The MANIAC

May 1, 2023

A pioneer in everything from game theory to AI and cellular automata, Hungarian mathematician John von Neumann is here given fictional life through the varied perspectives of family, friends, colleagues, and rivals. Labatut has done this sort of thing before; When We Cease to Understand the World, a New York Times Best Book that was also International Booker National Book Award short-listed, explored a group of real-life scientists and thinkers in the early 20th century. Prepub Alert.

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Starred review from July 17, 2023
After the slender yet incendiary When We Cease to Understand the World, Labatut returns with a sensational epic of the Hungarian American physicist and computer scientist John von Neumann. The title refers to a computer that ran calculations on atomic weapons at Los Alamos, and to von Neumann himself, whose theories and experiments brought about a new reality for humanity—and one defined by its potential annihilation. It was von Neumann, the originator of the concept of mutually assured destruction, who helped accelerate American investment in nuclear weapons and insisted the U.S. should not fall behind the Soviets in the arms race. Labatut brackets von Neumann’s story with those of two other real-life figures: the darkly brilliant Austrian physicist Paul Ehrenfest—whose depression led him to murder his disabled son and then kill himself in 1933—and South Korean Go champion Lee Sedol, who retired in 2019 after losing multiple matches to AI, which he describes on a talk show as “an entity that cannot be defeated.” Labatut mesmerizes in his accessible depictions of complex scientific material and in his inspired portraits of the innovators. In his previous book, Labatut grappled with the ways in which scientific breakthroughs offered new means of experiencing reality; this one succeeds at showing how acts of genius might break the world forever. Readers won’t be able to turn away. Agent: Nicole Aragi, Aragi, Inc.

August 1, 2023
Lightly fictionalized studies of envelope-pushing science and its consequences. Much like Chilean author Labatut's excellent When We Cease To Understand the World (2021), this novel turns on brilliant minds leading troubled lives. First in its triptych of profiles is Austrian physicist Paul Ehrenfest, who killed his son with Down syndrome before killing himself. (Labatut notes that among Ehrenfest's scholarly interests was turbulence.) The second and most substantive concerns Johnny von Neumann, a prodigiously brilliant Hungarian physicist and mathematician who worked on the Manhattan Project and spearheaded a host of developments in quantum mechanics and computing. The book's title refers to MANIAC, a successor to the pioneering computer ENIAC, though as von Neumann's broken relationships and decline become clear, the title becomes double-edged. The third section moves closer to the present day and concerns Lee Sedol, a Korean master of the notoriously challenging board game Go; in 2016 he was defeated by AlphaGo, an AI program, leaving him so devastated he retired from the game. In each section, but especially the latter two, Labatut elegantly captures the sense of geniuses outstripping the typical boundaries of intellectual achievement and paying a price for it. In Sedol's case, his matches with AlphaGo are characterized not simply as man-versus-machine battles, but a hint of what an AI-driven future might look like; they were "casting a new and terrible beauty, a logic more powerful than reason." Labatut can approach this with a certain optimism about the magic of unfettered genius. (Sections narrated by physicist Richard Feynman lighten the tone.) But the prevailing mood is dread; as Labatut tracks the ethical debates regarding the A-bomb and the impact of AlphaGo's triumph, he sounds a concern that humanity is engineering its undoing. Sharply written fiction ably capturing primitive emotions and boundary-breaking research.

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Starred review from July 1, 2023

Dutch-born Chilean novelist Labatut has created his own genre: fictionalized accounts of great minds in the history of science, whose genius drives them to madness. His New York Times best-booked When We Cease To Understand the World explored a group of real-life scientists and thinkers in the early 20th century, linking their work to singularity theory. His latest is told in the voices of 20th-century masterminds in mathematics, computing, quantum physics, and the development of the atom bomb. (MANIAC was the name of the computer at Los Alamos.) This group coalesces around the brilliant John von Neumann and includes David Hilbert, Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Nils Barricelli, and Klara Dan, von Neumann's second wife and one of the first computer programmers. The scientists' lives are rendered as tragedy, but quick Google searches reveal that Labatut's narrative is largely factual. Labatut's novel charts the sweep of modern computing, from its first inklings in punched cards used in jacquard textile looms, all the way to dramatic confrontations between artificial intelligence and acclaimed masters of chess and Go. VERDICT Labatut's prose is lucid and compelling, drawing readers on a frightening but fascinating journey; even the most right-brained among them will gain insight into the power and potential dangers of AI. Highly recommended.--Reba Leiding

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Starred review from September 1, 2023
As he did with When We Cease to Understand the World (2020), which was shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize, Labatut describes his latest work as "fiction based on fact." The novel is based on real-life figures, offering wide-ranging and varied perspectives on the Hungarian American mathematician and polymath John (Johnny) von Neumann. Various characters reflect on their experiences with Johnny, including his wives, his daughter, and his friends and colleagues. Compiling these many viewpoints, readers mold their own impression of Johnny, linking his idiosyncrasies and inner turmoil, his genius and impact. Richard Feynman reports that while working on the Manhattan Project, Johnny and colleagues would play the ancient game of Go. Computer engineer Julian Bigelow remembers partnering with Johnny to develop one of the first computers, the MANIAC (Mathematical Analyzer Numerical Integrator and Computer). Biologist Sydney Brenner says that Johnny, prophesying our formidable technological destiny, wrote a paper on the concept of "self-replicating machines." The novel shifts to the more recent past and games between Go master Lee Sedol and the Go-playing computer program, AlphaGo. Labatut's unique framing of John von Neumann's brilliance and his descriptions of the transcendent power of computers and AI create a disturbing, awe-inspiring, and inevitable vision, one foreseen by von Neumann, of an ominous future dominated by near-infinite technological possibilities.

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