The Gone-Away World
Nick Harkaway
532 pages
published in 2008
Whoa.
Now I understand why The Gone-Away World was one of last year’s most discussed science fiction books. I’d noticed the fuzz but not gotten my hands on a copy until yesterday when I checked it out of the library for beach reading, but once I got it home it gripped me and didn’t let me go until I’d finished it late at night after everybody else had gone to bed. Books like that are rare and you always finish them with a hint of regret that a pleasurable journey is over. And The Gone-Away World is very much a journey type of book, with plenty of amusing diversions along the way asnd in no hurry to reach its destination.
In fact, most of The Gone-Away World after the first chapter is a hugely extended flashback, only catching up to the present three fifths of the way through the story. Some may find this annoying enough to argue that the book would’ve been better off without that teaser. Personally I disagree, I think this structure was necessary. The “teaser” is there to get you interested in the world Harkaway has created, while the extended flashback explains both the personal history of the narrator and the world he lives in and how it came to be. When you rejoin the action after the flashback this added and detailed history gives added weight and poignancy to what happens next. It wouldn’t have worked if it had been in strict chronological order.