am Ende des Buches die große Enthüllung auf die Leser:innen warten würde, allerdings "rettet" sich der Autor mit einem selten dämlichen Schluss aus der gewaltigen Erklärungsnot, der an Dreistigkeit und Lieblosigkeit kaum zu überbieten ist und fast schon eine Frechheit für alle darstellt, sie sich bis zur letzten Seite geduldig durch die Geschichte gearbeitet haben. Da kann man eigentlich nur froh sein, dass das Buch in sich abgeschlossen ist und Savory seinem Publikum nicht noch eine Fortsetzung zugemutet hat, die aufgrund der vielen unerklärten Ereignisse wahrlich nicht überrascht hätte...

A PERFECT MACHINE is quite the genre-melange - a mix of sci-fi, horror, and crime.
It's fast paced (the protagonist is a "runner", after all), and if you're looking for an exciting and quickly-paced novel, then check this out. I think it could have done with some more character-development, though (which is something I always look for in fiction).
Worth a look if you're looking for something a little different.

A unique read with great action scenes and characters, and a really different sort of transformation. I enjoyed the world-building, though some things were left without being properly explained, leaving a few gaps in the world logic and some confusion about how things link up. The ascension idea was really cool and dark, though, with Henry losing himself slowly in the process and the world losing so much more by the end.

Huh.

I really liked this one ... and then I didn't.

Henry Kyllo is a Runner ... a member of a secret society that runs information to and from different locations. But Runners have to pass through a city filled with Hunters. The Hunters shoot the Runners. The Runners fill up with the lead from the Hunters' guns. The hope - the dream - of the Runners is to fill with enough lead that they reach Ascendency - to become a perfect machine. And how much lead will that entail? How does a Runner finally reach this pinnacle? Well, no one really knows - it hasn't happened to anyone before. Is it possible that Ascendancy is just a dream to keep the Runners going?

But Henry does get enough lead to transform into the perfect machine. He is supported by his girlfriend and by his best friend Milo - now a ghost as he had his head cut off (clearly the best way to stop a Runner since they absorb the lead from the guns).

I enjoyed author Brett Savory's writing style, which was energetic and quick. This is an easy, light read and the personality of the characters and the book itself was 'polite' - which is an odd thing to say about a story, I know. But given that people are shooting at one another, beheading them, and violence seems to run rampant, this never felt like a gritty, post-apocalyptic style story, even though the general setting made it seem like it ought to be such.

And that's okay. I actually really enjoy these kinds of contradictions in the things I'm reading. In fact, it was rather a relief to read something that wasn't just a copy of everything else set in a post-apocalyptic future.

But what wasn't okay was the lack of actual story.

What Savory has done is presented us with a series of interesting images, all described well, so that we can picture them ourselves, with some interesting basic characters. But the characters never develop and the story doesn't seem to go anywhere with any purpose. Savory is fun to read, but this story isn't.

Looking for a good book? <em>A Perfect Machine</em> by Brett Savory is a sci-fi thriller with a strange mix of supernatural and bizarre presented quite pleasantly.

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

This book was something I really and truly wanted to love, but I just couldn't. I've picked it up and read it over and over again for quite some time which is completely unlike me. I had to eventually mark it as "Not Finished". The pacing felt a little strange and I feel like it suffered from "info dumping".

I'm certain it would appeal to a certain audience, and I'm just possibly not the right audience for this specific book!

An interesting--albeit short--read.

As much as I tried this just wasn't for me. I didn't feel the story was at all accessible (in fact as a reader it seemed determined to shut me out) and whilst the central concept was an intriguing one, the writing just didn't draw me in.

Henry Kyllo is a Runner in a secret society the Inferne Cutis, which means that every day he is chased by Hunters who attempt to shoot him. Every so often, when a Runner reaches a critical number of bullets in their body they are supposed to ascend. No one is quite sure whether this is the truth or merely a myth. Until it happens to Henry.

Brett Savory’s prose is excellent, the dialogue crisp and urgent. The opening sequence of Henry being chased by the Hunters and his subsequent coming round and reorientation in hospital takes the reader right into the heart of Henry’s strange life.

His is an existence which almost runs parallel to that of the normal world because, unless the people outside his secret society have frequent exposure to them their memory of the Hunters and Runners fades quickly. The idea that this kind of activity could go on under the radar of the rest of the world carrying on with its business is certainly an interesting one, particularly as accidents happen and civilians can get caught in the Hunters crossfire.

That Henry is able to build a relationship with Faye (who is able to remember him because of the unique way they continue meeting) creates real poignancy to a plot which begins with great promise and continues to deliver for quite a way through the story.

However, there is a point during Henry’s transformation where the drive and mystery of the initial part of the story begins to slow, and a sense of the writing working through the plot to the end takes over. The end felt inevitable and did not carry the feeling of awe the built up to it implied.

But Brett Savory is an interesting writer who I would like to read more of.

I had two concurrent thoughts upon finishing this book. 1) That was a shit ending. 2) I wasted six days reading this thing? Honestly, I should have DNF'd this quite a while back as it was becoming clear the book just was not working for me, a feeling that grew all the stronger by the 85% mark, but by then I figured I may as well finish it. This was a poor choice, as it became awfully clear that Brett Savory had no idea how to end this book and I would have been better off setting the book down earlier and making up my own story.

Typically, I don't need all of the answers for every question raised. The biggest problem with A Perfect Machine is that these questions never rose past a blatant insert here because it soundscool.

