I'm more than halfway through "Inherent Vice," Thomas Pynchon's new novel, and I'm really liking it. It's funny, and the writing is brilliant. It's essentially a detective novel set in Los Angeles, an homage to Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett but with a strong dose of "The Big Lebowski" thrown into the mix. The story is set in 1970, and the detective in question is a hippie pothead. Although this is something of a departure for Pynchon in that it's genre fiction, this doesn't prevent him from offering his trademark voice and subject matter. Paranoia, conspiracies, funny names — it's all here.