I picked up this book a while back, and once I started reading it I had a hard time putting it down. This was my first time reading anything by Nick Harkaway, and I found his writing style to be a bit verbose, but very refreshing.

The setting is interesting; a broken world after a scientific disaster that allows the fantastic to leak into (or completely overrun) the world we are familiar with. The story isn't as much about the fantastic creatures and events, but about how people deal with things, and in particular, the protagonist and his circle of friends. There is also a very interesting comment on society and capitalism and the role of corporations.

Also, ninjas.

I really enjoyed the book, and in a way it reminded me of works by Haruki Murakami (one of my favorite authors) where there is some underlying fantastic element to life. It is much more obvious here, but I felt the same sense of an awakening wonder as I read. ( )

Our unnamed first person narrator inhabits a strange, unfriendly world. In his young adulthood came an apocalyptic war that left the earth with mysterious fallout that gives shape to one's very nightmares. (I'm pretty sure I saw that Star Trek.) He takes the reader back through his childhood and youth in a time when the world was vaguely fallen, but intact, and he received training from both Master Wu, leader of the School of the Voiceless Dragon, and Ronnie Cheung, trash-talking military killing machine. After he and his best friend, Gonzo, fight a fire on the Jorgmund Pipe, dispenser of the magical liquid that keeps evil at bay, our understanding (and his) of his identity change completely. By the time the mimes and ninjas fight their grand battle, he will have confronted difficult truths about himself and how the Gone-Away World can be run.

The writing is dense and truly magical, perhaps to a fault, contemplative, unique, and thought-provoking. A bit about the fate of sheep in warfare was particularly memorable. Still, this density distracts somewhat from the plot, which in its latter stages becomes political in a way that I find confusing. None of the characters, even Gonzo and the narrator, quite come into focus. On the whole, though, the novel is different, challenging, and satisfying. ( )

There are some books, a very few books, that completely take you over. After a book like that you have no desire to read anything else; you want to reread it for the rest of your life. Given time, friends and family will make you see that this is not the best option (say, that maybe you should focus on your work, or that there might be other good books out there only waiting to be discovered). In the meantime, you will lend it to random people in the street (after having bought an extra copy specifically for lending, as dirty strangers cannot be allowed to touch your glorious copy), buy it for your friends and glare at those who do not take your advice. These books show up very rarely, and they are hardly ever announced.

I had never heard of The Gone-Away World until a friend lent it to me. I wasn't expecting it to be very good, but after having read snatches of Master Wu's attempt at explaining why America beat China to the space program, he managed to convince me that at least the language was good. I consented to putting it on my list.

I confess I was worried at first. The opening chapter, while well written, did not particularly appeal to my preferences for what a book should be about. They talked about trucks and guns. There were moments of glory in between, but I was very worried about what this would turn into. And then I read on. It quickly became apparent that the author had a good grasp of not only ninjas and pirates and martial arts, but also characters and plot. And language.

Now, mind you don't misunderstand. When I speak of ninjas and pirates, suggest old men with qi and a generally well-written book, I am not talking about something written by a pretentious geek with a good grasp of internet subcultures and a penchant for ornamental language. Good language in this instance is not the flowery verbal tapestry that I will admit sometimes enraptures certain students of literature (and I am by no means excluding myself). That kind of language would have been entirely out of place. When I say good language, I mean that the words generally are just where they ought to be. Think Adams and Pratchett and Wodehouse, but without thinking Adams and Pratchett and Wodehouse at all. Nick Harkaway has that control over language, but he uses it very differently. It appears as purposefully careless, littered with moments of brilliant insight.

What is it about? I don't really want to tell you. I suspect that is because I started out knowing nothing and fell so head over heels; the entire reading process can probably be imagined as one very slow topple, ending with a very sizable crash (face hitting floor) in the end (did you follow that metaphor?). It tells the story of Gonzo's friend and Gonzo, set in a post-apocalyptic world (with rather long periods of pre-apocalypse and the apocalypse itself). It provides a commentary on modern warfare, multinational companies, international politics and people as cogs in a larger machinery, or not. All this is fed a steady stream of ninjas, pirates, mimes, revolutionaries, contra-revolutionaries, bastards, bigger bastards, bees, a new and rather unexpected use of Tupperware, and details that pretend to mean nothing, but that lie all the while before hitting you over the head.

