I just finished Flatterland Ian Stewart.
The quick version of the review, for people in a hurry: blech.
The longer version follows:
If you have a choice between gagged and tied to a chair while TRUE BELIEVER with haliotosis, who sppppits when he talks, and who belongs to a belief system not your own, explaining in excruciating detail how their deity/belief system influences nuances of the economic downturn/upswing while beating you around the head and shoulders with a wet cat, or reading a chapter of this book…go with the True Believer.
Stewart is trying to combine Juster’s Phantom Tollbooth with Abbot’s Flatland, which could, in the right hands, be an excellent mix. Unfortuately, what we end up with is Piers Anthony (but without the creepy fixation that Anthony has with prepubesent girls underwear) meets the worst professor you’ve ever had.
Stewart tries to make Flatland more technologically advanced (they have phones and computers now) but isn’t willing to deal with the consequences (a phone cable, in Flatland is an insurmountable wall). He’s also sloppy: the premise of the book is that A. Square’s great[sup]N[/sup] grand-daughter goes into the cellar and discover’s A. Square’s old manuscript. The Cellar? In Flatland? (Yes I’ve read The Planiverse, which was far better, btw, but that’s not how Flatland operates)
Anyway the great[sup]N[/sup] grand-daughter (Victoria Line)…her brothers are Leichester Square and ummm…another London reference…which was cute, summons the “Space Hopper” which looks like an inflatable beach toy. It takes her to various other mathmatical dimensions all of which have clunky bad puns (A one-sided cow called Moobious) which lead into dul*l lectures. Not dull in terms of content, there’re some interesting ideas, but dull in writing style. Steward can’t decide if he wants to lecture us or play pun-games with us. He keeps losing track of the story when he lectures.
He also has a tin-ear for dialogue. Victoria, judging by her dialogue can’t decide if she’s a 12 year old girl or a 19 year old.
A far better book by the same author is The Science of Discworld which he co-wrote with Pratchett. Unfortunately, I now see exactly how much of the book was Pratchett.
If you’re in the mood for this sort of book, The Planiverse by A. K. Dewdney. He doesn’t explore as much (or any) of the higher dimensions, but he gets into the fascinating nuts-n-bolts of how a Flat universe could work. A much better book and a far more satisfying (and thought provoking read)
Stay away from Flatterland, though: it just <drumroll> falls flat <rimshot>
Fenris