MATHEMATICAL FICTION:

a list compiled by Alex Kasman (College of Charleston)

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30 Most Recently Added/Modified Entries

(Note: This is not the entire list of works of Mathematical Fiction. To see the entire list, click here.)
Prime Target (2025)
Steve Thompson (Creator) / Brady Hood (Director)
A math grad student discovers a pattern to prime numbers which gets him caught up in the dangerous world of espionage in this television series. I will write more about it soon (once I've resubscribed to Apple TV+). If you have already seen it and want to share your review or summary, please write to let me know (more)
Last Changed: 2025-01-30 07:36:44
The Way Inn (2014)
Will Wiles
With the help of a "Way Inn" hotel chain employee who has a PhD in mathematics, Neil Double battles an evil corporate executive named Hilbert. Despite the combination of math, a character named "Hilbert",... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-01-20 15:15:28
Wish I Were Here (2024)
Melissa Wiesner
In this novel, which the cover describes as a "contemporary romantic comedy", Catherine Lipton is an uptight math professor who falls in love with her handsome but irresponsible doorman, Luca. The author... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-01-07 09:50:15
Probability of Everything (2024)
Sarah Everett
In this young adult novel, an 11 year-old girl who relies on probability to deal with the world around her must come to grips with the fact that asteroid Amplus-68 has a 84.7% chance of colliding with... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-01-02 09:19:07
Clara Thorn, The Witch That Was Found (2022)
Don Jones
I have not yet read this young adult novel, but a frequent site contributor argues that it should be included in my database of mathematical fiction: Clara is born a "mathemagician" with a talent for... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-01-02 09:07:43
The Life Impossible (2024)
Matt Haig
In this novel, a retired math teacher goes to a remote island to investigate the mysterious death of her friend. Since Matt Haig has another work listed in this database and because the blurb mentions... (more)
Last Changed: 2025-01-02 07:51:55
Professor Eubanks in Zetaland (1988)
Richard Stanley
After decades trying to prove the Riemann Hypothesis, the frustration felt by Professor E. Pluribus Eubanks is so great that it "strained the very fabric of the spacetime continuum". This leaves him standing... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-12-22 08:40:19
Fractal Karma (2024)
Arula Ratnakar
You probably recall Ratnakar whose interest is neuroscience, but also takes a strong interest in using mathematical ideas in her writing. Just out in Clarkesworld, is "Fractal Karma". According... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-12-03 08:14:16
Practical Applications of Game Theory (2013)
Andrew Thomas Breslin
A picaresque novel about a "rogue mathematician" who uses concepts from game theory to survive in a maximum security prison. Although the situation is a realization of the Prisoner's Dilemma, it is well-written and does not come across as didactic or forced. Originally serialized in the online literary magazine Imaginaire in 2013, it is now also available as a self-published e-book. (more)
Last Changed: 2024-11-12 20:50:56
Two by Zero (2010)
Garth Upshaw
This is another fantasy story in which mathematical formulae are magical spells which can summon demons. It begins with the line I, Orlen D’Hamilton, manifested an almost perfect category-three... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-10-24 08:41:05
The Proof of Bravery (2012)
David Milstein
A soldier under Napoleon, whom the emperor himself called "the bravest of the brave", is granted immortal life by none other than Lazarus himself, and goes on to become a math professor at Davidson College... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-10-16 15:31:54
The Mathematics of Faith (2009)
Jonathan Wood
The imprisoned mathematician in this story is trying to develop equations describing life: Life is equal to the sum of behaviors we can perform and the time we have allotted to perform them. Let us... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-10-15 09:30:42
The Mausoleum (2024)
Inderjeet Mani
This is another very nice story by the author of The Book of Alephs. In this one, a man decorating a mausoleum with tiles violates the rules to honor his dead wife. I'm really not sure that I consider... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-10-14 22:19:49
Lift: The Rise of Mathe-Lingua-Musica (2024)
Ray Anderson
In this science fiction novel, the World Mathematical Council has determined that humanity will soon be driven to extinction by our violent tendencies. To stop this from happening, they use their time-machine... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-10-08 18:40:12
Pi mal Daumen (2024)
Alina Bronsky
In this novel, a nerdy prodigy befriends an older math "noob". Since it has so far only been published in German, a language I cannot read, I do not know much about it. But, Hauke Reddmann who brought... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-08-29 22:34:37
