There are so many works of fiction in which science or scientists plays an important role that we have a literary genre devoted to them.  How many works of mathematical fiction can we think of?  I would only count works in which mathematics actually had something indispensible to do with the story line.  For instance, the movie The Mirror Has Two Faces is hardly mathematical fiction even though one of the two central characters is a mathematician, and even though one of their conversations mentions the theory of twin primes; he could just as well have been a linguist or an entomologist.

Reader Clive Dawson informed me of two anthologies, still in print, by Clifton Fadiman:  Fantasia Mathematica and The Mathematical Magpie, which are treasure-troves of mathematical fiction.  In my list below (under construction!) these are abbreviated as Fadiman, FM and Fadiman, MM.

I don’t know of very many of these stories -- we really should write some more! -- but the list could be a valuable resource to a teacher wanting to engage his students’ imaginations onto mathematical topics.  If anyone will submit suggestions, I’ll add them to this list with credits to you:

Short stories:

Asimov, Isaac.  "The Feeling of Power":  the value of simple calculation

Borges, Jorge Luis.  “The Library of Babel” (in Labyrinths):  A universe consisting of a vast library that contains all possible books...

Bova, Ben.  “A Slight Miscalculation” (in Cosmic Laughter, anthology ed. by Joe Haldeman)  A mathematician so “pure” he can’t see the most alarming practical implications of his work

Cabell, James Branch.  “Jurgen Proves it by Mathematics” (Fadiman, FM)  Tale written in the 20s; steamy, but all left to the reader’s imagination

Capek, Karel.  “The Death of Archimedes”  (Fadiman, FM)

Carroll, Lewis (pseud. Charles Dodgson). "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles", reprinted in Godel, Escher, Bach:  An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter:  A mathematical paradox presented in a story.
Carroll. "Mein Herr" (chapter VII of Sylvie and Bruno Concluded):  A tea-table conversation explains the Klein Bottle.

Gardner, Martin.  “The Island of Five Colors” (Fadiman, FM):  A topologist finds a real-life gegenbeispiel to the Four-Color Map Theorem!
Gardner.  "The No-Sided Professor" (Fadiman, FM):  A topologist discovers a surface even more remarkable than the Moebius strip:  one that has no sides.  One of the best exemplars of mathematical fiction.

Haldeman, Joe.  “I of Newton” (in Cosmic Laughter):  A comic tale in which a mathematician accidentally summons a demon, and uses mathematical logic to save his soul.

Heinlein, Robert.  "... And He Built a Crooked House" (Fadiman, FM):  Flaky but visionary architect (does he remind anyone of Buckminster Fuller?) accidentally builds a four-dimensional house.  Another of the best exemplars of the genre.

Huxley, Aldous.  “Young Archimedes” (Fadiman, FM)

Koestler, Arthur.  “Pythagoras and the Psychoanalyst” (Fadiman, FM)

Lasswitz, Kurd.  “The Universal Library” (Fadiman, FM)

Leacock, Stephen.  "A, B, and C -- The Human Element in Mathematics":  halfway between a story and an essay; a tongue-in-cheek discourse on old-style “story problems”

Llewellyn, Richard.  “Mother and the Decimal Point” (Fadiman, FM)

Maloney, Russell.  “Inflexible Logic” (Fadiman, FM):  Six chimpanzees at typewriters will eventually type out all the works in the British Museum, right? ...

Nearing, Jr., H.  “The Mathematical Voodoo” (Fadiman, FM)

Plato.  “Socrates and the Slave” (Fadiman, FM)  Are we born knowing all the mathematics that can be known?

Porges, Arthur.  “The Devil and Simon Flagg” (Fadiman, FM)

Thurber, James.  "The Figgerin' of Aunt Wilma":  the value of simple calculation, told by a master humorist

Wells, H. G.  “Peter Learns Arithmetic” (Fadiman, FM)

Anthologies:

Fadiman, Clifton.  Fantasia Mathematica and The Mathematical Magpie.

Gardner, Martin.  The Magic Numbers of Dr. Matrix:  collection of columns on numerology and mathematical puzzles, presented in fictional settings

Novels:

Abbott, Edwin A.  Flatland:  Classic tale of life in a 2-dimensional universe

Burger, Dionys.  Sphereland:  A Fantasy about Curved Space and an Expanding Universe:  A sequel to the above, motivated by 20th century ideas about curved space

Hinton, Charles Howard.  An Episode of Flatland (London, 1907):  Mentioned in chapter 12 of Gardner’s The Unexpected Hanging; I haven’t seen it.  Apparently a sequel to Abbott’s Flatland , but Gardner says it is a full-length novel.  John Lawson writes me that “about 40 pages are excerpted in Speculations on the Fourth Dimension, Selected Writings of Charles H. Hinton, edited by Rudolf v.B. Rucker. It was published by Dover Publications, Inc. in 1980, ISBN 0-486-23916-0.”  Anyone know where I can get the complete book?

Tahan, Malba.  The Man Who Counted:  Fictional presentation of mathematical puzzles, history, philosophy, set in medieval Islam:  delightful read.

Questions, corrections, comments:  Send me e-mail at  markthom@flash.net