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'Ingeniously plotted and compulsively well-paced' Sunday Times
'A cracking detective story that seems to be investigating its own existence' Jeff Noon
'Are you there, Tom?'
I stood in the doorway, staring at the phone.
My father had been dead for almost seven years.
When Thomas Quinn receives a seemingly impossible voice message, he can't help but wonder if Andrew Black - a legendary, reclusive mystery writer and his father's protégé - is somehow involved.
Thomas knows that Black can't be trusted, that he should be avoided at all costs. But as the search for answers spirals into an examination of the nature of time, entropy, the true forms of angels, fictional stalkers and the secrets of the nativity set . . . Thomas realises that he might not have a choice.
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 9781847672483
Number of pages: 352
Weight: 236 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 21 mm
Edition: Main
MEDIA REVIEWS
Thirteen years after The Raw Shark Texts, Steven Hall comes back with another dazzlingly smart postmodern treat. Maxwell's Demon is both steeped in high European theory - think Calvino and Eco - and enormously enjoyable - Observer
Ingeniously plotted and compulsively well-paced, a blend of detective story and science fiction with an epistemology course thrown in - Sunday Times
A postmodern mystery . . . Ingenious fun . . . Showily postmodern, full of odd typographical elements, altered realities and intertextual jokes . . . Maxwell's Demon is consistently fun and often impressive - Guardian, Book of the Day
An engaging, pacy mystery as well as an exploration of reality, entropy and the language of a modern creative landscape . . . The book is full of conceptual and typographic trickery and it's soaked in an appreciation of the written word - Independent, Books of the Month
A Pynchonesque, footnote-and theory-heavy mystery novel that's as postmodern as they come . . . A smart, teasing and (above all) lovable mystery tale . . . Superb - Telegraph
Dazzlingly clever, wickedly playful, devastatingly poignant - M.R. CAREY
Labyrinthine, mind-twisting and deliciously diabolical, yet also unexpectedly warm-hearted. Maxwell's Demon is fantastic - CHRIS BROOKMYRE
As melancholy as it is captivating. Whether pertaining to thermodynamics or company kept around a manger or autumn leaves born of text and set free, Maxwell's Demon is hard to put down. Even when you're done - MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI
A cracking detective story that seems to be investigating its own existence - JEFF NOON
Moves at an exhilarating lick . . . The genius of the book is that despite it seeming like an elegant orrery, all these wheels within wheels are a carapace, a psychic armour against a grief (and it's not the grief you were expecting). Beneath this truly beautiful astrolabe is a beating human heart - Stuart Kelly, Scotsman
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“Kafkaesque, hard to put into a specific genre, but BRILLIANT!”
Maxwell's Demon is a very unusual novel, it's hard to slot it into a specific genre but it's beautifully written and pressed all the right buttons for me. Thomas Quinn is struggling as a writer, his... More
“A hall of mirrors”
Much like the protagonist, Thomas Quinn, I spent much of this book not really sure what was going on. The novel is like a hall of mirrors, you catch sight of something, think you know where you’re going, but no, it... More
“Psychological drama”
Thomas Quinn is a fairly unsuccessful writer for years intimidated by the success of his estranged and now dead father's protegee Andrew Black. His life is falling apart, red bills mount up, his wife has gone to... More
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