Murderous Maths
Murderous Maths is a series of British educational books by author Kjartan Poskitt. Most are illustrated by Philip Reeve who is also famed for writing his award winning Mortal Engines series. The MM books are also published and available in over 25 other countries including India now. The books teach maths, spanning from the simple (such as 1 + 1 = 2) to the complex (such as the quadratic formula). The books are written in a similar style to the Horrible Histories, Horrible Science and Horrible Geography in the informal manner the books are written in, involving evil geniuses, gangsters, love stories and smelly burgers.
Titles
The following are the books that are currently released in the series. These first two books do not cover any particular topics; rather, they were originally proposed to stand alone as an interesting read. The first two books were originally part of The Knowledge until a complete series was proposed.[1]
- Murderous Maths, or Murderous Maths Guaranteed to Bend Your Brain ISBN 0-439-01156-6
- More Murderous Maths, or Murderous Maths Guaranteed to Mash your Mind ISBN 0-439-01153-1
- The Essential Arithmetricks: How to + - × ÷, or Awesome Arithmetic, ISBN 0-439-01157-4
- The Mean & Vulgar Bits: Fractions and Averages, ISBN 0-439-01270-8
- Desperate Measures: Length, Area and Volume, ISBN 0-439-01370-4
- Do You Feel Lucky?: The Secrets of Probability, ISBN 0-439-99607-4
- Vicious Circles and Other Savage Shapes, ISBN 0-439-99747-X
- Numbers: The Key To The Universe, ISBN 0-439-98116-6
- The Phantom X: Algebra, ISBN 0-439-97729-0
- The Fiendish Angletron: Trigonomogeometry, ISBN 0-439-96859-3
- The Perfect Sausage and other Fundamental Formulas, ISBN 0-439-95901-2
- Codes: How to Make Them and Break Them, ISBN 0-439-94328-4
Three related puzzle books have been published as well:
- Professor Fiendish's Book of Diabolical Brain-benders, ISBN 0-439-98226-X
- Professor Fiendish's Book of Brain-benders (a smaller version of the above)
- Sudoku: 100 Fun Number Puzzles, ISBN 0-439-84570-X
- Kakuro and Other Fiendish Number Puzzles, ISBN 0-439-95164-X
Redesign
Similarly to the other main series in the horrible Histories Spin-off franchise, Murderous Maths has recently begun to redesign all their books, starting with the 2 first books in the series - Murderous Maths and More Murderous Maths (which were also renamed to break the association with the The Knowledge series). The Essential Arithmetricks: How to + - × ÷ has also recently been redesigned, also with a new title: Awesome Arithmetic. So far 4 books have been redesigned and rereleased, with the others expected soon.
Recurring characters
There are a number of recurring characters in the MM books. These include:
- Captain Cancel and his Valiant Vector Warriors
- Thag the Mathemagician
- Urgum the Axeman, Grizelda the Grisly, Hunjah and other barbarians
- Professor Fiendish and his pet pig, Truffles
- The Fogsworth family, including the Duchess, the Colonel, Auntie Crystal, Rodney Bounder, Primrose Poppet, Binky Smallbrains, Lord Binkiebott Marmalade Fogsworth and Croak the Butler
- Pongo McWhiffy, disgusting Hamburger seller, and Veronica Gumfloss, his crush
- Riverboat Lil and Brett Shuffler
- Sheerluck Homes (parody of Sherlock Holmes)
- The Boccellis (Blade, Paul 'Porky' and 'One Finger' Jimmy), the Gabriannis ('Weasel', 'Chainsaw' Charlie, 'Numbers' and 'Half-Smile') and Dolly Snowlips
- The Evil Gollarks (from the planet Zog)
- The Great Rhun of Jepatti, and his Ghinji
- Kumar in his curry restaurant, The Ravenous Rajah
- The Pure Mathematicians (Janet, Matt Kimpton and Tom Winch [the identity of the final pure Mathematician is unknown]. Apparently named after a real-world teacher and a pair of real-world pure mathematicians, respectively.)
- Luigi, in his restaurant (called Luigi's Diner), with Benni - the only place the gangsters go: they are the only customers for obvious reasons.
Spin-Offs
- Killer Puzzles (Written by Kjartan Poskitt)
The Urgum The Axeman series (by Kjartan Poskitt and Philip Reeve)