Description

‘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 protege – 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 Review

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 * * An entropic and sprawling mystery . . . Mind-twisting . . . Introspective and philosophical, the novel explores the dangers that occur when fatalistic urges take over * * New Statesman * * Anyone who enjoyed The Raw Shark Texts will be delighted -- TOBY LITT Written in the first person and paced like a thriller, there's an intimacy and immediacy that quickly grips, and even the long digressions on theory - a trademark of the form - are enjoyable to read * * Spectator * * Hall takes great pleasure in his half of the job and leads us playfully through the book's various twists and turns . . . This is a novel that requires patience, but the sheer jouissance of Hall's writing means that that patience . . . will not go unrewarded * * TLS * * With Maxwell's Demon, Steven Hall has created a kaleidoscopic, disconcerting God game in which reality itself is thrown into deep shape-shifting shade. Like David Mitchell, Mark Z. Danielewski and the Christopher Nolan of Inception, Hall has created his own unique world in which readers take a journey as mercurial and unexpected as life itself. Maxwell's Demon is a radiant and unique achievement -- BRADFORD MORROW It's Raymond Chandler meets Dan Brown meets Albert Einstein. Meets Christopher Nolan. Meets Jorge Luis Borges. It's a mind-expanding page-turning adventure-mystery that crackles with intelligence and intrigue; a book about books (sort of) that's been beautifully rendered in book form -- FOYLES A postmodern literary thriller about a difficult second novel . . . Anyone who has a taste for postmodern hijinks . . . will be drawn to the menace and profusion, the game-like brilliance and black hilarity * * Australian * * A wonderfully imaginative, splendidly baroque novel that is a combination of the baffling, teasing and tantalising. Part fantasy, part mystery, it is altogether delightful and filled with surprises - in a word, exceptional. No, make that two words; the second is fantastic. A rare, sui generis treat * * Booklist (starred review) * * There's really nothing like this book - long contemplations of philosophy, personality, religion and history are all woven into something of a mystery in which no one is truly reliable . . . Hall manages to put a whole world on the page that shifts and changes as weirdly and wildly as the ones in the novel's fictional books . . . Written with verve and a vast appreciation for the power of language * * Kirkus Reviews * *