I did not get hooked until the second chapter. It starts in medias res, and Harkaway's characters (oh, the characters!) grow and develop throughout -- it therefore stands to reason that they cannot be at their best in the very first chapter. I found it disorienting, as it placed me very unprepared in an unknown world with groups whose motivations and backgrounds were a big mystery. It made me think it was just another book about tough men in a post-apocalyptic tough world. But I have never been very good at reading first chapters. And it is a chapter which makes sense later on. I have also talked to some who found it captured their imagination. In other words: if you find the book sucks you in at once, read on; if it doesn't, read on.

One word on the characters before I go on. I said they develop. They also stand out. Harkaway has a knack that you find in Dumas and Conan Doyle. He gives you people in his supporting cast. Anyone who does not love Master Wu and his soft style gong fu has no heart. Anyone who has ever trained any martial art (certainly soft style --I'll wager my first-born) will feel an extreme need to pick it up again.

The novel has a steady, insistent protest against homogenising; it celebrates the unassimilated, what sticks out, is different, impedes the smooth running of the machinery, what creates something new by breaking down the old. Walter Benjamin would call him an allegorist. I am not sure that is not as good a name (and praise) as any. I could go on. But this is not the place for analysis. It is a well-written book with excellent characters and marvellous moments. It scared me on several levels, but I also laughed out loud rather a lot. And I kept reading snatches to the people around me who had no idea what I was on about. ( )

Brilliant, funny, twisty, heartbreaker of a story, by a genre-defying first-time author who must have been getting paid by the word. I found myself getting a little impatient at times with the pace of the story, only to discover that scenes I thought should have been edited out upon first reading them were absolutely essential to understanding the hell of a finale. It's a story of friendship, the perils of memory, the futility of war, and the dangers of complacent bureaucracy.

If you plan to read this book, DON'T stop halfway through. I submit for your approval the fact that many of the one- and two-star ratings of this book on Amazon are from people who abandoned the book before reaching the first of several fantastic plot twists. (Plot twist actually is an understatement--the plot takes the reader through a Klein Bottle, Möbius strip, Alice universe twisty story.)

Go forth and enjoy! ( )

A really enjoyable read. Ludcrous plot involving ninjas, 'stuff' and mime artists. But some amazing ideas, and a roller coaster story that just flowed perfectly. Serious but fun boys-own stuff. ( )

Nick Harkaway’s debut novel The Gone-Away World is big, funny, and clever: a post-apocalyptic romp through a world rendered largely uninhabitable by fallout from the “Go Away Bombs”, which have removed the information content of matter and energy, leaving the stuff of nightmares. Into this world come Gonzo Lubitsch and the unnamed narrator, tasked to deal with an explosion on the Jorgmund Pipe that circles the world supporting a narrow strip of civilization, but soon find a threat to the existence of the world is not their only concern.

continued at http://www.postapocalypticfiction.com... ( )

"High-octane" - ironically for a book about a world tenuously sustained by a mysterious Pipe - is a word that seems to have been waiting for this book to come along and claim it. Our unnamed narrator is part of a gang of mercenaries who hire themselves out to protect the Jorgmund Pipe from the many threats that assail it, in order to stave off a re-run of the end of the world. As the book opens, they're being called out to "one last job" - OK, they don't think it's one last job, but it's essentially that familiar plot device. Only having set this up, we're then treated to a 200-odd page flashback explaining how the narrator and his friends got to this point - taking in his first encounter with his best friend in a sandpit, an enormous Polish matriarch, ninjas, an unconventional headmistress nicknamed The Evangelist, cannibalism, university, student protest, government brutality and armed service before we get to the everything-blows-up bit.

This book is completely and utterly insane. It has one of the best first pages I've read in a long time. It could have done with a slightly firmer editorial hand at times. It is a bit uneven in places. It's very, very funny. It's about martial arts, mercenaries, war, friendship and the end of the world. Harkaway just can't let a sentence lie - everything is embroidered, dressed up, tortured, prodded, interrupted and shaken down before a paragraph can claim its final full stop (much as I'm finding myself doing trying to describe it - it's infectious!). Surprisingly, I found this a lot less annoying by the end of the book than I thought I was going to somewhere around page 25.

Somewhere after the humungous flashback, it also features possibly the most audacious plot twist of any novel that I have ever read. To be strictly honest, it doesn't 100% come off - there were still a few "but... but.." questions in my mind - but really, the sheer chutzpah in even trying goes a long way. The other really excellent thing in here is the central 'monster' concept: I'm overfond of complaining that books with scary things in often let themselves down by describing the scary thing, giving it a shape that is altogether more familiar than the black vagueness forming in your imagination. This book does not fall into that trap. It also features a rather charmingly old-fashioned, 'fade to black' approach when dealing with sex scenes, which I found rather charming. No Bad Sex prizes for this man.

