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Triggernometry

(Triggernometry #1)

Stark Holborn (Goodreads Author)

3.79 · Rating details · 67 ratings · 20 reviews

Triggernometry is a brand-new novella from Nunslinger author Stark Holborn, mixing the grit of the west with a cast of mathematicians from across history to create a truly unique and unforgettable western adventure.

“I hereby arrest the fugitive “Mad” Malago Browne for murder, arson, robbery and acts of pernicious arithmetic against the Capitol States. Also the fugitive Pie ...more

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Kindle Edition, 56 pages

Published April 8th 2020 by Rattleback Books

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Apr 10, 2020 imyril rated it really liked it

Delightful - I desperately hope this is the pilot episode of a series I can enjoy for yonks. Acts of pernicious arithmetic in a Wild West setting are exactly the joy you expect. Would love to read more adventures of Browne and her gang of mathmos.

Full review

I received a free copy from the author in exchange for an honest review. ...more

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Apr 08, 2021 Para (wanderer) rated it really liked it

Shelves: western, 4-stars, read-in-english, novella

I’ve been looking for decent weird westerns for a while, to not much success – a lot of what little I could find either couldn’t hold my attention or didn’t have the flavour and atmosphere I was looking for, and I haven’t even made it halfway down my list before I inevitably got distracted and put my “hunt down SFF westerns” project aside. Until now, I suppose, when my mood reading led me to try this. And it’s one of the best (if not the best) I found so far, enough that I got the second novella I’ve been looking for decent weird westerns for a while, to not much success – a lot of what little I could find either couldn’t hold my attention or didn’t have the flavour and atmosphere I was looking for, and I haven’t even made it halfway down my list before I inevitably got distracted and put my “hunt down SFF westerns” project aside. Until now, I suppose, when my mood reading led me to try this. And it’s one of the best (if not the best) I found so far, enough that I got the second novella while I was still reading the first. A rare thing.

With unique worldbuilding, fast pacing, great writing, and a fantastic concept, it’s easy to recommend. And of course, it’s a shitload of fun.

A traitor, the body. Over the years, I had trained my mind and trained it hard. But every time I fired the rifle, or thought about it, my body remained. My body remembered the death that I had dealt.

Set in an alternate wild west where mathematicians are persecuted and their abilities make them fantastic at shooting, the story follows Mad Malago Browne. A wanted outlaw and one of the most infamous mathematicians in the west, she tries to settle for a quiet life and fails repeatedly as her past and notoriety find her.

The worldbuilding is the main selling point of this novella series and with good reason – wild west featuring mathematician outlaws? It’s certainly a memorable concept, and it’s done incredibly well. I’m not much for math (despite my odd fondness for discrete), I’m sure there are plenty of equation and other mathematical in-jokes in chapter titles and elsewhere I simply couldn’t catch, but regardless, it was an absolute delight.

And most of all, it’s short and fast-paced and a riot to read. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for any potential sequels.

Enjoyment: 4.5/5
Execution: 4.5/5

Recommended to: fans of westerns, math nerds, those looking for a short, fun read
Not recommended to: hmm…can’t think of any obvious deal-breakers

More reviews on my blog, To Other Worlds. ...more

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Apr 14, 2020 Daniel Polansky added it

Shelves: fiction

Fair warning, Stark and I are old friends, but this brief story of a mythical west where mathematics have been outlawed and rogue academics rob trains was thoroughly enjoyable and well worth a few hours of your time. Lots of fun.

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Apr 05, 2020 Runalong rated it it was amazing

A great fast paced tale of an alternate Wild West where mathematicians are the outlaws - professor Malago Browne agrees to one last heist but can she trust her new employer? Excellent fun

Full review - https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/bl... ...more

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Apr 02, 2020 James Latimer rated it it was amazing

Shelves: women

"Punchy, action-packed, and embraces the central gag with winning sincerity."

Full review at The Fantasy Hive:
https://t.co/94hh2ftmxO ...more

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Apr 08, 2021 Justin rated it really liked it

Gun-slinging mathematicians in an alternate history Wild West shouldn’t work, right? Right? Well, I am here to tell you that it, in fact, does because that’s exactly what we have in Stark Holborn’s two Triggernometry novellas and somehow she manages to make math look cool.

Mathmo, he had daubed across my house. But it might as well have been Monster.

