| Yet another Flatland "sequel" in which silicon valley genius Joe Cube (an obvious reference to characters A. Square and A. Cube in Abbott's original) gets caught up in a war between four-dimensional beings and their attempt to sell extra-dimensional cell phones to humans.
For more information, I encourage you to read this review by Jody Trout (who is a math professor, a College of Charleston graduate, and an expert on mathematical fiction for longer than I've been interested in the subject myself). However, since a login is needed to read it, let me briefly summarize the review by saying that the book is a fun read, but goes overboard in its attempt to "wow" the reader with its descriptions of higher dimensional spaces and object.
| Contributed by
"William E. Emba"
A little noted detail about FLATLAND
was that the timing of the Sphere's first visitation to the Square took
place during the the Millennium rollover from 1999 to 2000. But Rucker
noted this detail, and treated it as part of our own Y2K hullabaloo.
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| Contributed by
Ian McCowan
The use of the fourth dimension in this novel is convincing enough and Rucker explains it well... over and over and over again. It is a difficult concept to apprehend but Rucker does not use it in a particularly complex way, and his constant attempts to clarify things get annoying and add very little to the experience.
The most appalling thing about the book is the characterization; all the characters are completely one-dimensional (ha ha) and transparent. Their motives are flimsy and they have no depth beyond what's printed on the page, and this makes the story almost painful to read at times. This might be all right if there were some kind of other mitigating factor, but the plot and ideas are, in my opinion, no better than those of any other half-decent sci-fi book.
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More information on this work can also be found at the author's own Spaceland Website. | Contributed by
Bekah
This book is based on the concept of dimensions similar to that of Flatland, but doesn't explicitly use math outside of that. I enjoyed this read and it did stretch my perception somewhat.
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