Customer Reviews

Hot Time in Old Town (Mathew Swain, Bk. 1)

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4 star:		(4)
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Great pulp sci fi from Mike McQuay. Why haven't these Mathew Swain books been snapped up for the movies?

Mike McQuay is one of my all-time favorite writers. His novelization of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK is a classic in the future-noir genre. This is the 1st in his equally enjoyable pulp science fiction series of novels featuring the endearingly sarcastic private investigator, Mathew Swain. This book is dedicated, like all of the books in the Swain series, to Raymond Chandler. It's a perfect choice because no one except Andrew Vachss writes better in the style that Chandler helped create than Mike McQuay. It might not be Shakespeare but its tightly-written, fast-paced and enjoyable on a lot of levels. Reading any of the Mathew Swain books will certainly reveal the debts owed to McQuay by William Gibson and the scriptwriters of Blade Runner and a whole later generation of cyber-punk authors. There are four books in the Swain series and they are all great fun.

I still remember getting this Buck Rogers hair cut to match the look of the character on this book. I got it sometime in the 80's when I was a kid, and yet with all the bad memory I have for so much fiction, this stays with me more than two decades later.

The others said it, but it bears repeating- this was cyber punk done earlier and better than elsewhere.

I've picked up other McQuay books- they're notso hotso. But this group of Swain books captured the dystopian world fantasy perfectly. I don't know if it was made before or after Blade Runner, but it had to either been influenced by or was an influence on the making of the movie. Either way, he captured the feel of a dystopia perfectly here. It's clearly where his talent lies.

This is a gritty, fast-paced nailbiter of an action/suspense thriller. McQuay successfully mixes the genres of the hardboiled prived eye and the bleak sci-fi "what has the world come too" futurescape. Mathew Swain is one of those witty roques you just can't help but love, and all of this comes together into one fun and memorable read.

I first read this book when it was first published in 1981. At the time I had not read much in the way of "bleak future" sci-fi. The word cyberpunk was years from being coined but I would place this novel firmly in the middle of the current "cyberpunk" novels. Another interesting concept is the mashing of the sci-fi genre with the detective genre. This novel could have been written by a younger Raymond Chandler and has feel similar to a Chandler novel. I would strongly recommend this, and the other books in the Mathew Swain series, if entertaining cyberpunk detective thrillers are something you might enjoy.

nice book of the 4 book collection. With a few references to catching up with an old flame Ginny Teal in an array of orbital space stations - an obvious lead in to book 2 of the collection - "when trouble beckons". I think it is important to read this one first as reading the second book you may not understand references to the DMZ (de militarized zone) and "old town" and I'm sure a few references in the second book which are explained here. Mathew Swain is the cool tough guy who smokes hard, drinks hard and takes the occassional upper to complete a case or to stay alive depending on your point of view. He's not so tough as more than enough things bother him. And he often is on the receiving end of a bashing more than he is dishing it out. He doesn't really carry a gun of his own - but often finds one at the right time through out the first 3 books i've read. The books are set in the year 2083 approx. The books were written in the early 1980's so the author probably wasn't aware of the explosion in pc's, google searches, 3G mobile phones & tablet computers. But the absence of these could possibly be explained away i guess. eg wireless theft could become rampant etc. Great read, likeable character although not really someone you'd have at a dinner party. Well done Mike Mcquay - rest in peace.