Numbers rule our lives: clocks, calendars and deadlines; salaries and benefits; tax codes and pin numbers; mortgages, bills and credit limits; the FTSE and the Dow Jones; mobiles, land lines and pagers; binary strings of digitised information held for and about us, instantly accessible.

In this unique collection of 21 stories, some of the world's finest fictioneers examine the effect of numbers on humankind's past, present and future. From the rewriting of history through the thrill of the roulette wheel to the codes controlling the starships, each of these tales engages with numbers in innovative, entertaining and meaningful ways.

The Elastic Book of Numbers contains fiction by: Marion Arnott, Allen Ashley, Neil Ayres, Paul Evanby, Toiya Kristen Finley, Jeff Gardiner, Kay Green, Sam Hayes, Charles Lambert, Joel Lane, Tim Lees, Phil Locascio, Rosaleen Love, John Lucas, Mark Patrick Lynch, Ellen McAteer, Joy Marchand, Tim Nickels, Donald Pulker, E. Sedia, Eric Shapiro, Julian Todd, Neil Williamson. The Anthology is edited by Allen Ashley.

Excerpted from The Elastic Book of Numbers by Arnott Marion, Ayres Neil, Evanby Paul, Kristen Finley Tolya, Gardiner Jeff, Green Kay, Hayes Sam, Lambert Charles, Lane Joel, Lees Tim, Ashley Allen. Copyright © 2005. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
From "351073" by Jeff Gardiner: "I blame myself for her active and continuing interest in numerology. It stemmed from my discovery of her name and she convinced herself that her name was pre-ordained; somehow given to her by providence."

From "The Zero Worm" by Charles Lambert: "What Dougal loves is looking for sense in things that appear to possess no sense at all. He counts the steps between his front door and the bus stop, the number of letters in headlines and names. He dreams of codes. Each month he counts the number of nude mice to be slaughtered in the course of experiments he barely understands."

From "When We Were Five" by Marion Arnott: "I never have my photograph taken: I know the power of film. The other thing I never do is look at Valentina’s photos, because there’s no knowing what I’ll see. For example, there should be five people in the photo of the garden, but there aren’t always. The other pictures are full of her people, but they feel like mine and I don’t want to be drawn into their lives again."

• Fiction > Short Stories

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