There's a secret society of Hunters and Runners. They pursue each other through the streets, maiming and shooting, but rarely killing, one another. The lead that gets pumped into them becomes a permanent part of their bodies, which they hope will allow them achieve ascendency and become metal gods. Or at least that's what the readers are told. The characters themselves actually have no idea what happens when their body becomes full of bullets, but they play along with game anyway. If they don't, people they know start disappearing.

Who's responsible for their disappearances? The characters don't know, I don't know, and neither does Savory. This secret group has been operating like this for a century, but there's only been one prior incident of 100% metallization prior to Henry Kyllo, and that's pretty recent history at that. Before then, there's apparently no history of this ascendancy occurring, but they do it anyway just because. What reason do they have to believe in ascendancy? They don't, and Savory doesn't care to give them a reason, because he probably doesn't know or care either. People who come into contact with the Hunters and Runners quickly forget ever seeing them. Why? Just because. And no matter how much damage they inflict on one another, they bounce right back and completely heal within a matter of hours. Why? Just because. Oh yeah, and there's a couple ghosts running around town. Just because. Look - using "just because" as an answer stopped working on me quite a long, long, long time ago. I need more than that to go on, if your entire story hangs around the frame of "just because?" Yeah, no. That's not going to work for me. At all. And when you give ghosts, robots, secret societies, mayhem, and then completely cop out on the ending? Well, then you've just pissed me off.

Anyway, Kyllo has apparently been shot so many times, his body is now completely lead. So he starts growing into a giant killer machine. Sort of like The Incredible Hulk meets Transformers, but not nearly half as good as either of those properties. And the ghosts are trying to help him reach his final stage of evolution, which in itself is just another convoluted mess of a subplot. In fact, there's a couple other subplots running throughout the narrative, each of which ends in variously disappointing ways and could have been stripped out of the book entirely with little to no impact.

Pointlessness seems to be the primary theme of this book. And also "because."

On the bright side, that cover art is freaking perfect and on-point. I love the cover art. Angry Robot's designers did a stupendous job making this book look a thousand times better and more interesting than it really is. The art is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

[Note: I received an advanced copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley.]

I'm sorry to say I can't rate or review this one. I got to 33% of the book but it just isn't the type of story I personally enjoy. I'd rather let others who are more knowledgeable about this plotline review it than finish it myself and have my reading preferences color my review.

I received an ARC of this through NetGalley and Angry Robot in exchange for an honest review.

The setup to this novel is a good one. Henry Kyllo has to play a game every night where he runs through the city while Hunters are shooting at him. Since he is a Runner, he wants to get hit with bullets that he keeps because there is a rumor that when you get to full body content, you transform into a complete machine. This is a really cool premise, and there are so many things that Brett Savory could have done with this that he did not do. I know that readers are not supposed to get upset or angry at the author or decisions that he or she makes (otherwise we would all be Kathy Bates in "Misery), but there does come a certain time when the book just turns into sludge in front of your eyes. I found most of this book silly and reflective of plots to children's movies, particularly "The Iron Giant." My interest in Henry Kyllo and his dilemma was never there after the first quarter of the book. The setup was great, I love the idea of Runners and Hunters every night, fighting it out while parts of the city tries to sleep. The rest of the novel, Kyllo, his allies, and his problems were not interesting enough for me to really stay engaged with the characters. Overall, it is okay, but I'd most likely suggest skipping it for a different Angry Robot title.

It’s very much like Maze Runner but the runners aren’t kids and their respective hunters are fellow humans who shoot the crap out of each other. The protagonist, Henry Kyllo, more often than not finds himself waking up in the hospital than in his own bed – being treated for his various gunshot wounds is also the only time when he gets to see his girlfriend, Faye. Luckily for Faye she’s unaware of Henry’s nightly activities and rightly so because after each ‘reincarnation’ (so to say) Henry appears more machine-like than before.

This seems fine and dandy until one bullet too many and one run too much wakes something up in him; Henry mistakenly kills the person trying to kill him and as a result is gunned down on the sidewalk during one of the novel’s ‘runs’. His faithful friend, Milo, is beheaded as well. This time, however, when Henry wakes up the lead content in his body transforming him had accelerated, turning him into the thing he had a good hindsight to be wary of; a humanoid hybrid machine. Things get interesting when a couple of other runners take up arms against Henry in an attempt to seek vengeance for their recently murdered boss.

The story itself is actually pretty good: Henry is constantly plagued by the physical and mental changes he undergoes, failing to get a grip to what’s really happening such as the consequences of his actions and other sentimental things, there’s a voice nagging him on the inside of his head to just snap and kill everyone he sees – an urge he fails to clamp shut the first time. As the reader journeys along with this human machine hybrid you begin to really see how Henry desperately clings to the last vestiges of his humanity and mortality, even running into a train at some point to end his life because he doesn’t want to become an object of terror.

With an expansive ending that leaves you thinking about who the true fabricators are of this evil, there’s an inkling that perhaps Henry’s fate was already predestined. If not, what else could there be to have changed the outcome of the events foretold in the novel?

I was excited by the premise and the set up for - secret societies with special powers, shunned individuals, hidden power, the fulfilment of a "prophecy, transformation, etc. These are all elements for a classic tale.
Sadly this book did not live up to it's potential and seemed to forget some of its ideas as it went on. In particular the hidden power/who is in control elements were not fully explored and in the end just dropped and there was little given to how the runners and hunters come into being, form relationships etc. For example is being a runner genetic?
The nihilistic ending felt lazy and wasn't helped by heavy-handed King Kong references.
Great idea, poor execution I'm afraid