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Ask Slashdot: Mathematical Fiction?

Posted by Soulskill on from the it-was-an-arbitrarily-lit-and-stormy-night dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Neal Stephenson's 1999 Cryptonomicon was a great yarn. It was also a thoroughly enjoyable (and too short) romp through some mathematics. Where can I find more of that? I should say that I don't want SF — at least none of the classic SF I read voraciously in the 70s; it's just not the same thing, and far too often just a puppet-theatre for an author's philosophical rant. Has any author managed to hit the same vein as Stephenson did? (Good non-fiction math-reads are also gratefully accepted. What have you got?)"

5 of 278 comments (clear)

  1. Hofstadter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I found Douglas Hofstadter's "Gödel, Escher, Bach" to be at least as engaging as any Stephenson-esque fiction I've ever read.

  2. "A Subway Named Mobius" by Animats · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "A Subway Named Mobius", from 1950.

  3. Re:Too short? by mcvos · · Score: 1, Insightful

    But every one of those pages is interesting and exciting, unlike his other books, which tend to lose pace and focus after a brilliant start.

  4. Re:Romney's Budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    you partisan bitches

    Wow! Projection.

  5. Re:Oo oo! I've got one! by DiegoBravo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I just took the actual Obama recovery results and got negative numbers without having to multiply by anything...