TWIB-II 53: 10/6-10/11
Oct. 18th, 2008 04:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akujunkanAnd I'm finally catching up.
1) The Gone-Away World – Nick Harkaway
My first exposure to The Gone-Away World was via a publisher’s online banner ad, which compared it to Vonnegut, Heller, the Mad Max franchise, Burgess, and Orwell. As a diehard fan of the first three and genre pariah for disliking the latter two, I had to see which, if any, of the above comparisons the novel actually warranted.
Despite the extremely unrealistic expectations set by such copy, The Gone-Away World delivers. Yes, it’s heavy on exposition, but--and this is extremely rare where such is concerned--it’s not a lazy authorial cop-out. It’s well-written, integral to the story, and in many places, laugh-out-loud funny. Harkaway has a lot to offer fans of scifi/dystopian lit, especially ones familiar with political science, international relations, and modern history. He shares Vonnegut’s sharp wit, gentle cynicism, and knack for insightful social commentary...but definitely not Vonnegut’s pithiness. Both in terms of verbosity and disjointed style, The Gone-Away World is more Catch-22 than Timequake, and I finished it with a niggling sense that I’d have liked it even more had it been shorter. That said, I can’t think of a single point in the narrative that left me bored, let alone a passage I feel could be omitted without adversely affecting the narrative.
The story features all the familiar post-apocalyptic antihero-saves-the-world tropes, but it’s by no means paint-by-numbers. Attentive readers will spot the big reveal as it’s being set up, but I imagine it will take most readers by surprise. Either way, that aspect of the plot is handled quite well. Hathaway does stumble, however, by not adequately explaining the reasoning behind the villain’s big scheme: this was the only aspect of the novel that I felt was underdeveloped and subject to an unwieldy information dump. Nevertheless, this failure is a relatively small part in a winner of a novel. The Gone-Away World overwhelmingly does live up to all of the hype.
That will be all.
1) The Gone-Away World – Nick Harkaway
My first exposure to The Gone-Away World was via a publisher’s online banner ad, which compared it to Vonnegut, Heller, the Mad Max franchise, Burgess, and Orwell. As a diehard fan of the first three and genre pariah for disliking the latter two, I had to see which, if any, of the above comparisons the novel actually warranted.
Despite the extremely unrealistic expectations set by such copy, The Gone-Away World delivers. Yes, it’s heavy on exposition, but--and this is extremely rare where such is concerned--it’s not a lazy authorial cop-out. It’s well-written, integral to the story, and in many places, laugh-out-loud funny. Harkaway has a lot to offer fans of scifi/dystopian lit, especially ones familiar with political science, international relations, and modern history. He shares Vonnegut’s sharp wit, gentle cynicism, and knack for insightful social commentary...but definitely not Vonnegut’s pithiness. Both in terms of verbosity and disjointed style, The Gone-Away World is more Catch-22 than Timequake, and I finished it with a niggling sense that I’d have liked it even more had it been shorter. That said, I can’t think of a single point in the narrative that left me bored, let alone a passage I feel could be omitted without adversely affecting the narrative.
The story features all the familiar post-apocalyptic antihero-saves-the-world tropes, but it’s by no means paint-by-numbers. Attentive readers will spot the big reveal as it’s being set up, but I imagine it will take most readers by surprise. Either way, that aspect of the plot is handled quite well. Hathaway does stumble, however, by not adequately explaining the reasoning behind the villain’s big scheme: this was the only aspect of the novel that I felt was underdeveloped and subject to an unwieldy information dump. Nevertheless, this failure is a relatively small part in a winner of a novel. The Gone-Away World overwhelmingly does live up to all of the hype.
That will be all.