If you want a hard-boiled, neo-noir dystopian take on a philosophical text, then boy do I have the book for you...
If instead you want a fully realized novel with interesting and well-rounded characters, you might want to look elsewhere.
But your mileage may vary: the story is engaging, it is fast paced, and if you want a "fun" read, this might be for you!

I started reading this book on a flight home from Mexico, and after two gin and tonics I found myself not asking questions and just going for the ride. I think that's the best place for it.
I just really wish there was *one* female character that was a character, and not just a plot device or object for the narration's response.

I started this with high hopes- the Heart of Darkness, a crusading journalist, evil tech, and a poem- but ultimately DNF because it felt both bloodless and confusing, Jackson's got a good way with imagery but his characters are not ones I cared about. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. A miss for me.

The Dimensions of a Cave starts with a poem and reads like one. It's dripping noir style, with flecks of Hunter S Thompson, or William S. Burroughs. The luxurious descriptions, and freeflowing style reminds me of Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, which Woolf called not a novel but a "playpoem". The Dimensions of a Cave is far more considered than that, but the words and ideas still flow and cascade into one another, rising and falling in intensity like ocean tides. It's this misty, pleasant feeling that suffuses Dimensions-- and beyond the crime and drama, this is the true draw for the book.

Greg Jackson’s debut novel, “The Dimensions of A Cave” is a spot-on story for our times. We are experiencing an age where many believe that we are living in a simulation, while many others can’t wait until we get deeper in there. Jackson crafts a speculative narrative that provides plenty of food for thought.

“The Dimensions of A Cave” is a whole lot of book. There is more depth and detail (Philosophy, History, Politics, Science, Religion, Art, Academia, Defense Contracting) than I was expecting. That all works for me. But Jackson keeps it flowing throughout. The dialogue is consistently laugh-out-loud funny. The clever banter, the give-and-take between journalists, academics, scientists, spies and thieves, the dive bar vibe, and the plight of the squatters is all wonderful.

There are so many twists and turns that I wasn’t always sure just where I was but, in a strange sense, it didn't really matter. All the set scenes were carefully crafted, screenplay ready, and a hoot to read.

At the end of the day Jackson poses some serious questions: Who are we? Do we have/want agency? Is it possible that the next step in our obsession with domination leads to a world where Generative Artificial Intelligence technology creates simulacrums of Virtual Reality where the line between real and imaginary is blurred, if not wiped out completely? Are we just pawns that the powers that be move around their chessboard to maintain and grow their wealth and power?

“The Dimensions of A Cave” is a deeply subversive novel, well worth the effort for the serious reader.

Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for the eARC.

When I read Greg Jackson's short story collection PRODIGALS in 2017, I felt brought back to life in the way that only really good art can do to you. Since then, I have kept tabs on his recent work, waiting for his debut novel. You can imagine my joy at receiving an ARC of his novel, THE DIMENSIONS OF A CAVE. Stylistically, Jackson's prose doesn't disappoint. His grandiloquence takes on the cadence of a detective novel without causing stylistic rupture. But this novel is utterly plodding. Style takes the reins of story, which may have worked for some books, but not one that is so indebted to the genre of detective novel. The quality of the prose only barely manages to anesthetize the tedium of the plot and pacing. The first half of the novel spends so much time developing the back story that one suspects that maybe Jackson is just telling the wrong story.

Further, the insights that the novel tries to develop about technology feel at odds with the novel itself, which contains few citations of the current technological landscape—which it is ostensibly critiquing. Together with the detective novel framing, this gives the work a dated feel, and moments where things like "cell" phones feel anachronistic. Removing these rare references to the present and switching all uses of China to Russia would render this book a fairly typical Cold War–era detective novel—hardly a contemporary reckoning, as the book's press package would have you believe. If Jackson is worried about the state's abuses of technology, wait until he hears about Facebook. From reading this novel, it's unclear whether he *has* and it may come as a genuine shock.

In all, a disappointing novel from a superb writer. One hopes that his next one will capitalize on his clear strengths as a writer.