MathFiction: You and Whose Army? (Greg Egan)

a list compiled by Alex Kasman (College of Charleston)

...
You and Whose Army? (2020)

Greg Egan
(click on names to see more mathematical fiction by the same author)
...

This Greg Egan story is about quadruplets who share memories. One of the brothers is a math teacher and two are grad students working on theses in different mathematical subdisciplines. The story is mostly focused on the mysterious disappearance of the other brother. There are only occasional references to mathematics like:

(quoted from You and Whose Army?)

Rufus dreamed that he was Caius, contemplating a lattice of spheres in a space of some unspecified higher dimension, trying to decide if a certain kind of hyperplane lay entirely within the gaps between the spheres, or if it would be forced to intersect some of them. He swung the hyperplane back and forth, agitated, hunting for a solution. But the problem was not purely mathematical; Caius was sure that the answer would determine whether or not the police would be able to prove that he had murdered Linus.

The story was published in the October 2020 issue of Clarkesworld.

More information about this work can be found at clarkesworldmagazine.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 You and Whose Army?

According to my `secret formula', the following works of mathematical fiction are similar to this one:

3-adica by Greg Egan
Dark Integers by Greg Egan
Singleton by Greg Egan
Instantiation by Greg Egan
The Discrete Charm of the Turing Machine by Greg Egan
Understudies by Greg Egan
Luminous by Greg Egan
Glory by Greg Egan
The Planck Dive by Greg Egan
Border Guards by Greg Egan

Ratings for You and Whose Army?:

Ratings

Have you seen/read this work of mathematical fiction? Then click here to enter your own votes on its mathematical content and literary quality or send me comments to post on this Webpage.

Mathematical Content:
1/5 (1 votes)

Literary Quality:
2/5 (1 votes)

Categories:

Genre	Science Fiction,
Motif	Academia,
Topic
Medium	Short Stories, Available Free Online,

Home All New Browse Search About

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)