Sci Fi can be a hit and miss with me. I'm still trying to find out which types I like. Sadly this just wasn't one of them.
I've read a few books that feel kind of similar that worked out better for me. This also could have been a little shorter.

I tried to like this book but couldn't get in to it. Netgalley feedback ratios demand each book is rated even if not finished, so I will give it 2 stars as it's not the author's fault.

Unfortunately this ended up as a DNF for me. I enjoyed the writing style and premise but just wasn't gripped by the title. I can definitely see why others would enjoy the novel, it just wasn't for me. Did not post a public review.

It has reached the point in the UK where the state is the all-seeing and all-knowing entity that watches all its citizens. Every single thing you say or do or post is recorded and the state has unlimited access to your innermost thoughts. Almost all the population has accepted this, partly as society is the safest it could be in history.

The state wants to respond to any potential threat to the security of itself and the population, and whilst interrogating a dissident, Diana Hunter, she dies in custody. This is the first time that this has happened and they need a top investigator to find out what exactly happened; the trusted state inspector Mielikki Neith is assigned to the investigation.

Immersing herself in the neural recording of the investigation, she slowly starts to realise that things are not as they seem. Rather than just finding the lady who passed away, she finds a number of different characters from an alchemist to an artist. Circling below these characters is an entity that calls itself Gnomon; Neith doesn’t know what it is but it is very much not of this time.

Nothing is as it seems and as she tries to untangle the complex web inside the neural recordings, she at last gets a glimpse of the real Diana Hunter. It comes to her that they hold snippets of the answer that she must decode. But doing that will reveal to her the perilous state that the System is in and if she can do anything about it.

I liked a lot of things about this book. I liked the way that society has been constructed and the all-seeing ‘System’ guides steers and watches, always watches the populace of the UK. I thought that the technologies enabling Neith to see inside Hunter’s mind were as fascinating as they were terrifying. The pervasive state is a disturbing mixed bag of a utopian/dystopian future, there is still those who wish to circumvent it.

I did think that it had a few flaws though. It is mind-bendingly complex and deeply layered and it took me a while to work out who was who. It did feel a bit overwritten too and could have been shorter in my opinion with a much tighter plot. I won’t expand on the plot too much as that would spoil it for anyone else wanting to venture into this weird world, but I did like it, once I had formed my mind around the convolutions. It might be a bit overwhelming for some people, but be patient with it and it will reward you as a reader.

Thanks very much to the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this title. Many thanks, Dave

What an epic! In Gnomon, Nick Harkaway has delivered his magnum opus. Utterly confusing (for this bear of little brain anyway), totally absorbing and quite brilliant.
It took me longer than usual to get through it as I wanted to take my time and give the writing the respect it deserved and boy was it worth the dedication. Great stuff.

I found this to be an incredibly difficult book to get into and ended up not finishing it as it was just too much for my brain to try to comprehend. I feel like some people may love it but it definitely ended up not being my cup of tea.

I've been terribly unfocused during this read, and that obviously effected my enjoyment of this book. Overall, from what i can say, the plot was good but not great. It was too slow for my taste

Unfortunately I just could not get into this book. It may be one for other readers, but I was unable to finish it.

This was so interesting and intriguing. I haven’t read a book like this in a long time. If ever. My only criticism is that it is quite dense and can sometimes be hard to read.

Reading this made me question everything in our current lives. How technology has practically taken over.

I couldn’t imagine how life would be if this book were ever true.

But it is still a very interesting thought!

It took me a couple of tries to get into this one. Harkaway's ideas are always interesting, original, and fascinating. However, sometimes his writing doesn't quite click with me - either it feels drawn-out, or not as focused as it could be. That being said, at other times, he pens some great phrases and passages. His characters are interesting and engaging.

An interesting read, and one that stands out from the pack.

Thank you for the opportunity to read Gnomon. I have made two starts on this but have come to the realisation that this isn't a book for me. I am afraid I struggled to engage with the story and despite returning to the book to give it a fresh start I just cannot get into this one and I doubt a third attempt would yield a different outcome.

I am sorry I was not able to provide a review as I had hoped.

Not my favourite, but not bad either. The premise is interesting and the novel starts out well, but at times it becomes confused and the plot starts to drag a little. It feels at times as though the author has deliberately gone for confusing the reader. I would probably read it again to see how I felt after a second read through, but there would be a lot of other books I would pick up first.

REALLY excellent modern scifi / fantasy. This weird novel gave me everything I wanted, reminding me of China Mieville more than the less technically proficient but more famous Gaiman. It's quite a slog in the middle, but well worth the effort; great characters and a great pay off.

In the reality of this near-future Britain is a constantly surveilled direct democracy called The System, assisted by a ubiquitous AI he Witness which is constantly on hand to provide advice and information. And nobody seems to mind except a few subversives like Diana Hunter.

Ms Hunter has been called in for interrogation, a neural procedure that searches through the unconscious mind of the subject causing no harm and even correcting any mental defects or disturbances. Except that during her interrogation Hunter dies and Inspector Neith is brought into investigate.

Neith investigates by experiencing the neural records of Hunter’s interrogation where she encounters not the consciousness of Diana hunter herself but those of several other characters created in Hunter’s mind to delay and misdirect the investigators.
The story meanders off following the flow of each character’s narrative and the reader has to go with it.
To be honest I found it quite enjoyable although I became a little perturbed when we were a couple hundred pages in and there was still no noticeable progress in the plot.

Everything was fine until we got to Gnomon itself. I don’t particularly like either AI narratives or stream of consciousness and for an awful lot of pages Gnomon was a combination of both. At first he was interesting and angry but after many paragraphs of his burbling I was reading the words but all I could hear was blah, blah blah.
This was one part of the manuscript that would have benefitted from some courageous editing. Much, much less would have been so much more.

Word and themes kept being repeated in way that led me to believe the author wanted me to understand that these things were CONNECTED in a some SIGNIFICANT way but they never coalesced into a comprehensive whole and many concepts were left dangling in an unsatisfying and partially comprehensible ending.
It is not that I couldn’t work out what it all meant but by then I didn’t care.

The author entagled the narrative in a level of complexity that never quite achieved its potential and left me feeling the story as a whole was less than the sum of its parts.

The parts I liked were a 4 even a 5 star novel but the baggy, draggy middle brought it down to barely 3 stars.

Absolutely fascinating sprawling epic of a sci-fi novel from an exciting new voice. Brimming with wit and ideas this is unique and intriguing literature.

I struggled to get into this book and had to give up despite being a fan of dystopian fiction. A younger reader will enjoy this book though.

I've enjoyed Harkaway's previous titles. The AI surveillance described in Gnomon is terrifyingly believable however, I do feel the book could have been condensed slightly.

This was a multi-layered sci-fi mystery that melted my brain, in the best possible way! I am not even going to attempt a plot synopsis, but just know that there are many things at play in the narrative that meanders through several different character stories, all of which intersect and interact in fabulous ways. I was so impressed by the level of detail in the character depictions - Constantine Kyriakos being my personal favourite - given that in reality, each character is the imagining of one individual. Harkaway has some very interesting comments to make about the nature of security and safety and how this relates to personal freedoms. The society he depicts here is truly terrifying, primarily because it is so plausible and only seems a step or two further down the road we currently find ourselves on. The mystery is really well plotted and Harkaway never spoonfeeds the reader, assuming a level of intelligence that I appreciated. Overall, I found this a somewhat intimidating but ultimately incredibly satisfying read and I will definitely check out other works by the author.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.