Mobius Dick

by Andrew Crumey

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Physicist John Ringer receives a mysterious text message that triggers an investigation into the development of new mobile phone technology in a research facility outside a remote Scottish village. The world is becoming a very different place: amnesia, telepathy and inexplicable coincidences all seem to be occurring more frequently - with humorous, brain teasing results. Could quantum experiments have caused the collapse of our universe's space-time continuum? Could the multi-layered text we show more are reading come from another world altogether? show less

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8 reviews
’Mobius Dick’ es una novela inclasificable, mezcla de parodia y erudición, donde la mecánica cuántica, la literatura y la historia se dan la mano. Schrödinger, Thomas Mann, E.T.A. Hoffmann, este libro es como un juego de espejos en el que se conjugan varias tramas, una historia con múltiples realidades, donde el lector debe decidir qué es ficción y qué realidad. Si bien las explicaciones y reflexiones que se exponen en el libro sobre física son abundantes, Crumey, físico teórico y matemático, las integra perfectamente en el texto. Ha de quedar claro que, pese a su temática, esta novela no encajaría dentro del género de ciencia ficción. Más bien Crumey utiliza ciertos elementos de éste para elaborar su juego de show more espejos literario, en el que la memoria y el miedo a la pérdida de la identidad son importantes. Lo mejor con esta novela es dejarse llevar y entrar en el juego que te propone el autor. Si bien al principio parecen varias historias independientes, a lo largo de la novela se van soltando pistas para que al final puedas atarlo todo y así sacar tus propias conclusiones.

Con el sentido habitual del escocés Andrew Crumey, ’Mobius Dick’ no deja de ser un juego intelectual con el que pasar el rato. Crumey tiene mejores novelas, véase la genial ‘Pfitz’ o ‘El principio de D’Alembert’. Interesante y poco más.
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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.
½
I picked this book up on a whim as part of a 3 for 2 deal, intrigued by "perhaps the only novel about quantum mechanics you could imagine reading while lying on a beach". Sadly if I'd been reading this on a beach I'd have fallen asleep and either drowned when the tide came in or burnt to a crisp. I found the book tedious and overly confusing. The whole thing is built on alternate world ideas, and the main storyline following a character's investigation of this idea and bouncing between worlds is interesting. However the lengthy sections dedicated to historical scientists, musicians and writers were boring to me, not least because I didn't have the faintest idea most of the time which details were 'true' and which were alternate. Had the show more book focussed more on the central character's storyline and worlds I would probably have enjoyed it a lot more, although I'm still not sure I'd go so far as to recommend it to anyone. As it stands this was a book that sounded intriguing but ended up being pretensious and irritating. show less
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.
Sci-fi that forgets the story.
funny, romantic, enlightening

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Common Knowledge

Canonical title
Mobius Dick
Original publication date
2004
First words
The text arrived on John Ringer's phone as he worked at his desk in the university.
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)How soon the dream is finished.

Classifications

Genres
Fiction and Literature, General Fiction, Science Fiction
DDC/MDS
813Literature & rhetoricAmerican literature in EnglishAmerican fiction in English
LCC
PR6053 .R76 .M63Language and LiteratureEnglishEnglish Literature1961-2000
BISAC

Statistics

Members
265
Popularity
121,845
Reviews
7
Rating
½ (3.28)
Languages
6 — English, Greek, Italian, Romanian, Spanish, Turkish
Media
Paper, Ebook
ISBNs
10
ASINs
1