The Gone Away World
by Nick Harkaway

Release Date: 5th Jun 2008
Publisher: William Heinemann
ISBN: 978 0 4340 1842 0
RRP: £17.99

You could not swallow this whole; rather, you would take a bite and chew it thoughtfully before proceeding to take the next mouthful.

A highly complex tale about a post-apocalyptic world, where a company called Jorgmund is pretty much in control of everything and everyone owing to its spectacular and life-saving pipe, which feeds ‘Fox’ (a rather abstract atmospheric gas that maintains the ‘Liveable Zone’). The only trouble is, there’s been a huge fire at one of the large stations along the pipe and only a small group of Neanderthals can put it out...

The Gone-Away World is narrated by one of this motley crew and we are in turn, pitched into the bizarre world that our planet has become after a ‘Go-Away War’ and the construction of the pipe and background scenes or flashbacks into the lives of some of his compatriots. This doesn’t help speed the book along, but those with an ardent desire to assimilate what is a highly original take on a future Earth will doggedly persevere and not be disappointed.

Harkaway has a style unto himself. Indeed, there is no author out there that I can summon up to compare him to. In part poetically grandiose and morbidly introverted, in part down-right crass and a little obnoxious. This rather peculiar blend in writing style is wholly absorbing and you feel at once ingratiated into his characters’ lives, thought processes and feelings. Harkaway wants you to understand and sympathise with his characters. He wants you to know them as he knows them, and to his credit, he achieves this with astonishing ease.

I am left both perplexed and trembling. It is startling – a revelation of sorts. A kind of Matrix meets The Hills Have Eyes. There are times your skin will crawl and others when it will burst into goose bumps. Most of the time you will just sit dumbfounded as Harkaway lays before you a gloriously original piece of fiction.

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