Panoptica [Kindle Edition]

2 stars only, this is all I could give Panoptica, It starts reasonably well but goes downhill very quickly, with our hero on a mission to demonstrate with three balls that spread paint in a union jack colours on whatever they land on, this is fine for the first two bombs, but the third bomb has been made into a real bomb and kills the king of England, our hero is then chased and captured, from this point on the story degenerates into a farce which I did not find very funny (if it was meant to be a comedy I'm afraid it missed me by a country mile) I'm in my 60s and enjoy reading various styles from sci-fi, murder mysteries, westerns and action adventures. I nearly stopped reading this after 20% as the names of the characters I could not take seriously, with names like Jordan or Kate and Pete or like the co-stars name Robbie Williams the 3rd or even Catweazle, other famous people are also mentioned, On many occasions I found myself wondering why I was reading this book as there is nothing that grabs me and makes me want to continue reading, but I like to give a book a fair chance, the worst part about this novel is the way he tries to portray the two guys (I think that they are supposed to be Scottish or maybe some other race)by writing things like. Pete shook his head " Sori mi wantok. Naw `ard feelin, innit? Cam on, Gary, yu-mi workim." This is only a small part of this type of conversation that occurs and it spoilt the flow of the book because you have got to work out what the author is trying to get across to the reader. So sorry only 2 stars not my cup of tea I'm afraid

This book style is Swift meets Dick with a dash of Vonnegut. A great first novel with satire thats cuts like a katana!

Panoptica is a near-future tale of a dystopian society of invasive surveillance coupled with an insatiable appetite for the 'reality show'. What follows is not only a delicious parody on today's 'X-Factor' culture but also carries real depth as to the fears for privacy and reality such a society would surely trample upon. Well worth a read.