The Sand-ReckonerNew review posted March 22, 2025.
Forge (Tom Doherty Associates), 2000. 351 pages.
This review written March 13, 2025, from my own copy.
Original review written August 2001.
Starred Review
2001 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#1 Fiction
I'm revisiting this wonderful book - one of my all-time favorites - as part of #Sonderbooks25, my celebration of my 25th year of writing Sonderbooks. I'm rereading at least one book from each year's Sonderbooks Stand-outs. And while I will probably not write a new review for all of them, the first five years of reviews were posted in a different format that isn't phone-friendly, so I want to bring this book to the main site. Does this qualify as an "Old Favorite"? The first time I read it, the book was new! But I'm thinking that enough time has gone by, and it will always be one of my lifetime favorite books, so I'm going to add it to the Old Favorites page, too.
The Sand-Reckoner was reviewed in my very first issue of Sonderbooks (back when it was an email newsletter posted in issues), and the first time I read it was while I was on vacation in Ireland. Despite not being in an idyllic location this time around, I still found the book utterly delightful.
It's all about the character of Archimedes. He's portrayed as a genius who gets so wrapped up in his work, he forgets about anything else - which totally fits the historical anecdotes about him. This book shows Archimedes as a young man, returning from the intellectual company of the Museum of Alexandria back to his home in Syracuse, because his father is very ill, and Syracuse is now at war with Rome.
Because of Archimedes' geometrical genius, he's better than anyone at building machines - including machines of war, and as he arrives, his first task is to convince the leaders of Syracuse that he can build bigger and better catapults for them. After that, the tyrant of Syracuse (He's a good guy, but that's what the leader was called.) must figure out how to entice Archimedes to stay, instead of going back to Alexandria, where more understood his philosophical discussions.
There's a major subplot about Archimedes' Roman slave and a romantic subplot as well, and the whole book immerses you in the world of ancient Syracuse with a lovable naive genius.
And, yes, this is one of my all-time favorite books. I'm a math person myself, though never as genius as Archimedes, nor so single-minded. But I do have a big soft spot for sweet nerdy engineers like him.