Review: Angelmaker, by Nick Harkaway

Nick Harkaway has been one of my favorite authors since I first read The Gone-Away World a while back. I own that book, even, which should be an indicator of how much I love it, because I only buy books I adore lest I completely fill my room.

I'm about two series away from this.

Its cover is pink fuzzy stuff with neon green lettering and I loved it. Then I went to go read everything else by Harkaway. But much to my despair, I found out that The Gone-Away World was the only thing he'd written. Ever. He was in the process of writing a new book, though, called Angelmaker. So I put that on my mental 'Read As Soon As Available' list, and went on with my life.

Fast forward two years. In the meantime, I've reread Gone-Away at least twice, and completely forgotten to check if Angelmaker was published. (spoiler: it was) When I found out, I immediately geeked out, put it on hold at the library, and waited. For two weeks. Popular books, is Angelmaker. 

But I finally - finally - read it this last weekend. I'd say I read it all in one day, because it was that good, but that's a lie. I stayed up until 4 AM the next day to finish it, because it was that good, and that long. It was freaking amazing.

I glee'd about the last novel I reviewed, too, which may give you the impression that every novel I read I adore. That's not true at all. *cough 61 Nails cough* But Harkaway did something incredible with Angelmaker that made my head spin. He took tropes and turned them completely inside-out, then filled them with clockwork bees. No lie.

So. The first trope he made his minion: That of Those Two Bad Guys. Yes, there is a pair of bad guys. One is even tall and skinny and the other is short and fat. But they are not bosom buddies. They do not necessarily stick together. One even defects to the side of, for the sake of simplicity, what I'll call 'good,' and leaves the other out to dry. 

Then there's that of the White Sheep. Jack, the main character, is living a completely normal life, partly because he hopes it will atone for his father's former King of the Gangsters lifestyle. It doesn't work out, and it fails in the most spectacular way possible. It is, in fact, an Epic Fail. And I love it.

There's the Cloak and Dagger espionage bit. Edie, another main character, was one of England's most important female spies, and she was James Bond before he existed. Now, however, she's a 90-year-old woman who's decided to set off the supposed Doomsday machine that her lover from WWII made, because she figures the world can't get much worse.

Also, there are clockwork bees of TRUTH. And an underground criminal society! And a Prince-cum-Serial-Killer-cum-God-Wannabe. It's amazing.


I don't really have any issues with this book. Maybe a little less obscurity towards the beginning, but keeping those details hidden makes the end of the book a dozen times cooler. So, maybe not. Angelmaker has officially become one of my favorite books. *nodnod*