Maxwell's Demon
Steven Hall
Available as eBook, Downloadable audio, Paperback
The absurdly brilliant and mind-twisting second novel from Steven Hall, author of the acclaimed The Raw Shark Texts
‘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.
“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
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“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
Steven Hall
Steven Hall is the author of The Raw Shark Texts and was lead writer on the bestselling video game Battlefield 1, for which he received a Writer’s Guild nomination. His 2007 debut novel, The Raw Shark Texts, won the Somerset Maugham Award and was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. It was an international bestseller and has been translated into over thirty languages. In 2013, Hall was named as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. Maxwell’s Demon is his second novel.
@stevenhallbooks
‘It moves at an exhilarating lick, as befits its pop culture propensities, but with highbrow sensibilities, its concerns including the Kabbalah, whether the world is made of words, the origins of the alphabet, the mythopoetic nature of the hero’s journey and what angels look like … 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
The Scotsman
A freewheeling investigation into the magic power locked inside the alphabet, love through the looking glass, the bond between parents and children, and, at its heart, the quest for meaning in a chaotic and untidy world. Maxwell’s Demon by Steven Hall is out now.