The MANIAC

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 AI Johnny 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, Benjamín 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.

About the Author :
Benjamin Labatut is a Chilean author born in the Netherlands in 1980. He was raised in The Hague before settling in Chile, where he lives and works. His book When We Cease to Understand the World has been translated into over thirty languages: it was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, selected for Barack Obama's Summer Reading List and named a Guardian, New York Times and New Statesman Book of the Year. The MANIAC is Labatut's first book written in English. Labatut lives with his family in Santiago, Chile.

Review :
Brilliantly cerebral [Labatut] is fast emerging as the most significant South American writer since Borges... There is no one writing like him anywhere in the world Reads like physicist Carlo Rovelli crossed with the cosmic horror of HP Lovecraft Imaginatively told through the fictionalised personal testimony of von Neumann's friends and family, the novel is as engrossing as it is disturbing 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 Darkly intelligent and feverishly propulsive Talent, ambition, skill, intelligence - [are] present in abundance Virtuosic... Labatut is that vanishingly uncommon thing: a contemporary writer of thrilling originality... The MANIAC is a work of dark, eerie and singular beauty A brooding, heady narrative that is addictively interesting... gripping, provocative A dark, strange novel by a rising literary star Captivating Monstrously good... Reads like a dark foundation myth about modern technology but told with the pace of a thriller 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 Thrilling - and chilling... A gripping read A necessary book, a harrowing one, and it will change the way you look at the world around you As addictive as a true crime tale Both entertains and provokes... His infernal vision of science captures something of the unsettling vertigo of living right here in the Anthropocene after all Labatut's voice comes from the future, to free us from the curse of our present The MANIAC works as a novel primarily due to Benjamin Labatut's mastery of prose Labatut is very good on making science exciting... less through their technical details than by expressing the human experience of ignorance being swept away, with wonder put in its place If you've yet to sample Labatut, stop wasting time. Get on the Labatut train A book to gift... for its hard look at what we've so willingly surrendered to our machines