Fluke Friday

Hey everybody, I'm in the middle of several books right now, but I don't have a particular recommendation for this week.  So... time to turn the Friday recommendation on its head: what books have you read and loved lately?  I'm looking for some new suggestions!

Math Stories

Thinking about game theory on Monday got my mind whirling about math for the first time in a while. I've probably mentioned before that I was a math major in college. For a long, long time math was my greatest interest. I loved the logic of it and the fact that every problem always had a correct answer. I loved its elegance and I loved that mathematical truth could usually be known with certainty.

Eventually I came to the conclusion that math wasn't my final destination. Much as I still love it, I never regretted making the change to writing. But I've always found a lot of beauty in math, and since I know so many people don't see it I want to talk about math from a story perspective.

History

Ever hear of Evariste Galois? I won't be surprised if you haven't. He was a brilliant mathematician of the early 19^th century, but he died at a very early age after being wounded in a duel. The reasons for the duel aren't entirely clear, but evidence suggests it had something to do with a girl.

How about Carl Friedrich Gauss? There's a famous anecdote about Gauss as a young boy. His teacher asked him to find the sum of all whole numbers from 1 to 100, thinking the task would take a long time to complete. Within seconds Gauss had the answer.

Surely you've heard of Isaac Newton. But do you know about Gottfried Leibniz? Did you know there was a huge plagiarism scandal over which of the two men invented calculus? Today they are both credited with coming up with it simultaneously, but in the early 18^th century the question sparked a bitter controversy. (By the way, Leibniz's notation is the one we use today.)

The history of mathematics is full of quirky people and dramatic events, many of which are fascinating to study. And I bet I wouldn't have to search very hard to find a mathematical story worth telling. Why? Because despite the pure logic of mathematics, it was developed by very human people, and human stories are universal. So if you're ever looking for a new character idea, consider browsing through a list of famous mathematicians for inspiration.

Mystery

As a child one of my favorite mysteries was Fermat's Last Theorem. If you already know about it, forgive me for explaining to those who don't.

Everybody who has taken Geometry should be familiar with the Pythagorean Theorem: a² + b² = c², where a, b and c are the lengths of the sides of a right triangle (c being the hypotenuse).

So here's the question: what if you change the equation to aⁿ + bⁿ = cⁿ, where n is a whole number greater than 2? That is, if a, b and c aren't squared but are instead, say, cubed, or taken to the fourth power, can you ever find a solution to the equation?

Pierre de Fermat (a mathematician living in the first half of the 17^th century) said no. At his death, his son found the following written in a book and referring to the fact that the equation had no solution: “I have a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.”

But what was his proof? Nobody knows! It was never found. And for a few hundred years, nobody was able to prove that the theorem was true. Only within the past fifteen years did one man (Andrew Wiles) and a 100-page proof finally lay the question to rest.

But surely Fermat's proof wasn't 100 pages long! So did he really have a proof? And if he did, what was it? It's still a mystery!

And it's not the only mathematical mystery. So if you've got writer's block and you're looking for something new to stimulate your mind, try delving into a math mystery for a while.

Magic

You'd think I'd be used to it by now, but I'm still always amazed when I find that things in the real world come back to mathematics. There's something almost magical about how math just fits everywhere.

In fact, I wrote a story once about math and magic and music and the embodiments of Hope and Peace and other such ideas. I called it Fugue. It was a NaNoWriMo story and had almost no research, and a lot of the math was just hand waving because I didn't go through all of it rigorously, but it was a lot of fun and I liked the idea.

I already know what I'll be writing for the next couple years at least, but maybe some day in the future I'll work on another book with math in it. In the meantime, if you're looking for some interesting people to help you get rid of any lingering anger toward math, I'd point you in the direction of Martin Gardner and Vi Hart. They make math pretty irresistible.

It's All Fun and Games Blogfest

I've never done a blogfest before, but I saw this one today and loved the topic enough to add my post to the mix.

One of the great things about games is their variety. We sure have a lot of options! Board games, card games, video games, pen and paper games, strategy games, etc. So picking three favorites is a challenge!

But over time I get pretty bored of most games. I've come to find that the games I like the least are the ones that have either no strategy at all (like the card game War—how mind-numbing) or a strategy that is easy to figure out and doesn't change much from game to game (like Tic Tac Toe for an extreme example). Basically, the longer it takes me to get my game theory on and figure out the strategy that is most likely to win every time, the longer I enjoy the game.

So here are my three favorite categories of games and my top picks in each:

1. Computer Games

Okay, this is a really huge category, and maybe I'm cheating by counting it as a single game type. Oh well. The games that I've spent the most time playing over the years are Civilization 4 (and 5 for the first time last weekend), the Sims 3, and various MMOs (yep, I got caught in the quicksand of World of Warcraft for a while).

My top pick, though, is Portal/Portal 2. While certainly not the game I've spent the most time playing, it's the one that I found to be most fascinating. The only downside: the turrets! I do not like being shot at! No, thank you! But even that I think I got over by the end. They're very cute after all.

2. Games with Complex Strategies

For me these are really difficult to find. Sometimes I'll think I've got one, only to lose interest after just a few times playing. Ticket to Ride was one that I enjoyed for a while and then suddenly got really sick of. I tend to have a little more luck with card games like Hearts or Spades (or maybe even Bridge if I knew anyone who'd want to play). A friend introduced me to Dominion a few months ago, which I think might last for a while because each game is so different from the last, though even that will get old.

My top pick: very difficult to say since I don't really have a favorite right now, but if I had to pick I'd go with Dungeonquest. Another friend owns this game, and of the few times I've played I've only made it out of the dungeon alive once. It's fun because it's so unpredictable and so difficult to win.

