Included here are chapters on Conway's surreal numbers, Mandelbrot's fractals, and Smuyllyan's logic puzzles, as well as puzzlers dealing with hyperbolas, negative numbers, pool-ball triangles, Penrose tiles, and trapdoor ciphers. And of course, you can read of the return of Dr. Irving Joshua Matrix (famed numerologist and CIA operative), one of Martin Gardner's oldest fictional friends.

Gardner considers himself a philosophical theist in the tradition of Plato, Kant, Pierre Bayle, Charles Peirce, William James and Miguel do Unamuno. He and his wife Charlotte live quietly in the mountains of Western North Carolina.