Walter Kirn's The Unbinding

I picked up a copy of Walter Kirn's new short novel The Unbinding yesterday.  The premise is interesting:

Kent Selkirk is an operator at AidSat, an omni-present subscriber service ready to answer, solve, and assist with the client’s every problem. Through the AidSat network Kent has a wealth of information at his fingertips–information he can use to monitor subscribers’ vital signs, information he can use to track their locations, information he can use to insinuate himself into their very lives.

The form is interesting as well.  Kirn wrote and published the book in installments for Slate last year (still available here).  There are links throughout the text to images, videos, and sites on the web.  For the print version, the link words are printed in boldface and the reader is asked to go to Kirn's website to follow them.

I doubt I'll actually stop reading to look up the links.  I usually don't like footnotes in fiction either (unless they're done well and contribute a lot -- Nicholson Baker yes, David Foster Wallace not so much).