Maxwell's Demon

by

Hardcover, 352 pages

Published April 6, 2021 by Grove Press.

ISBN:
978-0-8021-4920-6
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5 stars (2 reviews)

Maxwell's Demon is a postmodern adventure with the pacing of a thriller and the twists and turns of a classic whodunnit.

Struggling writer Thomas Quinn has been asked to steal a valuable manuscript from the reclusive, bestselling novelist Andrew Black. But when Quinn’s late father leaves him a voicemail message, and characters from Black’s novel start appearing on the streets, Quinn begins a descent into a twisting mystery that spans a manhunt, fake names, theoretical physics, chaos theory, apocryphal texts, doll’s houses, the power of stories, the magic inside the alphabet and the nature of reality itself.

5 editions

reviewed Maxwell's Demon by Steven Hall

Why an ox and an angel in Bethlehem?

4 stars

Steven Hall has crafted another thoughtful novel that subverts tropes, bends words and our understanding of them, and melds genre in unexpected ways. If you've read The Raw Shark Texts, you'll have a fair idea of what you're in for. Mysteries are abundant. Information is thrust at you by way of leaf-shaped morsels and fun graphics. The story often seems linear but actually diverts quite harshly from the main road. Your expectations of this novel will surely be amended, twisted, and replaced many times over. As the novel centers around entropy and our understanding of energy's distribution in space, this experience should come as no surprise. It's all part of the beauty of reading Hall; he weaves a beautiful and unexpected literary tapestry.

I recommend Maxwell's Demon to anyone seeking a heady but immersive romp through the life of a failing writer.