Like I mentioned before, the Triggernometry novellas are set in an alternate history Wild West where mathematics have been outlawed and the former pr Gun-slinging mathematicians in an alternate history Wild West shouldn’t work, right? Right? Well, I am here to tell you that it, in fact, does because that’s exactly what we have in Stark Holborn’s two Triggernometry novellas and somehow she manages to make math look cool.

Mathmo, he had daubed across my house. But it might as well have been Monster.

Like I mentioned before, the Triggernometry novellas are set in an alternate history Wild West where mathematics have been outlawed and the former professors and students of it have turned to a new field, triggernometry. All of the Mathmos, as they’re colloquially known, have either been rounded up and imprisoned, forced to work for the government, or they have become outlaws. Since math has been declared illegal, money is no longer commonly used, with people bartering in handfuls of beans or other sundries. It’s a bleak world and one that oddly parallels some of today’s ignorance surrounding the validity of science.

Both novellas follow ‘Mad’ Malago Browne, a former geometry professor turned mathmo turned station clerk. Browne has somewhat of a legendary reputation, having been an outlaw since the laws banning mathematics were put in place, and it’s really fun to see how others react to her upon learning who she is. At the beginning of Triggernometry, Browne has left the life of a Mathmo behind and settled down to a quiet life. All of that is shattered, however, when an old acquaintance shows up and forces Browne to come back for one more job. The character interactions are all richly written and the tension between Browne and Fermat, her old accomplice, are expertly handled. The plot could be pulled straight out of the best spaghetti westerns. Well, except that you’d need to season them with a dash of math. Advanced Triggernometry sees Browne back in the proverbial saddle yet again. Most of the supporting cast are made up of famous mathematicians from all throughout history, from Pierre de Fermat, a French mathematician credited with creating the basis for calculus, and Emmy Noether, a German algebraist, to Charles Reason, the first black college professor in the US, and Wang Zhenyi, a Qing Dynasty Chinese astronomer and mathematician. It was exciting for me to look up these characters and see all of the accomplishments of their real world inspirations. I will say that most (all) of the math in here went completely over my head, but this didn’t affect my enjoyment.

I took out the protractor. ‘Let X be a random variable with a finite number of finite outcomes,’ I murmured, and looked up. ‘Let them try to stop us.’

There’s something so absurdly cool about protector-wielding mathematician working out the appropriate angle at which to fire her gun in order to take out a room full of enemies with a single shot. The novellas take their namesake from the in-world martial art of triggernometry. Basically, think of gun fu taken to the extreme, where split second mathematical calculations tell the practitioner the exact angles at which to fire based on any number of factors (gun caliber, bullet velocity, weather conditions, etc.) Add to this all of the other ‘tools’ Mathmos use, such as the sword-like sharpened rulers, and you have some very over the top, yet still very exciting, action.

My only complaint is the lack of real character development and worldbuilding. Sure, we know that math is illegal and all, but it’s never expounded upon past that point. I want to know more! I want to know what happened and how we got where we are at this point in the story. I don’t know if this is the fault of the format or just the relentlessly fast pace that the books kept up, but there were several times where I was so frustrated because it seemed as if some substantial character development/worldbuilding was about to happen only for something to get in the way. The story is never given the opportunity to breathe, with one event happening on the heels of the one before it. I think that given the space she could craft a hell of tale because she was able to do so much here with so little (both novellas combined are only a hair over 100 pages).

‘What’s it called,’ she murmured, ‘when you know something is true?’
I met her eyes. ‘In mathematics, it’s called law.’

Overall, I really enjoyed my time with Triggernometry and its sequel Advanced Triggernometry. While I was ultimately a bit frustrated with the lack of character development and worldbuilding, I think Holborn has managed to pack quite a lot into these two little novellas. The setting is unique and the action is ridiculously cool. I would be hard pressed to find a better way to spend an afternoon and I look forward to reading more of Holborn’s work in the future. ...more

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Apr 02, 2020 David Harris rated it it was amazing

I'm grateful to Stark Holborn for a free advance copy of Triggernometry to consider for review.

I knew Holborn as the author of Nunslinger, an excellent alt-Western which I reviewed here.

Now Holborn is back with a novel that packs the punch of an even alt-ier story. Again all the Western touchstones are there - the wilderness, the railroads as lifelines, Frontier (lack of) justice, the protagonist who wants to put the past behind - and the past that won't be so put.

