Gnomon

At first, I was so excited and delighted with this book, that I nominated it for an award. But something happened as I read, it began to feel like wading through mud, and I abandoned it halfway. But, me being me (and don't lecture me booktubers, I am what I am) I picked it up again, albeit years later, in my primal drive to finish every book. This is not so much a long book (although it is that, in excess of 600 pages) as it is dense with compacted ideas. It doesn't help that Harkaway doesn't feel any obligation at times to make it clear which character is doing what or who they are, and, sometimes, he doesn't feel an obligation for pronouns to have antecedents. The prose is like poetry at times, and chock full of allusions and references, from abstruse details of Greek mythology to Yogi Bear cartoons from my childhood. The font alternation is annoying and unnecessary (although it is a clue in lieu of others, as to what's going on). But that's all stuff that could either be overlooked or appreciated for something or other - the most difficult thing here is that it's impossible to care about any of the characters here, or to be even interested in what's happening to them. It's a wild crazy trip, but, alas, a trip where you say to yourself, are we there yet, Nick? Briefly, in a near-ish future London, a women turns herself in to the offices of a surveillance state run by the usual all-knowing computer AI. The Inspector, who passes for our main character, uses the cutting edge technology which merges her mind with that of the women suspect, now dead, mysteriously, at the hands of previous inspectors. Therein, we get a view not of that woman's memories but of a wild ride through numerous different stories in the distant past and remotely far future where godlike hive minds joust with each other. The fun in this book is the Martian Chronicles-like series of independent stories, connected with symbolism and coincidences which gets the Sherlock Holmes in you going. But somewhere along the way, to me it seems, Harkaway lost interest in the connections. I did finish the book, but at times I felt like I was dragging my eyes from word to word. I don't know what to say: I should have loved this book, and sort of do some aspects of it, but I'm left with a throughly ambiguous feeling (which will seem appropriate, if you read this book yourself). Perhaps I should re-read it, but I don't have it in me. The best character by far was the shark. Despite Kyriakos's last words that he didn't miss the shark, I did, I sure did miss the shark.