The Gone-Away World
Nick Harkaway
 The book is primarily a science-fiction fantasy/comedy/epic that focuses on the events of the unnamed main character and his best friend Gonzo Lubitsch. The book starts with the characters in the "Nameless Bar," a title that is a reference to the main character's namelessness. They are in a world that is profoundly different from our own, with constant references to "the go-away war" and the "reification." They are all shocked when there are power failures and a news report shows that the Jorgmund pipe is on fire. The pipe is referred to as being the back bone of the world, the characters all thinking that this is the end of the world. The Haulage & HazMat Emergency Civil Freebooting Company is hired by Jorgmund, which seems to be half corporation, half government body. As the company sets off, the unnamed protagonist starts thinking about his past, from the day he first met Gonzo. It then goes from this to a recount of a war between all of the world's factions with "go-away bombs," which remove information from matter, making it disappear entirely. The unnamed country that the protagonist is from uses these bombs in a mysterious foreign war, thinking that it is a revolutionary secret weapon. This sparks a war between all of the worlds factions using these go-away bombs, reducing the worlds population to 2 billion. The bomb that was supposed to be the cleanest weapon ever has an unexpected side effect in that the matter left over, referred to as "stuff," remains, floating around the world in great storms. Because it has no information, however, when ever it comes into contact with the noosphere it takes the form of whatever that person is thinking about. This causes horrific apparitions and creates people out of nothing who become known as "new." However, there is a way to stop this "stuff": the material that comes out of the Jorgmund pipe, known as FOX, which allows for a small strip of the world to become livable. In this way it is similar to nuclear holocaust fiction, as the world is completely different from what we know today.