But here there is an exotic spi I'm grateful to Stark Holborn for a free advance copy of Triggernometry to consider for review.

I knew Holborn as the author of Nunslinger, an excellent alt-Western which I reviewed here.

Now Holborn is back with a novel that packs the punch of an even alt-ier story. Again all the Western touchstones are there - the wilderness, the railroads as lifelines, Frontier (lack of) justice, the protagonist who wants to put the past behind - and the past that won't be so put.

But here there is an exotic spin to the whole thing. This is a world, or at least an America, where mathematics and mathematicians are reviled, feared. They are the despised "maths" with prices on their heads, sometimes tolerated - just - for useful skills but only if those skills can be cloaked in some polite fiction, or hawked at dead of night, which is where we meet "Mad” Malago Browne and her sidekick, Pierre Fermat. Holborn has fun throughout introducing figures from the history of maths and, in Emmy Noether, physics. She generally paints them as a crew of hard-drinking, ruthless desperadoes, albeit fallen due to persecution rather than intent.

Of course there's a shootout.

Of course there are desperate nighttime rides.

Of course there's a loyal hound called, simply, Dog.

The central conceit is maintained very well: just why might maths be seen as dangerous? Holborn makes you believe that those instrument sets, those methods and solutions, may, indeed, in the wrong hands, constitute threats. Browne is deadly when she can find an angle, and she and Fermat are a formidable team. All the more pity, then, they had a falling out all those years back...

In a world of rough mining camps, ranches, anarchists, bank raids and posses, it all seems to make a lot of sense. The drive of the narrative, combined with Browne's bitterness through most of the book and her bickering with "Ferm", carries the reader along magnificently. In a relatively short book that relationship is central and Holborn conveys it very well - yes that love-hate thing between a pair of outlaws is another classic Western trope yet Holborn makes it into something slightly different, adding a wistfulness at the mathematical life that has been lost: at one stage Ferm whoops in delight when employing a particular clever technique to solve a problem and the book has that sense of infectious fun throughout.

A great read, whether you speak maths or not - if you do you'll spot some in-jokes and references as well as understanding the chapter heading equations, if you don't you'll still enjoy this fun and gripping story.
...more

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Mar 27, 2021 Yariv rated it liked it

2.5 - Nice idea , OK execution

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Dec 29, 2020 Sammi rated it really liked it

So I picked this up because RJ Barker recommended it on a Reddit thread somewhere and I freaking love his stuff. And I really liked this! It was really unique and interesting and kind of absurdly funny. There's this one town the main characters go to called "Faculty" where all of the illegal mathematicians hide from the normal population, and the whole scene is just so ridiculous and over the top that you just can help but love it. As our hero rides into town ("eyeglasses flashed from the shadow ...more

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Mar 08, 2021 T.O. Munro rated it it was amazing

Having got an ARC of book 2 in the series, Advanced Triggernometry, I thought I'd better get up to speed with the basics of book 1. A short but enjoyable read, I'll put up a review of this opening volume along with the review of its sequel in due course on fantasy-Hive. ...more

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Apr 04, 2021 Doreen rated it really liked it

Shelves: whoa-the-author-sent-me-this

4/4/2021 3.5 stars rounded up. Full review tk at TheFrumiousConsortium.net.

4/7/2021 Mathemagics is totally my jam, so I honestly have no idea why I'd never heard of this series till the author messaged me about it! In this first novella of the series, "Mad" Malago Browne is one of the mathematicians outlawed by the Capitol, eking out a living doing illicit math jobs in the Western States. When she and partner Pierre "Polecat" Fermat are betrayed by someone they thought they were helping, Browne 4/4/2021 3.5 stars rounded up. Full review tk at TheFrumiousConsortium.net.

4/7/2021 Mathemagics is totally my jam, so I honestly have no idea why I'd never heard of this series till the author messaged me about it! In this first novella of the series, "Mad" Malago Browne is one of the mathematicians outlawed by the Capitol, eking out a living doing illicit math jobs in the Western States. When she and partner Pierre "Polecat" Fermat are betrayed by someone they thought they were helping, Browne swears off the outlaw life and goes into hiding as a simple railroad assistant in a small, out of the way town.

