Mathematicians in Love

Two mathematicians vying for the same partner will change reality itself to win her love, from award-winning author Rudy Rucker.

Berkeley grad students Bela Kis and Paul Bridge have discovered the mathematical underpinnings of ultimate reality. But then they begin fighting over the same woman: the beguiling video-blogger, Alma Ziff.

First Bela gets Alma’s interest by starting the wildest rock band ever. Then Paul undertakes the ultimate computer hack: altering reality to make Alma his. But the change brings more than he bargained for: Alma is swept away into a higher world of mathematician cockroaches and cone shells—bent upon using our world to run experiments in mysterious metamathematics.

It’s up to Bela to bring Alma back, repair reality, stop the aliens, and find true love in this wild and funny tale that romps across space, time, and logic.

Night Shade Books’ ten-volume series with Rudy Rucker collects nine of the brilliantly weird novels for which the mathematician-turned-author is known, as well as a tenth, never-before-published book, Million-Mile Road Trip. We’re proud to collect in one place so much of the work of this influential figure in the early cyberpunk scene, and to share Rucker’s fascinating, unique worldview with an entirely new generation of readers.

Rudy Rucker is a writer and a mathematician who worked for twenty years as a Silicon Valley computer science professor. He is regarded as contemporary master of science-fiction, and received the Philip K. Dick award twice. His thirty published books include both novels and non-fiction books on the fourth dimension, infinity, and the meaning of computation. A founder of the cyberpunk school of science-fiction, Rucker also writes SF in a realistic style known as transrealism, often including himself as a character. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.