02-29-2012, 03:41 PM
The Gone Away World is a fantastic book that really pissed me off.
The Gone Away World starts in a nightmare landscape which is a future version of our own earth. A band of mercenaries are preparing to save what is left of this world from an ongoing catastrophe. The book then reverses course and brings you up to speed on how the world we know became one you didn't recognize.
The story telling and world building in this book are unbelievable. It's why you need to read books. Harkaway's use of language is phenomenal. He never met a digression he wouldn't take and they are all really funny. I couldn't read this book fast enough. It talks about the nature of banal evil and people subsuming their personalities to corporations rather than ideals. It has Ninjas. It has great fight scenes. There is a lot of talk about the nature of the martial arts. It's wonderful.
But about two thirds of the way in, he cheated me. For all the fantastic nature of the book, he did something that took me too far out of the story. The book carried on from the break and what he did after the incident was again fun and logical and exciting, but I kept going back to the point where the book broke for me.
It's an awesome book and you should read it. Just so I can know if the break offended just me or people agree with me.
And if you are wondering where Harkaway might have gotten his brilliant use of language, please note that his father is John Le Carre.
The Gone Away World starts in a nightmare landscape which is a future version of our own earth. A band of mercenaries are preparing to save what is left of this world from an ongoing catastrophe. The book then reverses course and brings you up to speed on how the world we know became one you didn't recognize.
The story telling and world building in this book are unbelievable. It's why you need to read books. Harkaway's use of language is phenomenal. He never met a digression he wouldn't take and they are all really funny. I couldn't read this book fast enough. It talks about the nature of banal evil and people subsuming their personalities to corporations rather than ideals. It has Ninjas. It has great fight scenes. There is a lot of talk about the nature of the martial arts. It's wonderful.
But about two thirds of the way in, he cheated me. For all the fantastic nature of the book, he did something that took me too far out of the story. The book carried on from the break and what he did after the incident was again fun and logical and exciting, but I kept going back to the point where the book broke for me.
It's an awesome book and you should read it. Just so I can know if the break offended just me or people agree with me.
And if you are wondering where Harkaway might have gotten his brilliant use of language, please note that his father is John Le Carre.
So much for the flickr badge idea. Dammit