Rating: 
Summary: should have handed his ideas to a better writer
Review: A strange book. Chock full of interesting information but hard to read.
After reading, rereading much of the book, my feeling is this book needs an editor. Oh after one fights the poor puns, the `creative' spellings and the curse of an author who seems to want the reader to discover everything the author knows ... and do it `right now' ... the information's all there if ones willing to use `nitogyrcin' to free it up.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed - it left me flat
Review: I enjoyed Flatland and Sphereland, so I received this book as a gift. It will be for sale, in mint condition, momentarily. The second half of the book will remain unseen by me, because I simply could not bring myself to continue.Flatland was interesting and entertaining both mathematically and for its social satire. Sphereland was also interesting and entertaining. But Flatterland tries too hard. In the inroduction the author says he had the idea for explaining multiple dimensions using a similar approach to the earlier books, and then developed those ideas into this book. Sounds like a good idea, but the book lacks the wit to keep it interesting. And in some places lacks adequate explanations of concepts. I can imagine that somoene already familar with the concepts and enamored of the topic might think the author did a clever job of explaining someting that they have had difficulty explaining themselves. But, for someone who doesn't work in the field and hasn't had the challenges of explaining the concepts this book is nether fascinating nor interesting and only sometimes achieves the goal of explaining. It is mostly boring, although the introduction is interesting and explains a possible satirical reference to the origin of A. Square's name that would have probably eluded anyone not from London. On page 32 there is the assertion that a cube of side 1.06 can fit through a cube of side 1. There is an illustration to demonstrate that. The illustration is not clear and I believe it has errors in it. Unfortunately there is no information to find other sources that explain this obscure factoid. On page 72, in the chapter explaining fractals he makes the assertion that if you take one segment of a snowflake and fit together four copies you will have an area three times the size. This turns out to be an important assertion for his example, but it sure ins't obvious and there is no explanation of why that assertion might be true. But, by now these comments are probably as boring and of diminishing interest as the book itself. You and I both have better ways to spend our time.
Rating: 
Summary: Good teaching tool
Review: I've used Flatland and Sphereland in my High School Pre-Calculus class. They're both entertaining books, but also ones that are a bit elementary for the class. I would say they are written for entertainment first, enlightenment second. Flatterland is NOT the same type of book. I have never been an Ian Stewart fan, but I do like this book. While the first two books are easy enough for a 7th grade student to understand, the topics in this book will require most high school students to be walked through the material. It's not an easy read. I will use this book with some of my students in the future, but only those that enjoy a challenge. It's true that the book tries to cover too much, but I think you should view it as a survey of modern mathematics. In my opinion, this is some of the best writing I've seen from Stewart, but definitely not up to the literary level set by Flatland and Sphereland.
Rating: 
Summary: A good sequel to Flatland
Review: In Flatterland, Vicki Line, the granddaughter of the adventurer in Flatland, is taken by a multidimensional being named Space Hopper to visit various mathematical places. Vicki and the reader is given a guided tour of modern mathematics and physics. She is educated in noneuclidean geometry, fractals, topology, and other topics of mathematics. In physics, she learns about relativity, cosmology, and quantum theory. In each realm, Vicki meets and converses with its inhabitants. These inhabitants possess the characteristics of their realm and, along with SpaceHopper, become Vicki's mentors to help her understand a particular branch of mathematics. I recommend this book to nonmathematicians. Some of the subjects are challenging but all the subjects are enjoyable to read. I did not give this book five stars because Stewart's inventive naming of dates is a distraction.
Rating: 
Summary: Flatterland, a remarkable sequel to a remarkable book.
Review: In this book agonizingly simple theories and bits of logic are spun into a web of mixed metaphors and frustrating wordplay that is tedious, confusing, incessant, and causes the reader to fixate and break his or her reading 'stride' every other sentance to translate into "Planiturthian". Entire chapters are devoted to simple mathmatical theories I recall from high-school algebra, which could be described to conclusion over the course of a brief paragraph (such as tacking an extra dimension onto a geometrical equation). After reading the first paragraph of any section and translating all the gibberish, your mind will leap to the logical conclusion about seven pages before the author does. This book offers little educational or entertaining rewards. Reading it is more of a test of determination.
