From the author of When We Cease to Understand the World: a dazzling, kaleidoscopic book about the destructive chaos lurking in the history of computing and AIJohnny von Neumann was an enigma. As a young man, he stunned those around him with his monomaniacal pursuit of the unshakeable foundations of mathematics. But when his faith in this all-encompassing system crumbled, he began to put his prodigious intellect to use for those in power. As he designed unfathomable computer systems and aided the development of the atomic bomb, his work pushed increasingly into areas that were beyond human comprehension and control - and that threatened human destruction.
In The Maniac, Benjamin Labatut braids fact with fiction in a scintillating journey to the very fringes of rational thought, right to the point where it tips over into chaos. Stretching back to early twentieth-century conflict over contradictions in physics and up to advances in artificial intelligence that outpace the human, this is a mind-bending story of the mad dreams of reason.
'Emerging as the most significant South American writer since Borges... there is no one writing like him anywhere in the world' - Telegraph
From the author of When We Cease to Understand the World: a dazzling, kaleidoscopic book about the destructive chaos lurking in the history of computing and AIJohnny von Neumann was an enigma. As a young man, he stunned those around him with his monomaniacal pursuit of the unshakeable foundations of mathematics. But when his faith in this all-encompassing system crumbled, he began to put his prodigious intellect to use for those in power. As he designed unfathomable computer systems and aided the development of the atomic bomb, his work pushed increasingly into areas that were beyond human comprehension and control - and that threatened human destruction.
In The Maniac, Benjamin Labatut braids fact with fiction in a scintillating journey to the very fringes of rational thought, right to the point where it tips over into chaos. Stretching back to early twentieth-century conflict over contradictions in physics and up to advances in artificial intelligence that outpace the human, this is a mind-bending story of the mad dreams of reason.
'Emerging as the most significant South American writer since Borges... there is no one writing like him anywhere in the world' - Telegraph
Benjamin Labatut was born in Rotterdam in 1980 and grew up in The Hague, Buenos Aires and Lima. When We Cease to Understand the World, his first book to be translated into English, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. Labatut lives with his family in Santiago, Chile.
'In fictionalising the history of the atomic bomb, Labatut has
landed on a chilling way to dramatise our contemporary fears.
Science Fiction-tinged nightmares about new nuclear threats and an
alien, self-learning system of intelligence are made both more real
and understandable through the voices of the people who gave birth
to them' -Literary Review
'If you've yet to sample Labatut, stop wasting time. Get on the
Labatut train.' - BookMunch
'Talent, ambition, skill, intelligence - [are] present in
abundance.' - Guardian, Book of the Day
'Captivating' - Irish Times
'Thrilling - and chilling [...] A gripping read.' - Marie Claire,
Best Books of 2023
'A dark, strange novel by a rising literary star' - New
Scientist
'Intoxicating... this marvel of a book, which inspires awe and
dread in equal measure, is stalked by the greatest terrors of the
20th century, yet its final heart-stopping sentence makes clear the
greatest terrors are yet to come' - Daily Mail
'As addictive as a true crime tale' - Mail on Sunday
'Absorbing... perfect for anyone thirsting for more nuclear anxiety
after watching Oppenheimer... reads like the physicist Carlo
Rovelli crossed with the cosmic horror of HP Lovecraft' - Chris
Power, Sunday Times
'Both entertains and provokes... [Labatut's] infernal vision of
science captures something of the unsettling vertigo of living
right here in the Anthropocene after all' - TLS
'Emerging as the most significant South American writer since
Borges... there is no one writing like him anywhere in the world' -
Interview in the Telegraph
'Brilliantly cerebral'- 5* Sunday Telegraph
'Praise for' - When We Cease to Understand the World:
'A monstrous and brilliant book' - Philip Pullman
'Mesmerising and revelatory' - William Boyd
'Ingenious, intricate and deeply disturbing' - John Banville
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
