Mobius Dick

By Andrew Crumey

Cult fiction techno-thriller about how real is reality

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dedalus
• Release date: Jun 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781910213056

Andrew Crumey

Andrew Crumey was born in Glasgow in 1961. He read theoretical physics and mathematics at St Andrews University and Imperial College in London, before doing post-doctoral research at Leeds University on nonlinear dynamics. After six years as the literary editor at Scotland on Sunday he now combines teaching creative writing at Northumbria University with his writing.He is the author of seven novels: Music, in a Foreign Language (1994), Pfitz (1995), D'Alembert's Principle (1996), Mr Mee (2000, Dedalus edition 2014), Mobius Dick (2004, Dedalus edition 2014) Sputnik Caledonia(2008, Dedalus edition 2015)) and The Secret Knowledge (2013).Andrew Crumey's novels have been translated into 14 languages.

Reviews for Mobius Dick

[m8a8harding · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

funny, romantic, enlightening

[randulf-3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Left me wondering what bits were real and which were fiction. A wonderful and complex story by one of the most talented writers I have come across.

[dtw42 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mindbending stuff. I'm not sure I understood everything here. No, let me rephrase that, I am sure I didn’t understand everything here. Parallel realities and alternate histories stirred together by the quantum mechanical effects of an experimental “vacuum array” at a secret test site in Scotland. There are echoes of Calvinoesque metafiction, Dickian reality paranoia, Aldiss’ Frankenstein Unbound, Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently and Mostly Harmless (without the jokes) ... plus a little political satire and sex too.

[eyejaybee · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A quick glance at the customer reviews of this book on Amazon shows how widely opinion is divided. One five star review asserts that it is 'original, thought-provoking, erudite … and above all great fun' while the next dismisses it as 'confusing and tedious'. I am not sure whether I agree with neither … or perhaps both.There can certainly be no question about the thought-provoking. In its three hundred pages this book offers a wide swathe of subjects including theoretical physics with cameo appearances from Schrodinger, psychology and the interpretation of dreams, the travails of nineteenth century novelists with an exchange between Hermann Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the descent into mental disrepair of Robert Schumann, all enmeshed with some what-if speculations about the outcome of the last world war and a contemporary physicist's recollections of an old lover. 'What, no ventriloquists? I hear you ask, and that does indeed some to be one of the few fields of artistic endeavour that doesn't rate a mention.On reflection I feel I did enjoy it. It is not an easy read, but it is rewarding, though I also think that some of the apostrophising was a little over-extended. Hamlet with nothing but the prince, perhaps, and a surfeit of tangential sidebars.