Gnomon (SF) - Nick Harkaway ****

This massive book (more on that in a moment) split my opinion more than any other I've ever read. When I read the opening chapter, where Inspector Mielikki Neith begins her investigation of what happened when a suspect died in the mentally invasive interrogation technique of her time I was hooked. Nick Harkaway's concept of a future Britain where practically all information is available to everyone and true democracy exists, with all decisions made by the people, is beautifully realised, and he wonderfully portrays as a utopia balanced on a knife edge of plunging into dystopia.

Then I got to the next chapter, which dismayed me, as it appeared Harkaway had fallen for the irritating clichéd structure so common in modern novels of switching from chapter to chapter between different main characters and points of view, which eventually pull together. I found it tedious and just wanted to get back to Neith's story.

Soon after, I discover that things aren't what they seem, and these interlaced chapters from different viewpoints aren't set in the real world - which pulls the whole thing back to being brilliant (though I still wanted as much as possible to stick with Neith).

Having finally got through the whole thing, the Neith sections are some of the best SF I've read in years - but, for me, the interrupting sections pull the whole thing down. And it's way too long. My paperback copy was getting on for 700 pages, with ridiculously small print. I was just about okay reading the Neith sections, which are in a serif font, but the other parts are sans serif and really hard to read. It might seem a trivial point, but it didn't make reading a pleasant experience. Although those non-real-world sections have an important part to play, they could have been cut down hugely without any loss of plot - they were, frankly, very self-indulgent. Several times I almost gave up because of them - then got back to another Neith section and once more was captivated.

Overall, I'm glad I read it. The mainline sections as the Inspector struggles to understand what's going on (with a big twist at the end) and as the crime involved gets more complex are wonderful. But it could have been wonderful throughout if only those inner world, sans serif sections had been ruthlessly pruned.

Paperback:

Kindle:
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

Comments

The Language of Mathematics - Raúl Rojas ***

One of the biggest developments in the history of maths was moving from describing relationships and functions with words to using symbols. This interesting little book traces the origins of a whole range of symbols from those familiar to all, to the more obscure squiggles used in logic and elsewhere. On the whole Raúl Rojas does a good job of filling in some historical detail, if in what is generally a fairly dry fashion. We get to trace what was often a bumpy path as different symbols were employed (particularly, for example, for division and multiplication, where several still remain in use), but usually, gradually, standards were adopted. This feels better as a reference, to dip into if you want to find out about a specific symbol, rather than an interesting end to end read. Rojas tells us the sections are designed to be read in any order, which means that there is some overlap of text - it feels more like a collection of short essays or blog posts that he couldn't be bothered ...

Target Earth – Govert Schilling *****

I was biased in favour of this great little book even before I started to read it, simply because it’s so short. I’m sure that a lot of people who buy popular science books just want an overview and taster of a subject that’s brand new to them – and that’s likely to work best if the author keeps it short and to the point. Of course, you may want to dig deeper in areas that really interest you, but that’s what Google is for. That basic principle aside, I’m still in awe at how much substance Govert Schilling has managed to cram into this tiny book. It’s essentially about all the things (natural things, I mean, not UFOs or space junk) that can end up on Earth after coming down from outer space. That ranges from the microscopically small particles of cosmic dust that accumulate in our gutters, all the way up to the ten kilometre wide asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Between these extremes are two topics that we’ve reviewed entire books about recently: meteorites ( The Meteorite Hunt...

The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire - Henry Gee ****

In his last book, Henry Gee impressed with his A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth - this time he zooms in on one very specific aspect of life on Earth - humans - and gives us not just a history, but a prediction of the future - our extinction. The book starts with an entertaining prologue, to an extent bemoaning our obsession with dinosaurs, a story that leads, inexorably towards extinction. This is a fate, Gee points out, that will occur for every species, including our own. We then cover three potential stages of the rise and fall of humanity (the book's title is purposely modelled on Gibbon) - Rise, Fall and Escape. Gee's speciality is palaeontology and in the first section he takes us back to explore as much as we can know from the extremely patchy fossil record of the origins of the human family, the genus Homo and the eventual dominance of Homo sapiens , pushing out any remaining members of other closely related species. As we move onto the Fall section, Gee gives ...

Search This Blog