• Hardcover
• 478
• Angelmaker
• Nick Harkaway
• English
• 15 August 2020
• 9780307595959

Read ´ Angelmaker ¹ PDF, DOC, TXT or eBook N the upside Joe’s got a girl a bold receptionist named Polly whose smarts savvy and sex appeal may be just what he needs With Joe’s once uiet world suddenly overrun by mad monks psychopathic serial killers scientific geniuses and threats to the future of conscious life in the universe he realizes that the only way to survive is to muster the courage to fight help Edie complete a mission she abandoned years ago and pick up his father’s old g. I was supposed to have written a review of Nick Harkaway s Angelmaker for Kirkus last week but I just couldn t finish the bookIn principle I should have loved this heck I had hoped Angelmaker would be so good it would even feature on my top 10 this year It s an outlandish Literary Fantasy novel featuring automata London based gangsters World War II shenanigans and espionage with a plot to destroy the world using clockwork beesBut an extremely bloated plot with obnoxiously verbose descriptions of pretty much everything the main characters come across as they wander around plus a recently discovered aversion for third person first tense narratives unfortunately kept me from finishing the bookIt was the toe you see that eventually did me inAt one point in the narrative main character Joe Spork is about to leave a room when he is stopped in his tracks by a toe What follows is an unbearably long description of said toe which is if you care to know pale and round and the perfect size to be sucked Also and I uote a toe which knows the world which has done the wicked secret things other toes only fantasise about It is uncanny the amount of information one can gather from a simple toe Said toe is of course linked to other four toes which are in turn attached to a calf slender connected to a leg belonging to a woman called Polly referred to as Bold Receptionist for far too long in the narrative after she is introduced who has the dubious and eye rolling ability to transform utterly innocent words like sandwich into erotic pronunciations according to the hero s point of view of courseIt was exactly at that point that I had to leave to attend a talk at Anglia Ruskin University by Philip Pullman on his new book Tales From the Brothers Grimm the talk has been recapped brilliantly by The Other Ana over at Things Mean a LotPullman s new book is a collection of straightforward renderings and not embellished retellings of 50 Grimm tales and as Mr Pullman discussed the book one of the things he said struck me as uite interesting the fact that in these tales the characters are not real people The very nature of the tales which are preoccupied with what happens next rather than with the emotional background of said characters These characters can be perceived as puppets as creatures without any real depth because there is a shortness of description which leads to nonexistent characterisation To be clear this insight is not necessarily a shortcoming but rather provided as a means to understanding this different type of narrative mode and its motifs The lack of internal characterisation is exactly what gives fairytales such a rich and lasting life because they are meant to be rearranged and retold according to each storyteller s gifts Because characterisation is not set in stone in those stories they can be elaborated on upon their tellingIt was then that I had a EUREKA moment about what exactly was bothering me about AngelmakerIt was its over descriptive nature of the storytelling that often veers into random territory and results in the complete lack of actual characterisation Ultimately this leads to the absence of any emotional resonance Interestingly enough those are brought forth for the exact opposite narrative techniue of that of a fairytale one that is hurt by excess rather than dearth There is an excess of description here and we end up being told rather than shown who the characters are and how they feel It is not something that the author is completely unaware of by the way as his main character remarks about his extremely verbose friend sometimes the plumy playful verbiage is obnoxious It conceals emotion uiteI put the book down around that time when Joe met Polly s toe about half way through There was nothing for me there to make me want to continue and I was uite frankly bored out of my mind at that point Not even the awesome 90 year old lesbian self proclaimed kick ass supervillainess and former spy whose story was a thousand times interesting than Joe s was enough to keep my interest

Read ð PDF, DOC, TXT or eBook É Nick Harkaway

Read ´ Angelmaker ¹ PDF, DOC, TXT or eBook From the acclaimed author of The Gone Away World blistering gangster noir meets howling absurdist comedy as the forces of good suare off against the forces of evil and only an unassuming clockwork repairman and an octogenarian former superspy can save the world from total destructionJoe Spork spends his days fixing antiue clocks The son of infamous London criminal Mathew “Tommy Gun” Spork he has turned his back on his family’s mobster histor. Nick Harkaway is a genius Be ready for a highly impartial minus the im reviewI almost just left the review like that but I guess I ll add a few lineswriting beautiful I gave this to a friend who only reads thrillers and mysteries Patterson etc and it was too much for him in the prose department This is a good sign for me That means it wasn t garbage Okay that s not fair but it does mean that it had colorful prose which it doeshumor hilariousIt s just about perfect Mixed with the gorgeous prose the subtle humor had me cracking up left and right even though for the most part it s a serious piece ie not Terry Pratchett satirestory intriguingA mix of mystery and some minor fantastical elements comes together in a wonderful story that is actually uite straight forward 5 out of 5 stars Can t recommend Harkaway enough

