The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While not as good as his second novel, Angelmaker, this one is just as inventive and entertaining. Here the catalyst for doomsday is a weapon that will simply make the enemy go away. Seems very efficient until it goes awry, of course, and the gone-away victims return in grotesque, threatening forms. Only a mysterious substance called Fox, carried in a pipe around the world, keeps the remnants of civilization safe, and now it's threatened by a fire on the pipeline. Our Heroes, a crazy but lovable bunch of veteran trouble-shooters, must respond, led by the able Gonzo Lubitsch (think the Channing Tatum character in Magic Mike) and his best buddy, who's the narrator. What follows never fails to surprise as it leads us down labyrinthine paths punctuated by digressions that are probably the best part of the book except that there are so many of them and they get in the way of finding out what happens next. Ultimately I lost patience with them, but only because the central story, a moving quest for identity embedded in a pow-bang-boom action story, demanded resolution. Harkaway's mind seems to be hyperactive in the best sense, popping out more weird and wonderful inventions than can fit in one story. I can't wait for his next book.


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