I enjoyed this enormously, and in fact more than I was expecting to, but it won't be everyone's cup of tea. I'd recommend it to fans of dystopian fiction, but especially those that are very fond of words for the sake of words and can forgive the numerous longeurs and unpackings that go on: Harkaway clearly read Orwell's rule of using as few words as possible and laughed until his sides split. ( )

The man says he never met a word he didn't like and this book follows that maxim down a very twisty road indeed. It's literally all over the place, and while the gonzo writing style makes it notable, it also makes it fatiguing to read. A very skilled writer, a book well worth reading if you have the fortitude! ( )

http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2009/05... ( )

I loved this book so much that I posted a pre-review review, urging you all to go out and buy the book. It has been a long time since a book made me want to shout out loud and dance around my hotel room, but this book did.

It is the story of the survivors of the Go-Away War, a war fought with bombs that didn't make things explode, but instead made them go away. The reasoning goes something like this: matter needs information to tell it what to be - whether it should be a table or a pumpkin or a schnauzer. Strip away that information and matter becomes just Stuff; shapeless, formless and harmless. In theory, these bombs just dissolve that bit of information and your enemies - and their cities, their houses, their furniture, their children - become so much dust in the wind. Problem is, things never work out in theory quite the way you expect. As nature abhors a vaccuum, Stuff hates to be formless. It yearns for that bit of information.

Our nameless narrator and his best friend, Gonzo Lubitsch, are on the front lines of this war and its aftermath. They are principals in the Haulage & HazMat Emergency Civil Freebooting Company, men and women who aren't afraid to step into the breach. When they end up working for Jorgmund, the corporate behemoth that controls much of the post-war world, there is bound to be trouble.

The book is part kung-fu epic, part sci-fi romance, part philosophic screed on what it means to be human, plus post-apocalyptic adventure and frenetic, laugh-out-loud hilarity. The twists and turns in the plot leave you questioning everything that has come before. I don't know how else to categorize it - a well-read friend described it as 'Pynchon with dashes of P.G. Wodehouse and Alexandre Dumas.' The fact that it's a first novel just floors me. I will be devouring the next book Nick Harkaway publishes as soon as it hits the shelves - sooner, if I can manage it. ( )

Set partially before and mostly after the "gone away" war, this clever post-apocalyptic novel is about what happens when the world goes crazy. Everything from mimes to ninjas to centaurs make an appearance, and, as strange as it sounds, they all fit perfectly into the story. Harkaway has a real knack for making the ridiculous believable. Everthing fits into place by the end of this highly imaginative book. ( )

Exceptional first novel from Harkaway. ( )

From Publishers Weekly
This unclassifiable debut from the son of legendary thriller author John le Carré is simultaneously a cautionary tale about the absurdity of war; a sardonic science fiction romp through Armageddon; a conspiracy-fueled mystery replete with ninjas, mimes and cannibal dogs; and a horrifying glimpse of a Lovecraftian near-future. Go Away bombs have erased entire sections of reality from the face of the Earth. A nameless soldier and his heroic best friend witness firsthand the unimaginable aftermath outside the Livable Zone, finding that the world has unraveled and is home to an assortment of nightmarish mutations. With the fate of humankind in the balance, the pair become involved in an unlikely and potentially catastrophic love triangle. Readers who prefer linear, conventional plotlines may find Harkaway overly verbose and frustratingly tangential, but those intrigued by works that blur genre boundaries will find this wildly original hybrid a challenging and entertaining entry in the post-apocalyptic canon. ( )

Wow. Haraway's talent is incredible, in his seamless story weaving he brings the reader to a completely unrealistic place and you buy into it 100%. Not only a fascinating story and direction for new fantasy, it's a chilling statement on world politics, foreign policy, and the use of force. ( )

Nick Harkaway, in his first novel, The Gone-Away World, provides us with a handle on the world that actually works, that actually opens a sort of window we otherwise wouldn’t have. It does this in a number of ways. In part, by describing a world that we recognize as essentially the world we know, a world in which Tupperware and Star Wars and, er, cake-making remain points of reference; in part by drawing on other richly imagined worlds, or arcane worlds – I’m thinking martial arts, here - as imaginative ballast. He mentions his debt to the great story tellers of the past, from Wodehouse to Dumas in the acknowledgements (and this tells us everything about the range of his style), but much of the strength of the tale comes from its equally firm footing in the dozens of less formal narratives that compose us: education, cooking, friendship, love, not to speak of the popular imagined pre-/post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max and Dr Strangelove. In part because the exuberance and invention and sheer delight of the language is unfailing, with a goon-show-like energy that only occasionally veers into flippancy. In part because Harkaway knows how bruschetta should be pronounced. (Yes, it matters.)

