Imagine a future world where a chemical solution is the only thing that keeps us from the ghastly mutated barbarism of the Gone Away World. 
 Now imagine the wacky, quirky upbringing that led to such a future, and an absurdist autobiography filled with ninjas, cowardly revolutionaries, apocalyptic monsters and the Go Away Bomb. Nick Harkaway's "The Gone Away World" plants him firmly in the center of clever, forward-thinking fiction, as a sort of postapocalyptic Robertson Davies. 
 One night in the Nameless Bar, there's a blackout. Nothing new -- except the TV shows that the Pipe -- a vast network of hoses and lines that keeps the Livable Zone that way -- has caught fire. 
 Along with his pal Gonzo Lubitsch and a bunch of random bar weirdos, the narrator sets out to save the day. But this takes him back to his earlier life -- a strange childhood mentored by the quirky ancient martial-artist Master Wu, mutating into Angry-Young-Manhood complete with dissatisfaction and lots of sex. He's arrested as a revolutionary ringleader, and joins up with the cake-esque named Zaher Bey. 
 And then came the War that transformed the world into a place of monsters, darkness and utter weird. And in the present day, his road trip takes a sudden and bizarre turn when Gonzo shoots him. And as the narrator struggles to find what is going on at the heart of the mysterious Jorgamund Company, he learns of who has masterminded all the most horrific events of this twisted world... 
 Nick Harkaway is one of those rare authors who can capture the surreal in a single observation -- a woman's hair, a phone call, a big mean dog. So in a book with "shark things with legs," people melded with horses, and ninja assassins, one can expect that things are going to get pretty strange. And "The Gone Away World" explores how that strange world came to be. 
 Admittedly it starts off in a rather scatterbrained, manner in the first chapter, but levels out when it goes back to the narrator's shared history with Gonzo. But despite all the weirdness, Harkaway's writing has a curious, contemplative dignity that reminds me of Robertson Davies on crack ("may giant badgers pursue him for ever through the Bewildering Hell of Fire Ants, Soap Opera and Urethral Infections), but also has splatters of shocking vividity ("high towers and pale houses. The wind carries a murmur from its streets"). 
 Seriously. Where else can you find a man proclaiming that he is "such a totally terrifying concentration of nerdhood" that he's "cracked the code for human social behavior using mathematics"? And it doesn't seem totally absurd? 
 And the Gone-Away world is the strangest place of all -- it's got ninjas, mutants, revolutionaries and mystery corporations that Just Have To Be Bad, all interlinked. But Harkaway doesn't neglect the poignancy inherent in a world that has been wrenched out of shape -- we get to see the sad, ruined creatures that have lost not only their human bodies but their minds as well. 
 The relationship between hero-stud Gonzo and the narrator is what really drives the novel onward, and there's absolutely nothing typical about their weird, slightly awkward friendship. Harkaway peppers the book with other oddities -- extremely mysterious women, odd bar-people, and the delightfully quirky little old martial-arts master who molded the narrator. Ah, Master Wu, we will not forget you soon. 
 "The Gone Away World" sounds like the title of a suburban-ennui tale, but it's actually the tame description of a wildly surreal postapocalyptic thriller, with plenty of unusual twists and deliciously odd characters.