A Post-Apocalyptic Comedy Features Ninjas Fighting Mimes

Nick Harkaway ’s first novel , The Gone Away World , proves that you could only talk about the really important thing in the world by fall back to scientific discipline fabrication . At the heart of this empty-headed , alarm walkaway is a brilliant scientific discipline fancied conceit for blab about the pointlessness of state of war : a tiptop - artillery that is n’t just reasonless , but which really eradicates sensory faculty . Spoilers are crawling up your arm , just below .

In The Gone off domain , there ’s a huge senseless state of war in a fictional primal Asian state , and the British decide to unleah their secret weapon system : the Go forth Bombs , which are only supposed to be inhumanly massive weapon of aggregated destruction but turn out to be far , far worse . The Go Away Bomb , in theory , pillage the information away from matter , turning it into unsanded pandemonium and basically erasing it . But in recitation , the Go Away Bomb flex masses and object into Stuff , a sort of crude ontological matter which the great unwashed mold into grotesque , or wild forms using their thought process and basest emotions .

The other one-half of the book is a sort of coming - of - age narration of an un - named storyteller and his friend , Gonzo Lubitsch . Without giving too much away , there ’s a massive twist about two third of the way through the volume which puts everything you ’ve read up until then in a fresh lightness and makes the whole exercise much more worthwhile , if you ’re unforced to buy into it .

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Beyond that , the Gone aside World is an alarming mash - up of musical genre . It ’s sort of one - one-half post - apocalyptic repulsion story , and one - half square-toed comedy of style : call it P.G. Margaret Atwoodhouse . It does n’t always work , and there are sections where Harkaway goes off on a three - page comic deviation that are n’t nearly as mirthful as he seems to mean . But over time , you set about to accredit a kind of over - arching logic to the overly chatty narrative vocalization . It ’s like the voice of someone who ’s asterisk into the face of non - existence , and mutilate beingness , and is trying to keep a whole image of the cosmos with jokes and weird patter .

The most compelling parts of the book , frequently , have to do with war or military training . The main character gets hale into the military life unwillingly , but somehow becomes a very assured guide to the realities of combat and preparedness . ( The fact that Harkaway is the son of famous spy novelist John le Carré may have something to do with his relief at describing derring - do . ) And then the entertaining story of wild warfare turns into the write up of how the world resolve into gook . Here ’s an early description of the formless Stuff eat on a bunch of soldiers , in which the Stuff literally becomes a sort of formless prosopopoeia of war :

The Stuff is ragged and wispy . It is encountering some pressure sensation or push at our circumference , and respond to it . Things are materialize at the meniscus : intimate shapes are appearing — armed gentleman’s gentleman , vehicles , gun for hire . They shimmer and collapse into one another , getting more upstanding . Some of them are ludicrous or nasty . A small group charges across the edge , Iwo Jima flair , sidekick in arms . They are too snug together , weirdly awkward , and as they turn , I see that they are conjoined , all seven of them . The sergeant ’s hand on his corporal ’s back , barrack him on , melds smoothly into the uniform and the spine . The soldier behind , supporting the police sergeant , is combine with him at the hip . They struggle , scream and fall , bring down the others . They are an image to be see from one side , not real human race at all . They die , plausibly because they have not enough hearts between them , and sink to the flat coat , where a corpse - carpeting is forming , the intimate exterior decor of modern skirmishing . I can hear the bullets whiz , though there is as yet no - one to fight . This is not an attack . It ’s atmosphere . It ’s warfare as a condition , war as furniture . We are under siege by a whimsey of war .

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As the hooey get more permeating and eats into everything , the populace goes fully post - apocalyptic , and the livable reality is reduced to a single zone , maintain by some mysterious substance that neutralizes the Stuff . As realism and personhood become more and more subjective , hoi polloi have to determine how to handle with the Newly Made , the great unwashed who did n’t subsist until the Stuff create them . And meanwhile , an evil corporation called Jorgmund is trying to take over what ’s result of the world .

Did I mention there were ninjas ? They toy an increasingly big use as the account book goes on , after having seemed like an afterthought in the beginning . They turn out to be unfit guys , and have to defend a whole company of mime , who turn out to be good guys . And there are ninjas versus bees , as well . It ’s actually concentrated to convey quite how slaphappy this book get at times . A lot of the characters feel a mo throw - away , consist mostly of a funny name and one larger - than - life sentence characteristic . But the last third of the volume is almost consummate wizardry , bringing together a lot of threads that seemed random for pull out a series of satisfying , if crazy , surprises .

All in all , The Gone Away World is a frantically entertaining journeying into the polluted heart of the 21st century war machine . But it ’s also a zany escapade comedy about martial arts fighters battling on the bulwark of an malign fort and finding true love . Harkaway somehow take that pungent mixture and turn it into a bass legend about discovering your real ego when everyone ’s melt down around you . It ’s a story that could only work as science fable , and yet it ’s also big than its science fictitious self-love .

Lesdilley