Thursday, December 30, 2010

Sphereland: A Fantasy About Curved Spaces and an Expanding Universe by Dionys Burger

This book is the sequel to Flatland, the peculiar fantasy novel by Edwin Abbott that was released in 1884, and which tells the story of the mathematician A. Square who lives in a two-dimensional world. After coming into contact with a being from a higher dimension, A. Square discovers the wonders of three-dimensional space, and postulates the existence of even higher dimensions. Instead of being declared a hero, however, he is jailed for preaching the heresy of higher-dimensional worlds.

In the sequel Sphereland, which was Published in 1965, or more than 80 years after Abbott's book's first appearance, the reader is introduced to A. Square's grandson, who discovers that Flatland is actually made up of curved space. This amazing discovery leads him to postulate that the third dimension, which is home to bizarre figures called homo sapiens, is curved by a fourth dimensional world..

From a purely geek perspective, this book is an interesting thought experiment. From a literary point of view, on the other hand, the written is unfortunately quite wooden. As a science fiction fan I often let poor writing slide if the idea is interesting. In this case, however, the weak narrative structure does not make up for the interesting mathematical ideas. That being said, I enjoyed this book, though I must also confess that I like books with characters called A. Square, so I understand why this novel would not be everyone's -- if not the vast majority of people's -- cup of tea.

2 1/2 out of 5 stars