But all this would count for nothing if the novel weren’t also preoccupied with what Harkaway describes as ‘the whole business of how to be a person’. The novel is haunted by alienation, from the early reworking of it in its pure Marxist state (cf. Fingermuffin, capitalist) to the central trope of the novel, which I won’t reveal. It’s concerned with who we are, as individuals and in our relations with others. The core of the novel is a moving recognition of community and how it might survive, against all odds. This seriousness is never far beneath the fun to be had, although there are moments I feel the latter may be overdone. The riff on fashion towards the end of the novel, for example, struck me as heavy-handed, though enjoyable (and then, with an odd swoop, utterly creepy). And there are passages in the second half of the novel, after it’s caught up with itself (you’ll know what I mean when you read it), when the thrust of the story is slowed down by a tendency not to miss a trick in terms of language, when a surface glamour distracts both the teller and the tale. But mostly it’s spot on. A grand job. ( )

What would happen to the world if scientists dicovered a bomb that would make things just go away, and governments decided to use it? Harkaway's debut novel takes place in just such a world, combining elements of standard science fiction fare with Mad Max sensibilities, some political commentary, psychological musings, and, of course, ninjas. If you're thinking that sounds like an awful lot to take on in a debut novel, you would be correct. My one complaint about this book is that it takes on a bit too much and can sometimes feel disjointed and over-stuffed. The author had some really cool ideas that he seems to have thought through really thoroughly. This is a good thing, except that he then tried to cram all of those ideas and details into one novel. The Gone-Away World clocks in at a solid 500 pages, and it's not especially light reading. Surprising, since the back makes it sound like a humorous work. Although it has certainly has elements of humor, I didn't find it funny overall. That's not a critique though; I thought the basic premise of the book worked, bizarre though it sometimes was- I just didn't think it was funny.

Before this review looks like a pan, I should mention explicitly that I generally enjoyed the book. It's really weird. Seriously. Filled with craziness. Most of it made sense, within the context of the book, though occasionally the reverse was also true. I can't even really give more of a plot summary without either getting bogged down in the details or revealing spoilers. So, if you enjoy really convoluted post-apocalyptic semi-humorous novels, give it a shot. If you're expecting a light, silly read, however, this is probably not your best bet. I do look forward to Harkaway's future novels though, because I believe that he has a lot of potential that just needs some tightening up and focusing, so I'd call him one to watch for fans of zany alternative reality works. ( )

Wow! I didn't see this one coming. This big pink fuzzy book is like nothing I've read before (and that's both a good and bad thing). The Gone Away World is a richly textured and fantastically unique universe where anything can and will happen. Harkaway's verse is so tightly wound, so complex that it makes for a very very slow and often difficult read. But don't let that deter you from reading this book, if you're up for it the journey is well rewarded.

Even though Nick Harkaway is John Le Carré's Son he writes more like the son of Thomas Pynchon with linguistically fireworks and paragraphs that read like prose. Harkaway is a smashing new voice and I look forward to reading what he does next. ( )

I had to read this book in small doses, because the action is so densely packed one must take a bit of a breather in order to sort things out. But it is very, very funny. It is also very, very random owing to the fact that war has managed to dismantle basic rules of reality, and thoughts are literally capable of coming to life. So if a character has a dream that he is a mermaid, and he is not in one of the protected “safe” areas, he just may wake up with a fish tail. There’s also an unusual excess of mimes and ninjas when compared to the usual novel. Pirates and killer bees and martial arts masters, too, frequent these pages. In this strange world where countless people simply disappeared when the Go Away bombs were dropped, none of these things seem especially out of place, but the book is so weird and yet so close to our world that the whole of it is vaguely disconcerting as you read. But really, you’re too busy laughing to let the absurdity trouble you for long.