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Summary: wkrc rubbery red critters
Review: see the Canadian review or amazon. Spaceland Ruby
"rubbery red critters"
spotter109
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Rating:
Summary: Unimaginative and nowhere near Flatland
Review: The book advertised as a sequel to Flatland but lacks everything Flatland has. There is basically no plot, except some bare bone stuff to lead from one explanation of dimensional concepts to the next (what is intended to hold the semi-essays together is Vikkie Line a grand-grand-child of Abotts A.Sphere from Flatland ... Vikkie emerges into Spaceland and meets Space-Hopper who explains things line n-dimensions or n-fractional dimensions, etc.) The explanations are bit like essays, their style somewhere between childlike and the stuff you read in mass market science magazines. Now and then the auther manages some invent some witty and funny play of words, especially when it comes to the characters, so you can't help but smile in a couple of places. So the book may be ok if you are not from a technical profession and looking some easy to read math and science articles, e.g. to read a chapter on the bus each day, and if you do not expect any useful plot. But nontheless, the book comes nowhere near Flatland. Compared to that it makes the impression of just having been stiched togeteher from a couple of magazine essays.
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Summary: A Pleasing Guided Tour to Higher Dimensions
Review: The heroine Vikki Line is a great-great-granddaughter of the narrator A. Square of Edwin Abbott's classic book, "Flatland." The teenaged Flatlander heroine goes to a tour to higher dimensional worlds guided by a Space Hopper. She visits the Fractal Forest, Topologica, Platterland, Cat Country, the Domain of Hawk King, etc., and learns, together with the reader, about many concepts of modern mathematics and physics. The author Ian Stewart, a winner of the Royal Society's Michael Faraday Medal for furthering the public understanding of science, writes the story in the style of "Alice in Wonderland" by using enjoyable wordplay and putting exotic and cute creatures he invented to familiarize the difficult concepts. Some topics are treated in a manner to give the reader good understanding, but others are described only superficially. There are simple errors in giving a number for fractal dimension and describing the behavior of the decoherence time. (I leave it to the reader as exercises to spot them.) The author explains the particle nature of the photon by the uncommon use of the process of electron-impact photon emission, while the orthodox explanation uses the inverse process, i.e., the photoelectric effect. In spite of these minor defects, this is a joyous read for holidays. The heroine is depicted as such a clever, adventurous and charming linear being (near the end of the story she comes to know that she is something superior to a line) that I think how I would have been happy if I had had a girlfriend like her in my youth. Her guide and tutor, the Space Hopper, often shows a big grin, reminding us of the popular physicist and good lecturer Richard Feynman. In the short last chapter, the reader feels it important that more of us, "Planiturthians," become aware of the possible ten-dimensional reality of our physical universe, which Vikki learned at the final stage of her tour. Thus, I would like to recommend this book to every curious mind.
Rating:
Summary: Good teaching tool
Review: This book is a sequel to Edwin Abbott's "Flatland" and makes its heroine a granddaughter of the hero of Abbott's book. Some people may find his playing with words excessive (his heroine is named "Victoria Line," combining the fact that she is literally a geometric "line" with the name of a subway line in London) but the book manages to cover a lot of territory in an amusing manner. I can't say I _learned_ a lot from the book, because I already knew most of its subject matter, but I'd certainly encourage someone who wanted to learn about curved spaces and higher dimensions to read it. The ultimate accolade: _After_ I had read it from cover to cover, I bought a copy, just so I'd have it in my own library.
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Summary: Flatterland, a remarkable sequel to a remarkable book.
Review: When I first read Flatland (the original) I was deeply inspired and fasinated by the 4th dimensional ideas it brought up. When I picked up a copy of Flatterland, I had hoped for an interesting read with maybe a few new concepts at best, but I certainly got more than I bargained for. Flatterland takes you on a journey through much more than just the 4th dimension (which is interesting enough already.) He takes you through non-Eucludean dimensions, the world of 1.25 dimensions, theoretical dimensions, and even a world of infinite dimension. Ian Stewart brilliantly plays on words and makes you laugh at every step of the way. The ideas brought up are so fasinating and cutting edge, that it definately deserves more than one reading, and better still, they are explained in detail so that even the most complex concepts are easily understood. This book is clever, amusing, and perhaps even brilliant. I highly recommend it.
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