A review by smithel
The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway

4.0

I loved this book! I was a little worried when the first chapter seemed to be very Mad Max and basically contain Tough Men and Trucks, but it was well worth persevering. It ended up being quite a complex story that I found completely engrossing. It is told from the point of view of an orphaned boy adopted into the family of his new friend Gonzo Lubitsch. The protagonist became Gonzo's more thoughtful, calmer, slightly gentler sidekick, and the novel largely the ways in which they are similar and different to each other shape their lives - and how they survive the end of the world. I'm deducting one star because the occasional "men are men and women are women" stuff occasionally thrown in annoyed me a lot, but on the whole this is a clever book about an interesting and likable character. It's not quite like anything else I've read, and it's always a pleasure to find genuinely creative sci fi.