|
News
Check the web page for The Expeditions for current news.
Recent News:
Karl's essay "Equations and Lies"
has been published in NASA's ASK magazine.
Karl's essay "The Inhuman Face"
is currently posted on MSN's Open for Design.
The French rights to The Expeditions and
On the Nature... have been acquired by Albin Michel.
Karl's new novel is finished! It will be
published by the Dial Press on January 15, 2008. The title is The Expeditions.
Karl's writing and research has been profiled
on PBS's Nova ScienceNow. Click here for more details.
The feature film version of "On the Nature..."
is in development with Warner Brothers Pictures, with Plan B Entertainment and Heydey Films producing.
Karl's essay on "roboethics"
has been posted on MSN's Open for Design.
Karl's essay "William Bartram's Curse"
has been published in Issue 3 of Swink.
Karl's story "The Upgrade"
has been published on Nerve.com
The Korean rights to "On the Nature..."
have been acquired by Chaeksesang.
The Italian rights to "On the Nature..."
have been acquired by Baldini & Castoldi.
A feature on Karl's fiction, including his story
"Zilkowski's Theorem," has been published in Golestaneh: Iranian Cultural and Arts Monthly.
The paperback
version of On the Nature... has been reissued by the Dial Press.
Karl's story, "Robots of the World, Unite!," which
was first published on Nerve.com, has been reprinted in The Best American Erotica 2005.
The paperback
version of On the Nature... was published by Delta on June 29.
Karl was selected
to receive a 2004 fiction grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Karl was selected
by SEED magazine as one of 16 people who "redefined science in 2003" (in their Fall issue).
American Scientist
has an interview with Karl about On the Nature.... Read it here.
IdentityTheory.com
has an interview with Karl (by Robert Birnbaum) about On the Nature..., among many other things. Read it here.
On
the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction has been selected for the Barnes and Noble Discover Great
New Writers Series.
On the Nature...
was a Book Sense 76 pick for May/June.
On the Nature...
was featured on NPR's "Here and Now" as part of a segment on historical fiction (June 2). Listen here.
Karl was
interviewed on The Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC (June 2). Listen here.
The Boston
Phoenix (May 15 Issue) has an interview with Karl about writing, robots, etc. Read it here.
Hour
Detroit (May Issue) has a brief feature about On the Nature...
Milenio
Semanal (Mexico, May 19 Issue) has a feature about Karl and On the Nature...
Karl appeared
on Cambridge's Free Transfer to talk about books, robots, MIT, etc.
Reviews
Between
the logical mind and the heart's mysteries
Faith,
to the scientist, is a necessary evil. He or she must believe in the possibility of
hope--in the provable hypothesis, the laboratory experiment, the research path toward
enlightenment--and yet believe, more fully, in the supremacy of empirical data...
Karl Iagnemma, who works as a research scientist in robotics at MIT, has a striking
grasp of this paradox, and his perspicacity infuses the stories in his debut collection.
...[He] has the good sense and lightness of touch to render the rapture of science--and
to know when its human parameters matter even more.
–Gail Caldwell, Boston Globe
A rarity:
Mature voice, distinct style in 1st fiction volume
On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction,
a first collection of stories, brings a sure-handed empirical discipline
to both sentences and the exacting sentience of the experimental mind, often
rattled by what it can't control. ...That mature voice, distinctive style
and broad perspective helps Iagnemma shape the refreshing imaginative
territory he explores.
...In "Kingdom,
Order, Species," Kaye Lindermann praises her hero J. Poole's "admixture of
whimsy and precision." If she could look at the writer pulling her strings,
she'd find he's pretty good at that interaction himself.
Read the entire review.
–Carlin Romano, The Philadelphia
Inquirer
...With
its sudden shifts from quotidian to fantastical, with its airy flirtations with life and
death and with a cast of characters who spend their time in the company of circles,
ellipses and conic sections, Iagnemma's fiction can make even the most ardent math-hater
appreciate the parabolic nature of life's ups and downs.
