Gnomon

Gnomon is one of my absolute favourite books. It is an incredibly well-written story that is both amusing and engaging. The characters are fascinatingly ambiguous and the moral questions posed are compelling ones. I would recommend this book to anyone, though you should be aware that the book contains a lot of adult themes-- depression, addiction, unhealthy relationships, etc. Still, overall a very enjoyable and fascinating book!

I loved the fanfic this was based on, and I'm so glad I have the published novel. That being said, I've heard it's confusing if you aren't familiar with the canon it's based on, so keep that in mind.

This book did everything right, with characters and plot that you both cared about and were entertained by. I wish I could give it more stars

Fantastic book! The characters were very well written and the plot was interesting. Everything I wanted.

Great story, but the best part is the characters. If you have an interest in moral ambiguity this book is for you.

Well written. Great character development.

Good reading

This is very well written and explores the depths of morality in an ethically ambiguous character who will do anything to fight corruption and protect his friends.

I think I enjoyed this story more when it was a fic, if only because as a fic there was a lot more inferred backstory that didn't need explaining - it was simple knowledge. This lacks a lot of that inferred backstory with the changed names, but the story doesn't shift to accommodate it the same way - the STB remain a mystery where the Amis were a known quantity. It also looks like a few things were missed in the editing process - some phrasing is off (there's an "unexplainable" where it should be "inexplicable"), or very fanwork-ish, I think there's a confused pronoun in there, a few infodumps that seem like they were trying to fill in for fandom headcanon at the time (I've lost my original copy of the PDF of this when it was a fic, so I can't double check if it was there originally, but if it was it fit better in the fanwork, because it was accepted headcanon. Here, as an original piece, it's just an infodump), and there's at least one outstanding Enjolras that was overlooked in editing, I think.It's still a very good story. The twists and the turns, the modernised setting, the push to a greater extreme. The way the characters were taken from the original material, then the fandom perception, then pushed to great extremes in fic mean they're significantly removed enough from their original incarnations that they feel original enough - feel new. I think, due to the name changes, some more should be done for the rest of the STB to better explain who they are, their roles. As I said above, they were known when they were the Amis - we all knew who they were supposed to be - but here they seem much more vague, and I think a few edits in a second edition might help with that considerably. There's a line Renaire says to Celine "Well, that's very reassuring, Celine, thank you for letting me know your father was in love with a terrorist," and it makes much more sense in the fic, where we know who Celine is, and who her parents in it are than here, where we don't. In the fic it's a double-layered comment, both R in-universe making the quip with regards to his own circumstances, but also - and this is the key thing - the author making a nod and a wink to us the readers because we know who the characters are.There's also a few other bits which seem very specific to fandom at the time it was written - at a few points Emile Delaurier's possessiveness seem more Sherlock than Enjolras, and those were concurrent fandoms. While the writing, so far as I can tell, wasn't altered for most of those bits, its still something that stands out now. The colder logic rather than the fire of righteousness sometimes seems very stark - very Sherlock - as opposed to the Enjolras we all might recognise. I wonder how much of that was due to fandom preferences for characters at the time, however, as this was also the time of Loki and Snape in fandom, as I recall.I still love it all. The way each chapters have the present and a flashback to the relevant past. The obsession, the pops of colour to remind you that it is blood and gold, an angel who is also a devil when you look to Delaurier. R leaving paintings as he goes, his self-worth issues, the way he latches onto Delaurier and looks to him so readily... the codependency is exactly as I've always liked reading about it and that hasn't changed. The PTSD, the flashes of fear and angry response, R pushing Delaurier against a solid oak door and stabbing a knife straight through it because he is that angry, that distraught, that retraumatised that his adrenaline is through the roof and gods, yes, that scene was exactly as powerful as it was the first time I read it and was absolutely worth the price of admission even now.

Read it when it first was a fic, and instantly fell in love with the story. When I heard it was going to be actually published I just couldn't resist and had to buy it. Well done, Luchia. Well done.