Max Barry is the author of four previous novels, Syrup, Jennifer Government, Company, and Machine Man. He lives in Melbourne, Australia.
A New York Times Summer Beach Read
An Amazon Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Pick June 2013
A Best of June iBookstore Pick
A Time Magazine "What to Read Now" Pick
A Huffington Post Best Book of Summer 2013
A Salon "Summer's Best Reads"
A Hollywood Reporter "Buzzy Books for Hollywood's Reading List"
A Pittsburgh Post Gazette Beach Read
A Kirkus Ten Best Novels for Summer Reading 2013
“A dark, dystopic grabber in which words are treated as weapons,
and the villainous types have literary figures’ names. Plath,
Yeats, Eliot and Woolf all figure in this ambitious,
linguistics-minded work of futurism.” —Janet Maslin, New York
Times
"Imagine, if you will, a secret group of people called Poets who
have the power to control others simply by speaking to them. Barry
has, and the result is an extraordinarily fast, funny, cerebral
thriller." —Time Magazine
"Imagine blending the works of Neal Stephenson with Michael Chabon
and the end result would come close to the world envisioned by
Barry. The words brilliant and exemplary aren’t adequate enough to
convey the amazing craft of Lexicon." —Associated Press
"A clever blend of sci-fi and thriller, with touches of romance and
humor . . . persuaded me anew that words are, indeed, the
bomb." —Dallas Morning News
"It's a pitch-perfect thriller, a jetpack of a plot that rocketed
me from page one to page 400 in a single afternoon, and it kept me
guessing right up to the end. Imagine Dan Brown written by someone
a lot smarter and better at characterization and at hand-waving the
places where the science shades into science fiction, and you've
got something like Lexicon." —Cory Doctorow,
Boingboing.net
"[A] speedy, clever, dialogue-rich thriller." —Salon
"A crazily inventive conspiracy thriller." —io9.com
“Brazen and brilliant” —The Wichita Eagle
“Mind-bending . . . an action novel that nicely exercises the brain
as well as the heart rate.” —Shelf Awareness
"A large helping of both action and thought . . . anyone who knows
1984 will remember the fanger of allowing people to love each
other—but Barry handles it with skill." —Infodad.com
"An absolutely first-rate, suspenseful thriller with convincing
characters who invite readers’ empathy and keep them turning pages
until the satisfying conclusion." —Booklist (starred)
"A scary and satisfying blend of thriller, dystopia, and horror."
—Library Journal
"An up-all-night thriller for freaks and geeks who want to see
their wizards all grown up in the real world and armed to the teeth
in a bloody story." —Kirkus (starred)
"[An] ambitious satirical thriller… amuses as much as it
shocks." —Publishers Weekly
“The sort of thriller that pricks real-world anxieties about
privacy and coercion while rushing on with an outlandish clockwork
plot. Lexicon’s clockwork is excellent, too: The book succeeds
largely through Barry’s skill in managing his reader and his plot,
suspending disbelief by intercutting a pair of storylines until
they inevitably intersect. He always chooses immersion over
exposition, letting his reader feel his way through the Chomskian
mix of surveillance-society paranoia and linguistic
geekiness.” —Philadelphia City Paper
"I bid you, read this book . . . Not that much of anything is
certain in this blistering literary thriller. Lexicon twists
and turns like a lost language, creating tension and expectations,
systematically suggesting and then severing
connections." —Tor.com
"About as close you can get to the perfect cerebral thriller:
searingly smart, ridiculously funny, and fast as hell. Lexicon
reads like Elmore Leonard high out of his mind on Snow Crash." —Lev
Grossman, New York Times bestselling author of The Magicians and
The Magician King
"Lexicon grabbed me with the opening lines, and never let go. An
absolutely thrilling story, featuring an array of compelling
characters in an eerily credible parallel society, punctuated by
bouts of laugh-out-loud humor." —Chris Pavone, New York Times
bestselling author of The Expats
"Dazzling and spectacularly inventive. A novel that jams
itself sideways into your brain and stays there." —Mike Carey,
author of The Devil You Know
"I don’t know how you could craft a better weekend read than this
novel of international intrigue and weaponized Chomskian
linguistics. It’s the perfect mix of philosophical play and
shotgun-inflected chase scenes. Like someone let Grant
Morrison loose on the Bourne identity franchise." —Austin Grossman,
author of Soon I Will be Invincible
“Insanely good. Dark and twisted and sweet and humane all at
once.” —Lauren Beukes, author of Zoo City and The Shining
Girls
"Best thing I've read in a long, long time." —Hugh Howey, New York
Times bestselling author of Wool
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