Russell Hoban has brought off an extraordinary feat of imagination and of style ... funny, terrible, haunting and unsettling, this book is a masterpiece.

You are syntactically and emotionally and politically absolutely in the book's spell. The way it changes is unbelievable; it is a living thing.

Extraordinary... a hero with Huck Finn's heart, lighting by El Greco and jokes by Punch and Judy... Fiercely imagined and intensely ponderable.

Suffused with melancholy and wonder, beautifully written, Riddley Walker is a novel people will be reading for a long, long time.

This is what literature is meant to be.

The strongest, most desolate and bewildered voice in modern fiction. In the mental silence that followed the closing of the last page, I wanted to applaud, through tears.

The book has an evangelical effect on people ... Riddley is an absorbing character, Hoban's language has a fantastic, rough poetry and the post-apocalyptic world is chilling and convincing.

A cross between adventure story and literary fiction, this is an unusual novel

Streaks by at full throttle... truly exciting

Speaks volumes about heroism and the human condition... A taut, page-turning narrative

Ingenious