Tales from the Nightstand: Angelmaker, by Nick Hardaway

(This is a guest post from our very own RTod!)

It is difficult to know exactly with what genre to label Nick Harkaway’s Angelmaker.  Is it crime noire?  Is it existential musing?  Is it steam punk?  Is it satire?  Is it a 1940’s era pulp adventure novel?  Is it a Michael Chabon-like attempt at using literary skills to pen a dime-store genre novel?  It is, of course, all of these things – and yet none of these descriptions by themselves feels quite right.

Harkaway’s novel is really two stories woven into one.  The first is the story of clock-repairman Joe Spork, son of a notorious and flamboyant London mobster long since passed that is trying to live as quite and unobtrusive life as possible.  The second is tale of octogenarian Edie Bannister, a retired spy for the British government.  Joe’s story takes place in our present, while much of Edie’s takes place in flashbacks to her earlier life, where we see her as a kind of James Bond proto-type (that is, if James Bond were a female cross-dressing lesbian).  Their stories connect as Edie reluctantly decides to become something of a super-villain, and Joe finds that the crimes of his father (and grandfather) force him to play the part of reluctant hero.

Harkaway’s narration is nimble and fun.  Indeed, Angelmaker is one of those books where a great deal can be forgiven simply because the narration is a delight to read.  And it is possible that much needs forgiveness.  There’s just a lot of stuff in the story: shadow governments, evil Asian warlords, steampunk trains, the obligatory short and fat teamed with tall and thin overly polite assassins, mechanical doomsday bees, war elephants, creepy cultists, gangsters with tommy-guns… In the hands of someone like Dan Brown it would be a joke, but Harkaway’s sly satiric tone throughout makes it a surprisingly fun outing.

In many ways, the book is reminiscent of both Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.  There’s the hapless male hero teamed with the much stronger female romantic interest.  Harkaway’s settings seem to be a mixture of real life mixed with our most shared fairytales, his characters modern, flawed versions of familiar archetypes.  Two of the heavies, Mr. Titwhistle and Mr. Cummerbund, actually come dangerously close to some of Gaiman’s characters.

All in all, it was a great read, one I’d highly recommend to those looking for surprisingly well-written light reading.

Overall Rating: Four out of Five stars

Recommended Reading For: Lovers of inventive speculative fiction in the form a good, old fashioned yarn; those who love Neil Gaiman or Terry Pratchett’s non-Discworld novels; those who like a strong narrative voice.

Skip it if:  You’re the type of realism-loving reader that often finds yourself say, “That would never happen!”; you are unhappy when the mechanisms that make SF gizmos are never fully explained to the reader; you have an All-or-Nothing approach to steampunk.

Random but Typical Quote: “Crotch biting menace: I have my mouth in close proximity to your genitals. Oh thou man who talks to my mistress over coffee. Do not irk or trifle with me! I possess but one tooth, oh, yes, for the rest were buried long ago in the flesh of sinners. Behold my jaws, upper and lower in righteous, symmetrical poverty. Move not, man of clocks, and heed my mistress, for she cherishes me, even in my foul old age.” – (The thoughts of that ubiquitous small and annoying dog, owned by the elderly everywhere, as it sticks its snout into your crotch.)

It’s literary spittin’ distance from: Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman; Michael Chabon, if his next genre novel were steampunk related.

Recommended Beverage Pairing: Read while sipping an old-fashioned drink; preferably an actual Old Fashioned.