Artificial Evil, by Colin Barnes

This is a very confusing novel.   It takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where everyone is augmented with an artificial intelligence chip and connectivity to a shared system.  There's a ill explained concept of a death lottery, which the hero, Gerry Cardle, runs due to his skill with computer algorithms.   Everything goes to hell in a hand basket, Gerry makes new (outlaw) friends and leaves the security of the "dome" to experience the rest of the world.

I'll use the word confusing again because it is the dominant response to the book.  It is what kept me reading, hoping for clarity.  Even at the end, I couldn't tell if Gerry is a human, an augmented human, or a robot of some sort.  The fans who rate this novel well on Amazon have either figured this out or value the ambiguity.  I haven't and I don't.

There's another volume which presumably clears this all up but I'm not curious enough to read another of Mr. Barnes' novels.

Artificial Evil (Book 1 of The Techxorcist)