–Mark Rozzo, LA Times
Iagnemma, who works as a research scientist at MIT, is clearly aware of various scientific
investigations into the nature of atomic particles; ethnological surveys of “primitive” societies;
the workings of digestive systems; the nineteenth-century explorations of the brain. He recognizes
that although science and pseudoscience try to chart underlying forces that govern existence,
they cannot really achieve knowledge of human interaction....
Read the entire review.
–Irving Malin, Review of Contemporary Fiction
Iagnemma is a research scientist who specializes in robotics as well as being a
talented and fascinating fiction writer. Among his many strengths is an ability to present
a variety of worlds, with sheer authority and authenticity, most of which are underrepresented
in contemporary fiction.
... The generosity of Iagnemma's intelligence offers readers something new in short fiction.
These rich and varied stories form an outstanding collection.
Read the entire review.
–Sharon Dilworth, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The first thought that comes to mind after reading Karl Iagnemma's brilliant debut collection
of short stories, "On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction," is, "How can an author who spends his
professional life studying robotics at MIT know so much about love?"
... Altogether, the stories are full of ardor and introspection, a marvelous combination that could
completely ruin a less artful author, let alone a newbie, but it provides Iagnemma a perfect method for
crafting his unabashedly intellectual yet wonderfully human stories.
Read the entire review.
–Christine Newgard, The Daily Texan
The doubts and disappointments that plague the scientist characters in
Iagnemma's debut story collection, "On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction,"
make them vulnerable, flawed people, a deceptively simple literary device immediately
appealing to readers.
... The past, apparently, engages Iagnemma's wide-ranging interests as powerfully
as do science and failure. Fortunately, all these realms await further exploration
by a writer of admirable skill.
–Irene Wanner, Seattle Times
Formula
mixes scientific minds, restless hearts
...What sticks is Iagnemma's knack for the revelatory phrase; in a few words,
he can pin down a character. A prostitute has "breasts like a pair of stones dropped
in silk stockings." A librarian "smell[s] archival." A forester calls sex "impending
fieldwork." And how many will nod in agreement at mirrored aviator shades, "the international
symbol of jackasshood"?
Over 40 years ago, C.P. Snow gave his "two cultures" lecture at Cambridge, in
which he decried the gnawing chasm between science and literature. ...Iagnemma's hybridized
example suggests this engineer may build a bridge that will bring the two cultures
closer together.
Read the entire review.
–Ariel Gonzalez, Miami Herald
The
science of love
...In this off-beat, entertaining collection of stories, Iagnemma defies
the logic he must have gained on his way to becoming a robotics professor at
MIT. He uses math and science as poetic devices to show feeling, to cut through
the numbness that can overwhelm those caught in romantic entanglement.
In Iagnemma's fascinating world, which moves back and forth between past and
present, between melancholy and hope, mathematical formulas, geometric scribblings,
and even spine-worn forestry texts become lifelines for those drowning in the cold,
dark sea of love...
Read the entire review.
–Bruce Lowry, the Anniston Star
Karl Iagnemma,
a robotics researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, captures the doubt,
frustration, and tedium preceding any type of professional or emotional breakthrough in
his inspired debut short-story collection, On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction.
An engineer by training, Iagnemma uses scientific references, historical fiction, gallows
humor, and the deepest despair of academics to construct wonderfully original tales...
–Frank Diller, Baltimore City Paper
Scientists have unlocked the secrets of DNA and mapped the cosmos but have yet
to explain why or how we love. This failure is especially frustrating for the cast of
Karl Iagnemma's elegant debut story collection, On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction...
–John Freeman, Florida Sun-Sentinel
Karl Iagnemma, a robotics researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
skillfully blends science, history and the more nebulous world of heart and mind into
complex stories of love, fear and obsession.
...The beautifully realized inhabitants of this collection are disappointed in love, but
Iagnemma's rich, witty, insightful prose never disappoints the reader.
