Gnomon

Overindulgent, this book was a little too enamored of its own cleverness and structure. It had interesting and in some cases important things to say that are buried in elaboration.

I like the author but this is a book where he likes himself too and too much.

Very complicated, dense, and challenging. If that's what you're looking for in a science fiction book, you'll enjoy this a bunch. There are stories within stories, characters within characters, plots within plots, and so on.

It reminded me of Philip K. Dick and William Gibson in theme and concept, only they never really made me work so hard for it.

The big picture is the dangers of giving up freedom and privacy for safety and security. In Gnomon, a Big Brother-type security system provides protection, appearing more benevolent than good old Big Brother. I view this as trading adulthood for permanent childhood.

There were bits I liked; the individual character stories were compelling. Seeing how they tied together was clever and made me feel smart, which is always fun.

Harkaway loves to use a lot of detail. I enjoyed this in his previous books as it added a lot of color and humor, as well as an emotional payoff as backstory and character developed. Here, it weighed down an already heavy book. Gnomon was more of an intellectual exercise, and even at that, not the most dynamic one.

4/5 Probably. This was a long read and at times very hard work. I struggled between periods of boredom and excitement trying to get to grips with the multiple layers, of often, very dense prose. I'm still not sure if the portrayed reality of the story is what I think.
A second read? Maybe, but not yet.