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The Elastic Book Of Numbers edited by Allen Ashley
01/05/2005 . Source: Laura Kayne 
pub: Elastic Press. 278 page enlarged paperback. Price: £ 6.00 (UK). ISBN: 0-9548812-1-4. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website: www.elasticpress.com
The topic of numbers is one both wide and specific, everyday and yet also mythical. Numbers are involved in every part of our lives, from communication to finance, birth dates and astrological fortune-telling to hard scientific formulae. They can describe the specifics of an exact event or be the random outcome of the lottery. It is little wonder, then, that many writers would be drawn to such a topic and here twenty-one have been given the opportunity to delve into the mysterious world of numbers.
The focus of the short stories in this collection range from obsessions with numbers and preciseness in general to an obsession with one particular number or set of numbers. There are characters whose work is to locate new prime numbers to order to power spaceships through their energy, as in Julian Todd's 'Mine The Primes'. There are characters wanting to control numbers, simplifying them down to their most basic units, to become singular and eventually to become nothing, as in 'Approaching Zero' by John Lucas and 'Sixty Thousand Pieces Of Glass' by Sam Hayes. Another, in 'Where None Is The Number' wins the lottery by choosing zero as a joke, but finds that even having everything is not enough when you feel you are worth nothing.
'The One Millionth Smile' by Neil Williamson explores the numbers of own lives: how many heartbeats, how many breaths, how many smiles in a lifetime? What if you had this knowledge and also the power to increase or decrease your own or those of your loved ones?
The length of a lifetime is also the subject of 'Dial 1-800-2-To-Live' by Donald Pulker. Here a cancer patient dials this magic number, hoping for a miracle, only to eventually discover that death cannot be cheated.
One piece that particularly stands out, approaching the topic of numbers and their place in our lives from a somewhat different perspective from the rest of the stories, is Ellen McAteer's '4Thoughts On Numbers'. McAteer remarks on the relationship between maths and the aesthetic and on how numbers and patterns are seen as the route of meaning in the universe, be it within religion or science. The result is a rather thought-provoking and poignant piece which acts to comment and expand on the rest of the collection.
While 'The Elastic Book Of Numbers' is not strictly Science Fiction or fantasy - despite references to space travel and alien life - there is enough here located within the realm of the mysterious and unknowable, events and characters on the edge of society to appeal to readers of fantasy and speculative fiction. Numbers make a fascinating topic for a collection of short stories, even if in this instance the tales are not as varied and fantastic as some may expect. This volume is definitely worth a look, though, if only to get the reader thinking about something which is taken for granted in everyday life.
Laura Kayne
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