Improbable: A Novel
by Adam Fawer
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Book Summary Information
Author: Adam FawerEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-01-31
ISBN: 006073678X
Number of pages: 464
Publisher: HarperTorch
Book Reviews of Improbable: A Novel
Book Review: Alas, poor Yorick!
Summary: 3 Stars
Went to a 2 and a half hour version of Hamlet by a visiting and competent English theater group in Shanghai. Sat through it, wondering if Tolstoy wasn't right after all when he declared Shakespeare as a minor and rather unimportant writer. The play is plain pulp, obviously. What makes it hot is mainly the fact that dramaturgists get the chance to be creative, and the plentyful recognizable lines. The audience sits there and waits for 'to be or not to be' and all the other best words. Had to nudge my wife a few times to keep her awake.
Got home and had enough of high literature for a day. Picked up a plain pulp thriller which had been recommended to me as a good science thriller. Alright, it is about brain and drugs research and probability theory and evil corrupt government agents and foreign services and all the usual of the genre.
The hero is an epileptic math genius with the added vice of gambling and calculating the odds. He becomes a research object for the brain and drugs guys and in turn a subject of interest for Russian Mafia and Korean secret service and all the other bad guys in the world.
Guess I will go back to Shakespeare next time, after all.
But I also needed some brushing up of my math knowledge after Jim Egolf mentioned that he thinks that I know math. OMG. And Gordon Brown comes up with negative likelihood. Need to do some brain research.
But let me share something that I took away from this actually very entertaining book. Do you know what is the basic conclusion from low probability analysis? S... happens! Now isn't that entirely in line with your intuitions? So who needs Heisenberg or Schroedinger?
Summary of Improbable: A Novel
David Caine inhabits a world of obsession, rich rewards, and rapid, destructive downfalls. A compulsive gambler and brilliant mathematician prone to crippling epileptic seizures, he possesses the uncanny ability to calculate odds of any hand in the blink of an eye. But one night at an underground poker club, Caine makes a costly mi scalculation, sending his life spinning out of control. Desperate, he agrees to test an experimental drug with unnerving side effects: inexplicable visions of the past, present, and future. Unsure whether he's perceiving an alternate reality or suffering a psychotic breakdown, Caine embarks on a journey that stretches beyond the possible into the world of the improbable. Gradually, he discovers the extent of his astonishing new ability -- but powerful, shadowy forces know Caine's secret. Now Caine must fight for his survival -- and his sanity . . .
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