MATHEMATICAL FICTION:

a list compiled by Alex Kasman (College of Charleston)

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An Angel of Obedience (2010)
John Giessmann
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Due to his new obsession with fractal geometry, thirteen year-old prodigy Jackson Carter has just ended an illustrious career as a classical musician and enrolled as a math major at Harvard. There he is prone to stare at fractals for hours and say things such as

(quoted from An Angel of Obedience)

"It was faulty. I found it unpleasant to look at. The use of a fixed iteration rule based on the recurrence of the mathematical phrase was incorrectly applied. I don't care for these iterated function systems. There is something inherently off with the algorithm."

But, this is not your typical `anti-social teenage math genius goes to college' book, because in addition to the standard garbled mathematical dialogue and bizarre behavior, this book includes leg-munching demons and the suggestion that Jackson himself is the anti-Christ!

More information about this work can be found at www.amazon.com.
(Note: This is just one work of mathematical fiction from the list. To see the entire list or to see more works of mathematical fiction, return to the Homepage.)

Works Similar to An Angel of Obedience
According to my `secret formula', the following works of mathematical fiction are similar to this one:
  1. Life After Genius by M. Ann Jacoby
  2. Math Takes a Holiday by Paul Di Filippo
  3. Monster's Proof by Richard Lewis
  4. Little People by Tom Holt
  5. Thursday Next: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde
  6. The Better Mousetrap by Tom Holt
  7. Barking by Tom Holt
  8. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
  9. Numberland by George Weinberg
  10. Kazohinia [A Voyage to Kazohinia] by Sándor Szathmári
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Categories:
GenreHumorous, Fantasy,
MotifGenius, Prodigies, Anti-social Mathematicians, Academia, Religion,
TopicChaos/Fractals,
MediumNovels,

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Where are the new works of mathematical fiction?: As you can see from this chronological listing, this database includes many works of mathematical fiction for each year from 1990 to 2025. Strangely, only two are listed for 2026, so far. Either less mathematical fiction is being published than in previous years or I'm just having more trouble finding it. If you know of any works of fiction that should be added to this list, especially recently published ones, please let me know. (Keep in mind that I do not include self-published works or children's fiction that just covers elementary mathematical concepts.) Thanks!

(Maintained by Alex Kasman, College of Charleston)