3. Content Creation Games

Now these are my absolute favorites. Tabletop RPGs would fall into this category, but while I do love group story-telling, these aren't the only content creation games out there. One of my first favorites was “the Dictionary game” as we called it, but I think most people know it as Balderdash. A more recent favorite is “Telephone Pictionary.” For those who have never played it, it combines the descent into nonsense that is “Telephone” with the not-so-artistic drawings of “Pictionary,” resulting in chaotic hilarity.

My top pick: The Game of Things. This game has gotten more laughs than any other I've played. It's a “who said what” game like Balderdash but with far less serious responses.

Well.

Being that I am the kind of person who analyzes everything—after all, I do come from a family that will discuss the finer points of anything hypothetical, regardless of how ridiculous (and we've been known to debate the pros and cons of using the vomit comet to aerate wine)—I've done some thinking about the different games that I enjoy playing, and I've started designing my own game. It's a combination board game and content creation game. If I finish it by the next time I get together with all my cousins I'll test it out on them, and if they like it I may post more about it later. Of course, it's not exactly my highest priority, so whether it actually gets finished remains to be seen.

Book Recommendation: Incarceron

The trouble with books that have truly unique concepts is that often the online summaries of these books don't give a very good picture of what they're really all about. For me this was the problem with Catherine Fisher's Incarceron. I kept hearing the title, and I knew it was about a prison, but I didn't really have a clear idea of what the book would be like.

Fortunately I picked it up anyway, and I enjoyed the whole story. It was a very interesting book.

Incarceron is indeed a prison, but it's not like any prison that any of us have ever seen. It's like a whole world, so large no one could visit all of it in a single lifetime, with cities and societies, wind and rain, tunnels and secret doors. All it's lacking are the stars. No one can get out; no one even knows where the boundaries are. And everywhere Incarceron watches its inmates through tiny red eyes. Sometimes it even talks to them.

Claudia is the daughter of Incarceron's warden. She's heard the stories of Incarceron, how it was formed as an experiment, a perfect place where society's criminals could learn to live in peace. She envies the inmates, because her own life is nowhere close to peaceful. In her world, everyone is forced to live “in the past,” in a Victorian society where Protocol governs everything and technologies that could save lives are illegal. She was bred to marry the son of the Queen, a lazy, disingenuous boy whom she hates, and now her wedding is imminent.

Finn has been an inmate of Incarceron for three years, and the prison is far from paradise. It's dirty, the people are anything but trustworthy, and Incarceron is running out of organic materials to create new life, resulting in halfmen and animals with wires running through their flesh. Finn has had to join a gang of marauders in order to survive. He can't remember anything before he woke up in a prison cell three years ago, though sometimes he has flashes of what might be memory before seizures take over. He wants to escape, but only one person in all of Incarceron's long history ever managed to figure out how, and he never came back.

The very first chapter of the book grabbed me right away, and then the rest of the book had enough unexpected twists to keep me guessing right up to the end. The plot was so unlike anything else I'd ever read, and I truly enjoyed following it through every turn. The complexity of the plot is the real highlight of this book.

The writing and characters aren't bad either. I enjoyed both points of view equally and was never disappointed to be switching from one to the other. Each had plenty of tension and carried its weight.

But the true gold is in the “Whoa! Hold on. What just happened?” moments. I applaud anyone who manages to figure out the twists before they happen, because I certainly didn't. (Well, except for the really obvious one, but I don't think that was meant to be much of a surprise.) I was really glad I had the sequel ready to read immediately, because I would NOT have wanted to have to wait months or even weeks to find out what happened next. (And just so you know, Sapphique was a terrific book too.)

So go! Read! And tell me what you think when you're done.

Cat Hats

A typical conversation* during a fellowship dinner at my church:

Thing 1 (our Kids' Pastor) to me: What you need to do is write a book with silly but easy-to-make costumes, so that when you do book signings you can secretly be laughing at all the people who come to the signings looking like complete idiots.

Thing 2 (his wife): Ooooh, like cat hat costumes! Only with real cats. Absolute mayhem would ensue.

Thing 1 (sarcastically): Bookstores would love you.

I was highly amused, but after the dinner I forgot the conversation and went on with my life. Then the next day the following showed up on my Facebook page:

Thing 2: We've got it! The story premise is that a kid writes messages to the sewer people, seals them in little tubes and flushes them. The sewer people are the ones who will have the costumes. Costumes which will have cat hats. LIVE cat hats. You should TOTALLY write this story for Thing 1. He will be soooo happy.

Red Fish**: It needs a twist. Like, at the end, you find out that the little boy is a cat hat.

Blue Fish**: PLEASE make the sewer people talk with a funny accent... A blend of Pirate and Indonesian... And the leader has a bright purple trench coat with feathered lapels... His catch phrase should be “Down here, there is no 3 second rule...”

Thing 2: Ooo! And goggles.*** All the cool underground/steampunk/lost society people wear welding goggles.

Thing 1: Ok, so the enemy of the sewer people should be origami monsters that have been brought to life by gamma rays. The sewer people have the advantage because the water makes the origami soggy, but are also at a disadvantage because the cats they wear on their heads are afraid of paper. We could make a lot of marketing money selling college ruled diy origami monsters...

At this point I was well beyond just “amused.” I love people who have quirky creativity like this. They make life a lot more interesting.

Have you ever had a really silly story idea like this, either of your own making or “gifted” from someone else?

* I can't actually remember which of them said what, but you get the general idea.

** Other Facebook friends from church.

*** I'm of the opinion that they should be swimming goggles.