by Nick Harkaway
A kaleidoscopic novel of interweaving stories, Gnomon is structured like a mind-bending Mobius strip.
In a near-future London, every aspect of life is constantly under surveillance by an artificial intelligence known as The Witness. The Witness's observations normally allow for unprecedented peace and order in society, but something has gone wrong. A suspected dissident named Diana Hunter has died under government interrogation, an unprecedented occurrence under the peaceful reign of The Witness. The story follows Inspector Mielikki Neith, a detective working for the government and The Witness, as she works to unravel the circumstances of Hunter's death. In the world of Gnomon, interrogations are conducted by linking directly to a subject's brain to ensure that no information can be hidden. As Neith investigates the recording of the interrogation, she is shocked to find memories in Hunter's mind that have no right to be there. The perspectives and memories of a Greek mathematician whose near-death encounter with a shark allow him to see a coming collapse of the stock market, a contemporary of St. Augustine who seeks an alchemical path to the underworld, an Ethiopian artist who sets out to design a revolutionary video game, and a hive-mind entity composed of thousands of bodies living in the distant future all vie for attention in Hunter's mind. As Neith tries to separate Hunter's memories from the others, she is pulled into a conspiracy that threatens to unravel her entire reality.
A vivid and fantastical exploration of memory and reality, and of the power of stories to shape and warp our lives.
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Pub date: January 9th, 2018 Page count: 688pp Review posted online: Feb. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1524732080 Publisher: Knopf
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