Angelmaker

What the Critics Say

"Angelmaker is one of the most enjoyable books I've read in ages...a joyful display of reckless, delightful invention, on a par with the rocket-powered novels of Neal Stephenson.... Ideas come zinging in from all corners, and do so with linguistic verve and tremendous humour. ... It's brilliantly entertaining, and the last hundred pages are pure, unhinged delight. What a splendid ride." (Patrick Ness, Guardian)

"It hangs together so brilliantly...It's an ambitious, crowded, restless caper, cleverly told and utterly immune to precis...From its frantic oscillation between plausibility and fantasy emerges an odd, unique composite that deserves its own moniker. ...Angelmaker turns out to be a solid work of modern fantasy fiction, coupling credit-crunch anxiety with an understandable nostalgia for the mythical days of "good, wholesome, old-fashioned British crime." (James Purdon, Observer Guardian)

"Angelmaker is an intricate and brilliant piece of escapism, tipping its hat to the twisting plots of John Buchan and H Rider Haggard, the goggles-and-gauntlets Victoriana of the steampunk movement and the labyrinthine secret London's of Peter Ackroyd and Iain Sinclair, while maintaining an originality, humour and verve all its author's own... Angelmaker must have been huge fun to write, and it is huge fun to read." (Daily Telegraph, five stars)

"Angelmaker is an entertaining tour-de-force that demands to be adored." (Independent on Sunday)

"A big, gleefully absurd, huggable bear of a novel...Harkaway's prose is playful and beguiling, with a keen satiric edge, and that makes all the difference." (Slate)

"Sometimes I forget how transfixing it can be to read really great writing... A lot of books are fun to read for the plot; a smaller percentage displays this artful mastery of the language. And precious few manage to do both. Angelmaker falls into that last category. Harkaway plays the English language like a mad virtuoso: he hits all the right notes but isn't above throwing in a bit of ornamentation and jazzing things up... Angelmaker is like a Quentin Tarantino movie written by Neil Gaiman: larger-than-life characters, dry British humour, a heavy dose of the weird, and a bit macabre; horrendous things wrapped up in gorgeous language." (Wired)

"Harkaway's brilliance in this novel of adventure, love and intrigue is that he enjoys these stories and makes us remember how much we enjoy them... Harkaway has given us, for the second time, a box of delights." (Independent)

"Harkaway shares Dickens's eye for the ridiculous, as well as his ability to move from absurdity to pathos within the space of a sentence...Angelmaker is an adult version of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy..." (Literary Review)

"What kind of a mind dreams up Angelmaker, a nutty, sprawling sprint to save the world from a sinister cabal of veiled monks who want to unleash a clockwork book that could bring an end to conscious life in the universe...It could only be Nick Harkaway: bonkers, brilliant and hilarious... Effervescent, clever and entirely fantastic." (Sunday Times)

"A dazzling story..a witty and wonderfully sprawling fantastical thriller." (Irish Times - Summer Reads)

"By far the most fun I've had with fiction this year was Nick Harkaway's Angelmaker. Gorgeous prose and a rollicking steam-punk spy thriller. Brilliant." (Laurie Penny, New Statesman Books of the Year)

"a crowded carnivalesque masterpiece that is quite unlike other crowded carnivalesque novels you may have read in being both funnier and more estranging" (The Guardian)

"a high-octane pulpish spy thriller with more ideas per page than most novelists can dream up in a lifetime. It is highly recommended." (The Independent on Sunday)

"'bonkers, brilliant and hilarious. His science-fiction romp is effervescent, clever and entirely fantastic." (Alison Flood, The Sunday Times)

"this is a joyful display of reckless delightful invention, on a par with the rocket-powered novels of Neal Stephenson...Ideas come zinging in from all corners, and do so with linguistic verve and tremendous humour...brilliantly entertaining." (Patrick Ness, Guardian)

"In a gravelly yet gleeful voice, Weyman narrates this swashbuckling genre-blend of spies, gangsters, and a doomsday machine. The lavish and imaginative story of Joe Spork, a clockmaker out of his depth as he attempts to save the world, is brilliantly realized through Weyman's attention to inflection, characterization and pacing." (The Listen List for Outstanding Audiobook Narration 2013 - American Library Association Reference & User Services Association)

"A new riveting action spy thriller, blistering gangster noir, and howling absurdist comedy: a propulsively entertaining tale about a mobster's son and a retired secret agent who are forced to team up to save the world." (Nudgemenow.com)

"Angelmaker is another cracking book from Nick Harkaway. It's a mix of sci-fi, steampunk, adventure and romance and the mix of genres works really well together...Harkaway's Angelmaker is a brilliant piece of escapism. It's a wonderful example of how an irreverent approach to much loved genres can lead to a truly great story." (Nudge)