I really enjoyed Nick Harkaway's previous book, the Gone Away World, although I normally review horror I was intrigued to see what he had come up with next. Ultimately this wasn’t a patch on its predecessor as it just was not as readable, with a plot that was so dense it was impenetrable at certain points. It was incredibly difficult to get into and as the percentage read increased so slowly on my Kindle I realised I was fighting a losing battle. I often enjoy the more literary end of fiction, but this seemed to be unnecessarily complex for what was ultimately a futuristic detective novel. It’s got lots of nice dystopian touches and explores where near science might take us, but in the end it was just too heavy. If you’ve looking for a gripping page-turner you wont find it here, but if science fiction, at a slower pace, and an ability to really expand your mind is what you want then you might enjoy this. But you’ll really need to work hard on it.

Sorry, but didn't finish the book, won't review this time.

I love Nick Harkaway's previous books especially Angelmaker and Tigerman. Sadly, I could not get into Gnomon. It's plotted in a world under surveillance that uses mind bending techniques for almost everything. I'm sure it's well written. Just not for me.

I loved Nick Harkaway's first book, the Gone Away World . I also support authors writing more challenging books and am impressed with what he's achieved in writing this mind-expanding futuristic detective novel. However I found the book slow reading from about halfway through and it took me several weeks to finish. So, if you enjoy near future science fiction/fantasy/dystopia that will challenge your mind and tickle your brain, give this a try, but if you're looking for an easy read it won't be your cup of tea. Memorable characters include the ultimate Detective and a planet mind.

Gnomon is actually a novel that defies description for all the right reasons, it is an epic, an ultimately rewarding read with so many layers inside the layers under the levels that hide the realities that your head will spin and you’ll come out of it feeling dazed and probably weirdly wired. Or maybe that is just me. We’ll see I guess…

The use of language is purely beautiful, a smorgasbord of differing voices all linked to the main bulk of the narrative through the eyes of the Inspector. Probably. But anyway – the point is, this is literary if you take it in the popularly defined way, as such it might not be for everybody and indeed may challenge you in ways I also can’t describe – but in the end you know not one word was wasted.

I feel I should try and explain a little about the plot but the blurb does that in some ways (but not at all in others) and I’m not sure that if I focus on any one element that I wouldn’t pick the wrong one to focus on. Peripherally it is about the investigation of an interrogation that has gone awry, in a UK run by “the System” that sees all and therefore by the people rather than a government, this is seen by most within that system as a genuine Utopia. I guess the main theme explored is whether such a thing is even possible, human nature being what it is. That is the simplest way of saying what I saw there but the next reader may well turn around and say “what the heck are you on, its not about that at all”

Now I’ve read back the above it probably isn’t about that….

ANYWAY there you go. Nick Harkaway has created a story that can be wildly interpretive or I suppose if you must, dissected bit by bit until you come to some thoughts about what the author intended – but I don’t think it matters what the author intended (sorry Mr Harkaway) but more matters whether or not you love it and get something from it under the guise of your own personality. I loved it but you can’t ask me why because I don’t really know and probably never will know. I do know that I will read it again in the future, first page to last, with the knowledge of the ending and it will be a completely different novel to the one that I have just read.

Basically I feel like I have just been swallowed by a shark.

Gnomon spoke to me in it’s final denouement but what it said I will never tell -because it’s going to tell you something different and I wouldn’t want to be called a liar – also because that is its reward for sticking with it, through the craziness and the sense of it as you absorb all those beautiful words and turn them into a whole.

Intelligent, driven, for me summed up in that blurb sentence that reads “a solution that steps sideways as you approach it” Gnomon is challenging, wonderful, descriptively fascinating, unrelentingly clever and in the end worth every moment of your time. A grand sprawling epic of indescribable proportions.

What can I say? Highly Recommended.

The first novel that I have read by Nick Harkaway. From the initial blurb that I read on Netgalley and Goodreads, the book sounded great. However, for me this was a very slow read and when I first started reading the book it felt like the author had swallowed a dictionary. To be very honest and I know this sounds brutal, but I found it boring. This is only my opinion and I am sure many other readers will disagree with me. I'm very disappointed.