The Gone-Away World - Hardcover

Harkaway, Nick

4.1

13,390 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0434018422 ISBN 13: 9780434018420

Publisher: William Heinemann, 2008

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A wildly entertaining debut novel, introducing a bold new voice that combines antic humour with a stunning futuristic vision to give us an electrifyingly original version of the apocalypse.

The Jorgmund Pipe is the backbone of the world, and it’s on fire. Gonzo Lubitsch, professional hero and troubleshooter, is hired to put it out – but there’s more to the fire, and the Pipe itself, than meets the eye. The job will take Gonzo and his best friend, our narrator, back to their own beginnings and into the dark heart of the Jorgmund Company itself.

From rural childhood in Cricklewood Cove to military service in a bewildering foreign war; from Jarndice University to the sawdust of the Nameless Bar; their story is the story of the Gone-Away World. It is the history of a friendship stretched beyond its limits; a tale of love and loss; of ninjas, pirates, politics; of curious heroism in strange and dangerous places.

Part adventure, part comic odyssey, and part geek nirvana, this is The Gone-Away World.

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Review:

`A big new book by a big new writer. Well done! Harkaway describes the Gone-Away World in words that whiz and ping like bullets ricocheting off the walls of the reader's mind. He's the real thing.' -- Russell Hoban

`A genuine panoramic, 3D, surround-sound, total-immersion, thrill-factor ten miracle - it is the kind of book that you just don't want to end! ... Engrossing, action-packed ... Very highly recommended' -- SFRevu

`A sprawling odyssey of a novel, half swashbuckling adventure, half science-fiction, but with such engaging characters that neither genre threatens to overpower the barnstorming narrative ... Comparisons are mostly futile, but it recalls Joseph Heller - Harkaway is a deft comic writer - and parts of it can best be described as what Thackeray might produce if he were on acid' -- Observer

`A stunning debut ... By turns thrilling, silly, gripping, crazy, daring and outrageous. I loved every minute ... The Gone-Away World is brakes-off fiction' -- Scotland on Sunday

`Breathtakingly ambitious ... A bubbling cosmic stew of a book, written with such exuberant imagination that you are left breathless by its sheer ingenuity' -- Observer

`Exuberant ... Wildly inventive' -- Michael Gove, The Times

`Nick Harkaway is hot stuff. You'll need asbestos gloves for this one.'
-- Len Deighton

`There are delightful moments aplenty ... Any author who has come up with the beautifully silly plan of melding a kung-fu epic with an Iraq-war satire and a Mad Max adventure has to be worth keeping an eye on' -- Guardian

`With his debut The Gone-Away World, Nick Harkaway has created a fictional universe that is out of this world.' -- Tatler

`[A] post-apocalyptic triumph ... Immensely rewarding ... Genuinely terrifying' -- The Times

Book Description:

A wildly entertaining novel, introducing a bold new voice that combines antic humor (think Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut) with a stunning futuristic vision (a la A Clockwork Orange and 1984) to give us an electrifyingly original tale of love, friendship and the apocalypse.

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