Read ´ Angelmaker ¹ PDF, DOC, TXT or eBook Y and aims to live a uiet life That orderly existence is suddenly upended when Joe activates a particularly unusual clockwork mechanism His client Edie Banister is than the kindly old lady she appears to be she’s a retired international secret agent And the device It’s a 1950s doomsday machine Having triggered it Joe now faces the wrath of both the British government and a diabolical South Asian dictator who is also Edie’s old arch nemesis O. Following the resounding success of my Locus uest I faced a dilemma which reading list to follow it up with Variety is the spice of life so I ve decided to diversify and pursue six different lists simultaneously This book falls into my GIFTS AND GUILTY listRegardless of how many books are already ueued patiently on my reading list unexpected gifts and guilt trips will always see unplanned additions muscling their way in at the frontI have a friend called Justin true story a crazy loveable Zimbabwean who wears board shorts and sandals whatever the weather He has crazy dancing feet He can wear a bow tie and mean it He s a genius but not an evil one He s also a spyWhen Justin finished his degree in Maths he had an interview with the foreign office He claims nothing came of it but nobody believes him In the years that follow Justin s life followed the induction programme for being an international man of mystery He taught maths in Uzbekistan He worked with the Portuguese military on submarine explosions He ran the finance department of a landmine clearing charity in Angola He spent a year living in van travelling and analysing digital TV signals in every single country in Europe including the random ones He went to Japan to visit friends He s currently doing his masters in Paris studying Genetic Mathematics That s the cover story anyway We think that having passed his probation period with all that crazy travelling he s now settled down to do some proper spy training and they ve given him such a complex masters for his cover story to discourage people from pryingWhat I hear you saying does this have to do with Angelmaker Justin gave me Angelmaker I know A crazy kind of spy gave me a crazy kind of spy story He also gave me The Gone Away World which is where the story really startsHow often does a debut novel wow you Not wow this writer has potential but wow this writer just came from nowhere and went straight into my all time favourites list That s what Harkaway did with The Gone Away World it s a truly awesome book and I absolutely loved it Which is why I was concerned about Angelmaker Whenever a music artist slams into my awareness like that with a debut album there always seems to be a sopho syndrome kicking in on the follow up Do you stick with the acclaimed formula from the debut or do you push on with your artistic growth and leave fans disappointed that they didn t get of the same Angelmaker is very broadly down the same eclectic path combining elements of different genres in new and interesting ways But the elements combined are different to his debut a spy thriller steampunk adventure and coming of age story all splash down in a gangster themed party Or somethingTo break it down uickly the spy thriller element follows the main supporting character an octogenarian ex superspy looking to shut down the doomsday device her ex lover built and finish her life long conflict with her arch nemises Amazing Bonus points for the sidekick pooch the steampunk adventure style comes through in flashbacks of the spy s early adventures and the amazing steampunk style trainsubmarine and the fact that the doomsday device is a kind of uantum clockwork ubertech thingy The lead guy is a clockwork restoration expert who must step up into the roll of adventure hero the coming of age story is all about the oscillation of three generations saying I will not be like my father and finally reconciling the best of both extremes to really fulfil his own potential and the gangster theme is about the father s life and all our hero is considered heir to what he s spent so long distancing himself from but must embrace to survive this mad life changing uestIt s a lot of fun It s superbly written It s uniue It s specialSo why didn t I give it five starsI ve been reading an awful lot of truly superb books since I started focusing on my reading lists and I guess part of a five star rating is a gut reaction Every book I ve given five stars to it s been a no hesitation boom you just know it For Angelmaker I hesitated It s good It s really really good But I hesitated Maybe I didn t uite connect with the hero Maybe the steampunk and gangster themes never uite merged satisfactorily but stand separately throughout Maybe the doomsday device just didn t uite deliver on the build up MaybeNone of my vague complaints would knock it down a whole star Not even all added together they knock it down maybe 06 of a star so we re talking about a 44 star book which has to be rounded down to a 4 That s the closest I can make to senseIt s a great book read it love itMr Harkaway I await your next offering with great anticipationAfter this I read Moon Over Soho