The Last Theorem

June 30, 2008
Grand Masters Pohl (Gateway
) and the late Clarke (1917–2008, best known for 2001
) collaborated on a can't-put-down adventure that focuses on their mutual strengths: high adventure, fun characters and hard science. Sometime in the near future, teenage Sri Lankan math prodigy Ranjit Subramanian manages to reconstruct and then publish Fermat's claimed proof of his famous last theorem. As Ranjit celebrates fame and fortune, the all-powerful aliens called Grand Galactics see the flash from early nuclear explosions and decide that humanity will have to be wiped out. When Earth's superpowers deploy a new, nonlethal way of handling renegade nations and humanity begins working on global peace and large-scale engineering projects, Ranjit and his family try to broker a truce with the destructive alien force, modeling human optimism through rationality and science. Long passages of math tricks and intrusive narration mar an otherwise enjoyable tale of the struggle between reason and fear.

August 1, 2008
The collaboration of two such eminent sf writers as Clarke and Pohl being a rare thing, perhaps its no surprise that the result is really two stories: one about a Sri Lankan mathematician (Clarke lived in Sri Lanka) who proves a rather alarming theorem; the other about something yet more alarming, invasion by grand galactic aliens. The mathematician is regarded as heretical or at least a security risk by a broad range of authorities that Clarke and Pohl depict with the satirical bite each has shown before. After the invasion threat becomes impossible to ignore, security worries must be muted because the theorem is also a potential point of agreement for the various faiths, factions, ideologies, and bureaucracies that have hitherto been squabbling like tomcats on a fence. Pacing is slow at times some readers may recall the similar effect of physicist C. P. Snows mainstream novels about scientists confronting puzzles and follies but accelerates as the aliens approach. In the end, the readers will have a most respectable swan song for two authentic giants.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, cop