This title tends to scare people, so please be reassured that there is no actual math in this fantasy novel. No numbers, no plus or minus, no funny symbols.
What I have done is to write a fantasy novel with some (I hope) interesting ideas about magic and magicians, based on the idea that there is a mathematics of magic. Out here in the real world, math works by abstraction: instead of adding two teacups to two other teacups, we make a general rule using numbers (2+2=4) that is so abstract that it can be used for two plus two of anything. The first thing that gets abstracted away in math is the mathematician. That is, once we’ve got a mathematical method, it works for anybody. But in the world of Weapon, the spells are mathematical expressions that only work for someone who understands them very thoroughly. If you want to be a magician, you start by studying mathematics.
This book is set in world that (again, I hope) you’ll find interesting if you have a taste for fantasy, and follows Hondoll, the King’s Magician, in a battle against two crazy cults of new gods, to fight for reason and rationality.
I’ve gotten two very nice reviews on Goodreads.com. One of them is from Sue Burke, another Chicago-area SF writer and author of several good books – you can find her on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Sue-Burke/author/B007IG9WGW
The other is from a fellow named Victor Hansen, who I haven’t met. He runs a very interesting website called “Trebuchet Books” (hoping to launch books on a steep parabola, I suppose) which you can find at https://www.trebuchetbooks.co.uk/books
Sue Burke wrote:
Full disclosure: I got this book as a gift from the author.
As set forth in Chapter Zero, mathematicians in the middle of the 21st century discovered a new series of numbers that permitted magic, but the new mathematics also smashed civilization and pushed the Moon out of its orbit. Now, eight hundred years later, at the end of Chapter Two, the King’s magician has been captured by the cult of an irrational god that could destroy what still remains of civilization.
This fun and often humorous short novel offers well-drawn characters and a fast-moving plot with surprises and twists. Feuding lovers must work together, a low-born man must prove his talent, and a capable magician makes it her job to hold them all together as a team. The math is clever, carefully thought-through, and believable as the basis of a fantasy – but don’t worry, there are no equations. There is, however, a dragon that can be both smart and stupid at the same time.
I think this is a self-published novel. It’s hard for those to get a lot of traction. Even if you have a major publisher behind you, selling books is hard — and much harder if you’re on your own. This seems to be the first Goodreads review of A Weapon of Mathematics, and I hope it gets more attention.
Victor Hansen wrote:
I bought a copy of this book on the strength of a recommendation by Sue Burke (if you haven’t read Semiosis, you should). It arrived yesterday and kept me awake overnight.
What an original concept – a mathematical(ish) explanation of magic, religion and the end of the world, mixing mythology, religion, science and fantasy into something that both carries you along with its plot and leaves your head full of new thoughts.
Get yourself a copy and fill your mind with fireworks!
p.s. I don’t normally give books five stars, to leave room for something better but I find it hard to imagine a better book of this type.
[Thanks, guys! I couldn’t have done better at Reviews-for-a-Dollar dot com! — Chuck]