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The Gone-Away World [Kindle Edition]

Nick Harkaway (Author)
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (89 customer reviews) |
Digital List Price: £7.16 What's this?
Print List Price: £7.99
Kindle Price: £4.94 includes VAT* & free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
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Product Description

Review

Its scope and ambition are extraordinary, its execution is often breathtaking, and its style is by turns hilarious, outrageous, devastating, hip and profound...Hugely entertaining --Independent 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

A stunning debut --Scotland on sunday

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

Has the pace and action of an episode of 24 ... the agility of the narrative is one of the great strengths of this book ... Harkaway is robustly confident ... Particularly effective are his Matrix-like fight scenes, brought to life in meticulous yet flowing prose --The Times

Observer

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

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 992 KB
  • Print Length: 592 pages
  • Publisher: Cornerstone Digital (4 Sep 2008)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B0031RS8JE
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (89 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #10,296 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

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More About the Author

Nick Harkaway
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I find it hard to start this review because there are so many facets to this book. I could say it's the story of some people and how they survive an apocalypse and describes the part they play in forming a new existence. I could say this story is about relationships; growing up; home; family; coming of age; self-knowledge; loyalty; right and wrong; endurance; war; globalisation; big business; yuppies; the little guy; the big guy; friendship; love; pig-powered electricity generators; ninjas and fun.

It is all these things, and more.

There are parts of this story where I saw layer upon layer of meaning. There was the straight story being told; there was the parallel with the gulf wars; there was the parallel with the war on Terror; there was the parallel with big business taking over the world; there was the parallel with the global economic crash and recession; there was the parallel with the individual struggling with personal trauma and loss. I could go on.

Of course, Nick Harkaway would simply say, "What have you been smoking? I just wrote a story."

I don't know how much of what I found in the novel was put there deliberately, and how much is due to my imagination, but I do know that Nick Harkaway has created a wonderful reading experience that is thought provoking, humorous, and just a wonderful read.

Some reviewers have said it can be a tough read. I would say it's not so much a tough read, as a fast paced tale that covers a lot of ground and doesn't let you rest for a minute. It ducks and weaves across various threads of story and doesn't waste a single element in its whole telling.

I will be getting and reading Nick's next book as soon as it is available; and hey, it's got elephants.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By M. R. N. Shackelford TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
Mixing a range of styles - from Joseph Heller's "Catch 22", through the wacky world of "Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, to the attention to detail and plot complexity of "Cryptonomicon" by Neil Stephenson - this is a superb book.

A post apocalyptic vision of the Earth, with most of the planet contaminated by an Information Bomb that makes Matter "Gone Away", and populated by refugees from the "Mad Max" films - I thoroughly enjoyed the book, even the various flash backs into a kung fu childhood.

If you have enjoyed any of the above authors - give this a go.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By J. Charlesworth VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
I'm a fan of weird dystopian fiction, so I looked forward eagerly to receiving my copy of The Gone Away World for review. Apart from a few minor points, I found it to be a thoroughly enjoyable read- and a surprisingly quick one for such a thick volume. If you don't like deliberate eccentricity, then this is probably not a book you'll enjoy. If ninjas, mimes, student anarchists and shrew tachycardia make you giggle, then read on.

The tone of The Gone Away world can slightly frenetic, and it does feel a bit like spending time with a hyperactive and slightly pretentious teenager, but in the context of the post- and during apocalyptic world in question, this served to set the scene rather well. Harkaway is fond of descriptive passages that go off on tangents to the main story. I'm a biologist by training, so my inner nerd rejoiced at soliloquies on shrew tachycardia or the use of sheep in battle. I loved the narrator's descriptions of growing up in Cricklewood Cove, childish relationships and rumoured cannibal dogs, and Master Wu made me burn with the desire to take up Tai Chi; many details of the world drew me in and held me mesmerised. Others, such as the shrewdly observed student anarchists, made me snort. There were moments where The Gone Away World felt uncomfortably close to our own, and the weird mix of characters and humor revealed a lot more than I expected.

I can see how some of the descriptive writing could be described as froth, and is utterly tangential to the main story. However, the main story isn't why I read novels. As it stands, the apparently simple plot of The Gone Away World is revealed to be not so simple- delivering a whopping and highly original twist that I didn't see coming even when it had hit me over the head several times. This twist reveals the real cleverness of this novel- as suddenly whole structures and details are made clear.

The (over)use of italics jarred a bit, and cast an aura of pretension- there were times when it felt appropriate and times when it was overdone. At one point there was a mathematical reference that seemed designed to impress during a description of the narrator's fighting skills- a pity, then, that it was incorrect. All in all, however, Harkaway has created an enormous cast of extremely memorable characters and set them free to save the world with great enthusiasm, and a few exploding sheep.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
What did I miss?
This was a difficult piece to read... The problem may be that English is not my mother tongue? I find this book ambitious, bordering on pretentious. Sadly not in a good sense. Read more
Published 25 days ago by Mats Nilsson
Very Foxy
I read (and reviewed) Harkaway's latest novel before this one and loved it so I wanted to read his previous novel (The Gone-Away World'). Read more
Published 1 month ago by Scot
Best story in a long while.
I was attracted by the cover and the blurb, not sure what to expect. Its now one of my top ten novels (and I've had over 30 years of adult reading to reflect on here). Read more
Published 1 month ago by Steve Page
Not great. Sorry.
I don't review often - but here I think I'm probably in disagreement with the majority of reviews that this book has had, including the great and good of the press (at least if the... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Ruzz
Magnificent epic debut
There an awful lot of reasons to love Gone Away World, and to cite the presence of ninjas, mimes, monsters and apocalypse in the same sentence without any sort of cynicism or... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Kiray007
Lord, I want to come home.
He studied at Clare College, Cambridge, and, before becoming an author, wrote screenplays. "The Gone Away World" was his first novel, and was first published in 2008. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Craobh Rua
The apocalypse has never been funnier
What I love about post-apocalyptic novels is that pretty much anything can happen in it. And it happens in John le Carre's Son's first novel. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Frank Wetzig
Deeply glorious book
Whenever I use review sites for anything, I tend to start out reviewing something that I found simply Staggeringly Good, which tends to create an impression that I'm just easily... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Kevin Veale
Nicely done
I read a lot of sci fi and fantasy - this is a nicely done longish book - more near future / dystopia with some good characterisation - it's funny, clever and an enjoyable read. Read more
Published 15 months ago by K. Carroll
exuberant roller-coaster
The sheer exuberance and imagination of this book is overwhelming.

Set in a not too distant future, the story follows the Haulage and HazMat Emergency Civil Freebooting... Read more
Published 18 months ago by Clive A. H. Still
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