'The Gone-Away World' by Nick Harkaway - Book Review

A pink fuzzy book. Neon green type. Letters beginning to disappear like long lost sanity. It’s like the cover of The Gone-Away World was dipped in a vat of nuclear waste and came out smiling, slightly anarchic, like the Joker on a comic binge. Yep. That’s the personification of Nick Harkaway’s debut novel to a T. A bit looney. A bit knowing. And only for those with the taste for these types of stories: a tale of British post-apocalypse with all the dark, wry and zany wit that comes when your heroic best friend’s name is Gonzo.

When Gonzo is your best friend and he’s the pinnacle of manly hood, how can you not be prepared to follow him anywhere? The world’s gone away due to new weapons of mass elimination released across the world during the Go Away War. And now the Jorgamund Pipe, the one thing keeping all the baddies out of the Livable Zone, a safe haven for humans, is on fire and Gonzo and his team from the Haulage & Hazmat Emergency Civil Freebooting Company, got to go in and fix it. But wait, what am I thinking, let’s go back in time and spend, oh, 300 pages or so, on a biography and tell you how we got here before we get into the real thick plot of things.

If this is the future of literature, then all works of serious fiction should have fuzzy covers. I really don’t know what to say about Nick Harkaway’s debut work. It has the level of craftsmanship that a majority of novelists never find; it’s filled with rapturously free storytelling. Harkaway aims to write an immense story with dizzying insight into war, terror, friendship, love and loyalty. And in his own quirky way, he accomplishes his grand vision. But it just seems so darn absurd.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for zany sci-fi with a sharp wit and things like ninjas and mimes thrown in. But some readers will rightfully not want to take the time to get lost in such a kaleidoscope of ideas, especially when they’re laced with black humor that often covers the tale’s furiously beating heart.

There’s no way I can sum up this book or really give it a 1 to 5 star review (3 is aiming for the middle because it’s a love/hate thing). It’s a curious work, explosive and sometimes nearly lucid, that will capture the love of a certain group of people. You know from what I’ve written so far if you are one of those readers. If you’re not curious, you’re just confused, then this is not for you.