Discordium Mathematica (2024)
Vijay Fafat
Frequent site contributor Vijay Fafat has written this epic poem which was published in the July 2024 issue of The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics. Like one of his earlier works published in the same... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-08-07 08:34:42
Exordia (2024)
Seth Dickson
Seth Dickinson's Exordia (Jan 2024) takes as one of its central conceits the notion that the physical universe is an expression of mathematical reality, and has as one of its central characters a Chinese... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-07-30 16:29:32
Zenn Diagram (2018)
Wendy Brant
In many ways, this is a typical teen romance novel: it is filled with girls talking about their crushes, some flirting, some kissing, star-crossed lovers overcoming an obstacle to be together, and just... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-06-04 14:25:20
Trajectory (2024)
Cambria Gordon
Eleanor, a teenage girl from Philadelphia who has been hiding her impressive mathematical abilities, uses them to aid the military during WW II. As with many works of fiction aimed at Young Adults,... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-05-23 17:08:22
Game Theory (2017)
Barry Jonsberg
A high school student must save his younger sister from a kidnapper in this Australian YA novel. Math is mentioned often in the book. The book opens with a discussion of the equations on the special... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-05-17 20:16:09
A Presence Beyond the Shadows (2024)
David Lee Summers
A math department chair's wife fears their house is haunted. She convinces him to bring home the goggles he invented that allow the wearer to see into the fourth dimension. Mathematical terminology... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-05-14 06:52:16
Solve for X (2024)
Wil Forbis
This is a supernatural murder mystery in which the victim is a math tutor. An incorrect method for solving linear equations with a parameter are part of the clue which leads to the capture of the murderer,... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-05-12 23:01:07
Lost and Found (2024)
Joe Stout
A man who becomes lost while hiking is captured by an evil math teacher who enjoys torturing her victims with lessons and quizzes. The plot, which also involves a beautiful woman who was kidnapped by... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-05-12 22:31:50
Asymmetrical Dreams (2024)
Josh Snider
Professor Sam Collin studies and lectures on the mathematics of symmetry. His OCD manifests as an obsessive desire for symmetry in his physical surroundings. He is therefore initially pleasantly surprised... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-05-10 18:44:24
Trains Passing (2024)
Martin Ziegler
A thoroughly unpleasant math teacher is riding a high-speed train traveling at precisely 400 mph in one direction on a perfectly straight track while another train travels in the opposite direction at... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-05-10 15:07:22
They'll Say It Was the Communists (2024)
Sarah Lazarz
Women working as human "computers" for NASA in its early years discover that their boss is actually a tentacled creature who feasts on valid calculations and is repulsed by mathematical errors. In addition... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-05-10 14:34:43
Erasthones' Map (2024)
Damon Nomad
A Greek-American math professor living in Istanbul combines his number theory research with religion while trying to find a cave that serves as a mystical gateway though which he can send his dead brother... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-05-10 11:48:33
Real Numbers (2024)
Liz Kaufman
This entry in the "mathematical horror" collection Arithmophobia concerns a stereotypical anti-social math nerd whose obsession about odd and even numbers turns into fatal violence after he takes a philosophy... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-05-10 11:04:19
Manifold Thoughts (2024)
Patrick Freivald
A talented female mathematics grad student (who is a postdoc by the end of the story) helps her thesis advisor model the dynamics of Calabi-Yau manifolds, discovering that they are both sentient and deadly. The... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-05-10 10:56:05
Once Upon a Wardrobe (2021)
Patti Callahan
Megs is a student at Oxford University in 1950 whose eight year old brother is so ill that he is unlikely to live another year. While Megs loves equations, her brother George loves the new book "The Lion,... (more)
Last Changed: 2024-05-09 15:20:12

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Exciting News: The 1,600th entry was recently added to this database of mathematical fiction! Also, for those of you interested in non-fictional math books let me (shamelessly) plug the recent release of the second edition of my soliton theory textbook.

(Maintained by Alex Kasman, College of Charleston)