The Gone-Away World

The literary debut of 2008 - part adventure, part comic opera, part geek nirvanaThe Jorgmund Pipe is the backbone of the world, and it's on fire. Gonzo Lubitsch, professional hero and troubleshooter, is hired to put it out - but there's more to the fire, and the Pipe itself, than meets the eye. The job will take Gonzo and his best friend, our narrator, back to their own beginnings and into the dark heart of the Jorgmund Company itself.Equal parts raucous adventure, comic odyssey and Romantic Epic, The Gone-Away World is a story of - among other things - love and loss; of ninjas, pirates, politics; of curious heroism in strange and dangerous places; and of a friendship stretched beyond its limits. But it also the story of a world, not unlike our own, in desperate need of heroes - however unlikely they may seem.

“A stunning debut”

Its scope and ambition are extraordinary, its execution is often breathtaking, and its style is by turns hilarious, outrageous, devastating, hip and profound ... Hugely entertaining Independent on Sunday
Breathtakingly ambitious ... A bubbling cosmic stew of a book, written with such exuberant imagination that you are left breathless by its sheer ingenuity Observer
[A] post-apocalyptic triumph ... Immensely rewarding ... Genuinely terrifying The Times
Scotland on Sunday
Exuberant...Wildly inventive -- Michael Gove The Times
There are delightful moments aplenty ... Any author who has come up with the beautifully silly plan of melding a kung-fu epic with an Iraq-war satire and a Mad Max adventure has to be worth keeping an eye on Guardian
A debut novel of the kind that comes along only once every couple of years, overflowing with imagination yet powered by the kind of cleverly twisting plot that marks him out as a master storyteller ... A quirkily original writer The Scotsman
Has the pace and action of an episode of 24 ... The agility of the narrative is one of the great strengths of this book ... Harkaway is robustly confident ... Particularly effective are his Matrix-like fight scenes, brought to life in meticulous yet flowing prose The Times
... By turns thrilling, silly, gripping, crazy, daring and outrageous. I loved every minute ... The Gone-Away World is brakes-off fiction Scotland on Sunday
I loved it...exuberant, mind-bending science-fiction/fantasy adventure about truckers, weapons that wreck the very fabric of existence, foul-mouthed drill instructors, ninjas and stuff like that. But by golly it's well written, funny and enjoyable -- Sam Leith Daily Mail

Nick Harkaway is the author of The Gone-Away World and Angelmaker, and of an even better and more exciting novel whose name will probably end up being Tigerman, or possibly Man, Island, Boy. Contrary to what you may have heard, the title really is the hard part. When he's not writing, he spends his time being the husband of a brilliant lawyer and the dad of two small children who are secretly bent on world domination. He likes Italian red wine and lives in a bit of London where the taxis still have a horse at the pointy end.

'Breathtakingly ambitious...A bubbling cosmic stew of a book, written with such exuberant imagination that you are left breathless by its sheer ingenuity' Observer The Jorgmund Pipe is the backbone of the world, and it's on fire. Gonzo Lubitsch, professional hero and troubleshooter, is hired to put it out - but there's more to the fire, and the Pipe itself, than meets the eye. The job will take Gonzo and his best friend, our narrator, back to their own beginnings and into the dark heart of the Jorgmund Company itself. Equal parts raucous adventure, comic odyssey and geek nirvana, The Gone-Away World is a story of - among other things - love and loss; of ninjas, pirates, politics; of curious heroism in strange and dangerous places; and of a friendship stretched beyond its limits. But it also the story of a world, not unlike our own, in desperate need of heroes - however unlikely they may seem. 'A brilliant, stunning novel' Scott Smith

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