Nick Harkaway
Nick Harkaway
Nick Harkawayis a novelist and commentator. He is the author of the novels The Gone-Away World, Angelmaker and Tigerman; and a non-fiction study of the digital world, The Blind Giant: Being Human in a Digital World...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
attracts human naked parts people pleasing reason technology visible whose
The reason steampunk attracts people is that it is premised on a technology which is visible and pleasing to the naked eye, and whose moving parts are comprehensible on a human scale.
bit curious funny literary love people relationship
We have a curious relationship with 'funny' in the U.K. We love to laugh, but we also think that making people laugh is just a little bit second-tier, especially in a literary context.
britain instead might nostalgic understanding
We don't need to chase a nostalgic rendering of Britain as it never was and never can be: we need instead an understanding of who we really are and what a happy, prosperous, just nation might look like.
consider facial helping means rather text tone
It's true that interacting through text means no eyelines, no facial expressions, no tone of voice. That can be an advantage, helping us to consider content rather than eloquence, import rather than source.
The notion of our leaders as patrician ascetics of unassailable virtue is risible.
legislate million people reach speech understanding voluntary whisper
With true free speech has to come an understanding of when and when not to use it. But you can't legislate that. It must be voluntary - especially in a world where a whisper can reach a million people in an eye blink.
both fascinated human individual
I'm fascinated by human agency - by the process of decision, both in the individual and the mass.
male
I'm a white, middle-aged, married, middle-class male with kids. I couldn't be disenfranchised if I tried.
enormous room underneath work
I work in our living room, a strange room in a strange, topsy-turvy house. I work underneath this enormous bookshelf.
brooding
I used desperately to want to be a brooding hero from literature, but I'm optimistic, healthy and fair-haired.
nearly stake wrote
I think the reason I wrote screenplays for nearly a decade was because it was my territory. I could stake that out.
connery extremely grew moore movies ridiculous roger sean spies
I grew up on the Roger Moore and Sean Connery Bond movies, so the DNA of my spies is extremely ridiculous and goofy.
constantly incredible
I don't do a lot of research, exactly, but I'm constantly wandering through the world finding things incredible and remembering them.
reader though
I am an avid reader of comics, though I came to them late.