Slate recently compared Joe Spork, the protagonist of Nick Harkaway’s ripping spy novel Angelmaker, to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s Arthur Dent and Neverwhere’s Richard Mayhew. Accurate comparisons, both. Like its spiritual predecessors, Angelmaker is a breezy read in spite of its intricate plot, which concerns a mild-mannered clockmaker (the son of one of London’s most infamous gentleman gangsters) who unwittingly triggers a doomsday device. (“Whoops” doesn’t quite cover the gravity of the situation.) It features a terrifying, Bond-esque villain, heaps of humor, and a moody steampunk atmosphere, not to mention some of the sharpest writing to come out of the sci-fi genre in a while.

What really sold me, however, was a relatively small moment not too long into the book. As a horror-movie aficionado, nothing grates more than seeing characters so willingly stepping up like lambs to the inevitable slaughter. “There’s a horrible killer on the loose! Wait, what was that sound?” “I don’t know but I’M GOING TO CHECK IT OUT!” Kids, you’re going to die either way, at least let me pretend the monster is outwitting a worthy adversary. I can’t root for your survival if you’re not making a go of it yourself. So it was a great comfort to see the following exchange:

“You have it? Here? Now? How long do we have? Come on, man, they won’t be far behind!”
“Who won’t?” but Joe Spork is already moving, old instinct demands it: when someone says ‘they’re coming’ you go out the back first and get details later.

Indeed, from that moment on I knew I was in the hands of an author who gets it, who knows how to tweak the genre with one hand and pay homage to it with the other. And really, genre in the singular isn’t even a fair word to apply to Angelmaker — sci-fi, steampunk, and spycraft are all at play in this engrossing work of fiction.

And as top-notch as the plotting is, the characters are the real stars of the show. From humble protagonist Joe Spork to retired spy Edie Bannister — who stars in her own eShort prequel – to the utterly terrifying Recorded Man, these are people you won’t mind spending 496 pages with. There’s little doubt that Spork and Co. will quickly enter the pantheon of great British sci-fi characters, giving Slate some fresh comparative fodder to use in future reviews.