This marks the first time The Middleman Stories have appeared together.

I am terrible at math, but that did not stop me from trying to write a story for Rudy Rucker’s collection of math-inspired stories, Mathenauts. Rudy in general inspired me to write weirder, crazier stuff, to take more risks, and to have more fun while doing it.

The first Middleman story, “Love Comes to the Middleman,” was an attempt to put ordinary characters into a world that might have been designed by M.C. Escher.

The second, “Middleman’s Rent,” had less Escher in it, but more ordinary problems…and not math problems, either.

The third, “The Farmer on the Wall,” went far deeper into the weirdness than the first two had.

They form a trilogy only in the sense that there are three of them. There could easily have been more, I suppose. But to do more might have required actual aptitude at math.