Full review at Fashionista Piranha Book Blog - Click here! ( )

My first exposure to The Gone-Away World was via a publisher’s online banner ad, which compared it to Vonnegut, Heller, the Mad Max franchise, Burgess, and Orwell. As a diehard fan of the first three and genre outsider for disliking the latter two, I had to see which, if any, of the above comparisons the novel actually warranted.

Despite the nigh unrealistic expectations set by such copy, The Gone-Away World delivers. Yes, it’s heavy on exposition, but--and this is extremely rare where such is concerned--it’s not a lazy authorial cop-out. It’s well-written, integral to the story, and in many places, laugh-out-loud funny. Harkaway has a lot to offer fans of scifi/dystopian lit, especially ones familiar with political science, international relations, and modern history. He shares Vonnegut’s sharp wit, gentle cynicism, and knack for insightful social commentary...but definitely not Vonnegut’s pithiness. Both in terms of verbosity and disjointed style, The Gone-Away World is more Catch-22 than Timequake, and I finished it with a niggling sense that I’d have liked it even more had it been shorter. That said, I can’t think of a single point in the narrative that left me bored, let alone a passage I feel could be omitted without adversely affecting the narrative.

The story features all the familiar post-apocalyptic antihero-saves-the-world tropes, but it’s by no means paint-by-numbers. Attentive readers will spot the big reveal as it’s being set up, but I imagine it will take most readers by surprise. Either way, that aspect of the plot is handled quite well. Harkaway does stumble, however, by not adequately explaining the reasoning behind the villain’s big scheme: this was the only aspect of the novel that I felt was underdeveloped and subject to an unwieldy information dump. Nevertheless, this failure is a relatively small part in a winner of a novel. The Gone-Away World overwhelmingly does live up to all of the hype.

I'm a reader given to pronouncements like: I hate science fiction. And for the most part it's really not my cup of tea. Well, The Gone Away World is undeniably science fiction, and it is the most interesting novel I've read in quite some time. The back copy on the galley I read compared it to Kurt Vonnegut meets Joseph Heller meets Mad Max. I immediately assumed that was hyperbole of the worst kind, but damn if that doesn't sum it up perfectly!

How can I describe the plot? As the novel opens, we're in a post-apocalyptic version of the world we know. We meet our first-person narrator and his team of trouble-shooting compatriots. Something possibly disastrous has happened, and they're off to save the day--as long as they'll be adequately compensated for the job. That's what they do. They're the Haulage & Hazmat Emergency Civil Freebooting Company of Exmoor County, a tight-knit group of life-long friends and war buddies.

The first chapter was nearly 50 pages, and I have to admit it was very strange and confusing, but undeniably funny. After that first chapter set in the novel's present, the clock is rolled back several decades, and the next 250 pages tells the life story of the unnamed narrator. And suddenly the book became far more accessible, because there were references to things like Elvis Pressley and Tupperware. It was a world I could recognize. And gradually all the weird stuff from the first chapter was explained. What was the "Go Away War," why it was called that, and how the radically altered (not for the better, I can assure you) world came to be. It's a strange, deeply disturbing story leavened with a lot of humor and some wonderfully whimsical and likeable characters.

Around the 300 page mark, we are back where we were at the top of the novel, and our heroes are off to save the world. But nothing goes according to plan. And just when you think you've got a grasp on the rules of this strange world and this odd novel, Harkaway pulls the rug from under your feet and suddenly all the rules change and everything you think you know has changed!

This is a dense and challenging 500-page novel. Some parts of it are wonderfully light and comic. Other parts were so dark and disturbing I wasn't sure I wanted to continue reading. But I did continue, often forcing friends to listen to me read pages of text aloud. The language is fabulous and the many tangents and asides are priceless--such as a meandering discussion of the role of sheep in times of war. Other times it's a single sentence such as: "You have to worry about someone even mimes find creepy." that you want to stitch onto a pillow and place on your couch.

I wouldn't recommend this novel to everyone I know, but for readers with an open mind and a tolerance for absurdity, satire, and speculative fiction it's a must read. It may be one of the best debut novels I've ever read. It is the most interesting novel--period--that I've read in years. ( )

http://bookchronicle.wordpress.com/20... ( )

Caveat #1: This isn't my usual genre of choice. Caveat #2: Had this book been about 100 pages shorter (assuming that the deleted pages came from the first half) I'd give it a much higher rating.

