Gnomon

Nick Harkaway

2017 • 662 pages

Ratings33

Average rating3.8

A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Gnomon is an extraordinary novel, and one I can’t stop thinking about some weeks after I read it. It is deeply troubling, magnificently strange, and an exhilarating read.' Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven 'Nick Harkaway’s most ambitious novel yet. [A] story of near-future mass surveillance, artificial intelligence and human identity ... An amazing and quite unforgettable piece of fiction.' Guardian 'Harkaway dazzles.' Daily Mail 'Wonderfully good.' Sunday Times Near-future Britain is a state in which citizens are constantly observed and democracy has reached a pinnacle of 'transparency.' Every action is seen, every word is recorded and the System has access to thoughts and memories. When suspected dissident Diana Hunter dies in custody, it marks the first time a citizen has been killed during an interrogation. Mielikki Neith, a trusted state inspector, is assigned to find out what went wrong. Immersing herself in neural recordings of the interrogation, what she finds isn't Hunter but rather a panorama of characters within Hunter's psyche. Embedded in the memories of these impossible lives lies a code which Neith must decipher to find out what Hunter is hiding. The staggering consequences of what she finds will reverberate throughout the world.

Want to edit this book?Become a Librarian

Genres

Popular Reviews

Reviews with the most likes.

Andrew

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.

May 21, 2019

Bronwyn Knox

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.

July 25, 2022