–Jean Blish Siers, Charlotte Observer
Iagnemma's characters do all the unpretty things people do in pursuit of
(or retreat from) love -- they lie, cheat, humiliate themselves, say cruel things and are overcome
with remorse. They can't seem to get it right, but their creator records the nature of their
romantic interactions with surprising tenderness.
–Julia Ridley Smith, Raleigh News & Observer
What kind of short stories could a Massachusetts Institute of Technology
research scientist in robotics possibly write? The answer is very good ones...
Read the entire review.
–Shaazka Beyerle, Washington Times
Iagnemma's
characters are mostly scientists, authors of flawless proofs and
theorems--but hopelessly confounded by love. ...Fortunately, Iagnemma, a
robotics researcher at MIT, is more adept at weaving marvelous,
comic accounts of romance than his characters are at finding it. Grade: A.
...Spellbinding
collection of
short stories from Iagnemma, a roboticist and fiction writer at MIT.
Iagnemma evokes raw emotions as his characters reconcile their reliance on
scientific facts with their need for the intangible, transient qualities of
love.
–Maia Weinstock, Discover
These
eight stories are a testament to Iagnemma's boundless gifts and imagination for detail and language...
–Kera Bolonik, The Journal News
In his fiction debut, Iagnemma delivers evocative, candid,
and occasionally savage stories of love and heartbreak
in university math and science departments. ...Iagnemma's first-person narrators
are terse, tight and ultimately devastating: They tell
of intellectuals who have mastered science, only to
find themselves very messy students of life.
The
meticulousness of science and mathematics is applied
to the mysteries of love in Iagnemma's debut collection,
which features eight complex, multilayered stories in
which protagonists try to balance the demands of the
heart against their need for rational, orderly thinking.
...
Elegant, witty and concise, Iagnemma's stories precisely
capture the hopelessly imprecise nature of love.
–Publisher's
Weekly
Strong
first collection from a robotics researcher at MIT who
knows, despite it all, that heart is every bit as important
as math. ...[Iagnemma] has the lonely man of
science down pat: "A scientist's life, he thought
miserably, was like a midnight walk through an unfamiliar
field, without a lantern, without even the moon's faint
glow for guidance." Meteoric, and still going up.
–Kirkus
Reviews (starred review)
Iagnemma,
a research scientist at MIT, is a rising star among
short story writers, having won both a Pushcart Prize
and a coveted spot in last year’s Best American
Short Stories. His debut collection explores the places
where faith, love, and science all intersect. ...These intelligent, quirky, and suspenseful
stories offer proof of Iagnemma’s stunning talent.
–Booklist
(starred review)
[Iagnemma]
seamlessly blends the lyrical and
the precise to create gemlike little portraits of individuals
who seem suddenly to have caught their “reflection[s]
in a cloudy mirror.” ...Iagnemma is pointed, but he isn’t merciless; his
empathy makes these characters live. A beautifully crafted
collection.
–Library
Journal
Early
praise for
On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction:
“Iagnemma's
desperate, comic, and determined heroes seek, with beautiful
futility, formulas for love, loss, history, religion,
and odd arts. Here are crackpots and lovelorn, bewildered
geniuses, sincerely seeking impossible truths. These
are wonderful stories, and Karl Iagnemma is one of our
very best young writers.”
–Brad
Watson
National Book Award finalist and author of The Heaven
of Mercury
”Karl
Iagnemma's stories are carefully written and beautifully
detailed in their investigations of people caught up
in the webs of science and history, and they dramatize,
with great precision, the traps that the mind and body
can sometimes stumble into. He is affectionate and severe
about his chosen territory, the Midwest: this is a fine
book.”
–Charles
Baxter
National Book Award finalist and author of The Feast
of Love
Click
Here for Karl
Iagnemma’s robotics-related webpage.
Also visit The
Expeditions.
©2003
Karl Iagnemma. Website designed by Chris
Costello.
|