Fast forward five years and Fermat needs her for a big score that could give them enough money to flee the country and live unbothered across the border in Mexico. Browne is reluctant to give up her quiet life but, when forced to abandon it, resentfully joins Fermat as he puts together a crew. Betrayals, hijinks and acts of derring-do -- usually involving a set of mathematical tools -- ensue.

A lot happens in this novella's 50-odd pages, and I was panting to read more by the end of it. While a large part of this was due to how exciting the story had been, I also found myself wishing that more of the setting had been filled out. I know mathematicians had been outlawed by the Capitol States in this universe but I wanted to know why this version of the United States, a capitalist mecca going centuries back, would so violently repudiate math and therefore the means to economic and scientific dominion. And why, if Mexico was more accommodating to mathematicians, it hadn't invited them all over and used their skills to overpower its determinedly ignorant northern neighbor. I really dug all the mathemagical fighting otherwise, so I'm very much hoping more of the setting is explored in the follow-up, due out tomorrow!

Oh, and while I loved the reference to, I'm assuming, Marjorie Lee Browne, I rather wish Malago was more explicitly presented as a Black woman. Philip Harris' cover art, with its Art Noveau stylings, is gorgeous, but I would never have guessed from it that Browne is anything but a white woman. And while I know that part of the fantasy of this Weird West setting is the bringing together of mathematicians from many different times and places, changing Browne's race just seems unnecessary and gross, which I'm pretty sure is not what Stark Holborn is about!

Triggernometry by Stark Holborn was published April 8th 2020 by Rattleback Books and is available from all good booksellers, including Amazon! ...more

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Nov 29, 2020 Elise T. rated it liked it

Picked up Triggernometry 100% because of the premise (plus I had a few digital credits to use). It was super fun- easily read in one sitting and quite engrossing. It is extremely difficult if not impossible to build up a new world within 62 pages, but the author did a pretty good job.
Set in an alternate reality wild west, mathematicians are the world's "bad guys", and the book is told from the point of view of a former professor. The first fight scene caught me by surprise, as I didn't know muc ...more

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Aug 09, 2020 Justus rated it it was ok

This short novella is about a "West than never was". Math has been outlawed. Bandit geometrists rob trains.

...and that's kind of it. Once you past the "what if they outlawed math!" -- which admittedly is charming in the novella's setup -- part there's just not a lot here that isn't tried and true "old & semi-retired outlaws get together for one last score" that you've probably read & watched 50 times before in various media and this doesn't do anything especially new or noteworthy with it. ...more

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Nov 30, 2020 Japunkt rated it liked it

A western with math in-jokes. I think I would have liked this better if I were into westerns or remembered more math. I also have a lot of difficulty with making the conceptual leap from “mathematics is integral in any actions we take” to “mathematics is so powerful that any knowledge of it is tantamount to a superpower and can turn you into a powerful gunslinger”, but that could just be me.

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Sep 07, 2020 Rags rated it it was ok

The writing is good but it reads like an extended anecdote that really doesn't go anywhere. It has the feel of a teaser chapter from a later book that the author is planning to write. At the moment, there is nothing here that makes us understand anything about the protagonists. Still the premise is interesting. ...more

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Aug 04, 2020 Emilia rated it really liked it

Absolute value!

Great fun , though I felt my lack of math history. Enjoy the algebraic romp around an old west that never was calculated.

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Mar 23, 2021 Alex Jones rated it really liked it

There is so much to enjoy in this short novella by Stark Holborn!

This western tale of a world of renegades and vigilantes, where mathematicians and money are banned, trading is how they live is pure escapism and just what I needed right now.

Fast Paced, thrills , guns and robbery’s. I loved every thing about this quick and quirky story.

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Dec 15, 2020 Ellen rated it liked it

Shelves: character, setting

It’s a western, and the mathematicians are outlaws. Set squares feature in surprising ways.

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Aug 08, 2020 John May rated it really liked it

Shelves: western, historial-fantasy, novelette

This was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it. Although the math references were more early undergraduate when I was hoping for more late undergraduate / graduate math.

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Aug 24, 2020 Molly rated it liked it

Good Concept Wanted a Little More

I chose 3 stars because I enjoyed the story and the concept of a world where math was illegal. I just didn’t feel like it was surprising in any way. The writing was good and I connected with the characters quickly.

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