The Weight of Numbers

Winner of the O2 X Award

'Dynamic'-- Daily Telegraph

'Dazzling'-- Guardian

'Ambitious and virtuoso'-- Financial Times

'Unforgettable'-- The Times

'Ingenious... shimmering'-- New Statesman

On July 21, 1969 two astronauts set foot on the moon; far below, in ravaged Mozambique, a young revolutionary - hailed as the saviour of his country - is murdered by a package bomb.

From these two unconnected events, Simon Ings weaves a great and glittering web that entangles four lives: Anthony Burden, a mathematical genius destroyed by the beauty of numbers; Saul Cogan, transformed from prankster idealist to trafficker in the poor and dispossessed; and Stacey Chavez, ex-teenage celebrity and mediocre performance artist, hungry for fame and starved of love. All are haunted by Nick Jinks, a man who sows disaster wherever he treads.

As the twentieth century unravels, Burden, Cogan, Chavez and Jinks are powerless to escape the connections that bind them. This is not fate, but its opposite: the weight of numbers.



Simon Ings is a novelist (

Dead Water, 2011) and science writer (

The Eye, 2007). He lives in South London.



Dazzling, admirable narrative verve... It is unlikely there will be a finer written fiction this year



An ambitious, exciting novel.. unforgettable'



A dynamic, innovative, and compelling book that brings into focus some of the most interesting trends in contemporary fiction



Simon Ings' ambitiously genre-defying novel is a virtuoso display of imaginative plotting



Ings weaves an ingenious, shimmering web of contiguity and chance... a feat of meticulous plotting.



One of the most exciting - and relevant - books of the last year. Booker material, for sure.



A deceptively readable, dizzyingly constructed novel... Ing's mad, mad world is held together to the very last page by humour, vivid depictions and a deeply compelling emotional core