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 * *