Much of the background information of the first 300 pages was important and many of them were fun to read, but it was slow going. Get past the middle, though, and suddenly the narrator's world is turned upside-down and the rest of the book is fairly riveting. I'm still not sure I'm straight on what happened and how it all ties together, but I'm glad I stuck with it to get there. ( )

At the halfway mark, I'm thoroughly enjoying this inventive debut novel that defies description and categorization. Part futuristic speculative fantasy fiction, part humorous riff on modern warfare and government secrecy, part dystopian exploration, and all topsy-turvy in the tradition of Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut, this wonderful book is utterly unique.

Harkaway's writing is strong and interesting, and his language is whimsical and enjoyable. A great read for fans of books in which things are just not quite right. ( )

The Gone-Away World was greeted with loud fanfares and forests worth of pages of pre-publication publicity overseas, but its arrival on local shelves has been heralded with barely a murmur.

Three things you might like to know about the novel before ransacking your local book shop in search of it:
1] Gone-Away World is a serious literary work of speculative fiction presented in a wryly humorous form, and could be shelved anywhere from Comedy & Gift Books to Science Fiction and Fantasy to Fiction A – Z.
2] Nick Hathaway is the son of John La Carre, renowned for best-selling examples of espionage tedium. But don’t let that put you off.
3] The Gone Away World is very well written indeed: even those who distain futuristic fantasy and regard all forms of SF as beneath contempt – with the possible exception of 1984 and Clockwork Orange – should enjoy the book as much as those of us with popularist tastes.

The book is set in a Post-Apocalyptic, near-dystopian world in which 85% of the population has been [literally] wiped out by the injudicious application of an alternative weapon, the consequences of which have not been fully explored.

Boffins are confident that the ‘Go-Away’ beam will ‘disappear’ all matter at which it is aimed: matter certainly disappears but the process creates a nightmarish by-product called, simply Stuff.

The deployment of the unconventional weapon destroyed much of the world in a series of fell swoops, but the monstrosities spawned by ‘Stuff’ just carry on killing until the previously unknown corporation Jorgmund develops an antidote called Fox that destroys or neutralised Stuff, although not the creatures it spawns.

The Jorgmund Pipe is laid around the world, emitting enough Fox to hold Stuff at bay and form a safe corridor of habitation in which the surviving humans may live without fear of attack.

The story begins with a massive fire: a Fox depot has been sabotaged and the Jorgmund pipeline is under threat – with dire consequences to the ‘liveable zone’ of human habitation.

Time to call in the Haulage and HazMat Emergency Civil Freebooting Company of Exmoor County – Corporate HO: The Nameless Bar. The narrator is a member of this gung-ho buccaneering group, and introduces us to its members – chief of whom is the loutish hero Gonzo Lubitsch.

Gonzo and the nameless narrator go way back, to long before the wars, and we are taken on a lengthy detour down memory lane to explore their shared childhood, their shared devotion to different forms of martial arts, and their scholastic careers.

Although they go different ways, their paths continue to cross until they meet up in the War Zone of Adden Katir where Gonzo is with the Special Forces, and the narrator is with a top secret division responsible for the ‘Go-Away’ device.

Comic, Entertaining and Humorous are terms applied to this book, but there is little to bring g even a smile to the face of the reader. Masterful application of dry wit and sardonic observation has been deployed to ameliorate the worst of the horror, but horror there is in abundance.

A fridge-full of severed heads waiting to be pressed into service as interior décor, outré sexual private lives, fantastically, erotically, scurrilous but manufactured quarrels between couples to deflect attention…

Take a step back – surreal absurdism reigns supreme: believing six impossible things before breakfast is child’s play compared to this ridiculous and deadly battleground where the new and the old, the real and the unreal, wage mortal combat.

Brave, bone-headed and brash, the braggardly and testosterone impaired nominal hero Gonzo does not engage the reader’s sympathy: that is left to the narrator, the sensitive, intelligent and all too human character, faithful to his beloved wife Leah, and with only one simple but heartfelt prayer: “I want to come home.”

Full of twists, turns and tricks, the story is too good to spoil by a premature revelation: suffice it to say that love, friendship and the nobility of the human spirit – even when found in the most unexpected places – triumph and win the day.

Although rambling and a little too discursive, the action is fast and furious when necessary, the romance is tender but never salacious, the characters are vitally convincing, the plot is realistic, and the writing is excellent.

Literary snobs might recognise the book’s worth but until they get over their prejudices and deign to consider a work of speculative fiction as a real contender, popularist readers may claim this book as their own until such time as, maybe, like Child 44, it wins a Man Booker Prize. ( )