"The Pi Man" is a science fiction short story by American writer Alfred Bester. It was first published in Fantasy and Science Fiction , in 1959. Bester subsequently revised it extensively for his 1976 collection Star Light, Star Bright , changing the characters' names, "develop(ing) minor scenes", modifying the typographical "word pictures", and deleting several "stale references to beatnik culture". [1]
Peter Marko's superhuman abilities of pattern recognition have allowed him to make a fortune in forex arbitrage; however, they also compel him to balance out the behaviors of the rest of the world by constantly performing seemingly-random acts of good and evil. This draws him into conflict, first with his secretary, and then with the FBI.
"The Pi Man" was a finalist for the 1960 Hugo Award for Best Short Fiction. [2]
Kirkus Reviews considered it to be a "chilling masterpiece", [3] and John Hertz has lauded it as "coruscating, gripping, (and) strange". [4]
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction has posited that Marko's abilities were the basis for the similar abilities of the protagonist in Bester's 1981 novel The Deceivers , [5] while James Nicoll has noted that the story would work just as well if one assumes that Marko's "justifications for atrocity are insane delusions". [6]
David N. Samuelson, writing in Science Fiction Studies , analyzed the story as hard science fiction, and observed that it is based on "mathematical oddities" and "lacks a clear empirical base". [7]
"The Pi Man" title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database