I recently read your collection of mathematical fiction "Reality Conditions". Whilst there were several stories that were particularly good, one stood out for me: The Adventures of Topology Man. Not because I am a topologist nor because I know what category theory is. But I just loved the superhero dialogue

"Only a functor of evil, Homotopy!"

It cracked me up.

I'm looking forward to reading more Topology Man in your next collection!

Yes, I liked "Topology Man"... but I have received a heavy dosage of "superhero comics" and I enjoyed the way that you sent up the genre.

Reading through your email it occurred to me that "Topology Man" was different to the other stories, in that it offered an intriguing teaching idea. Now, I will never ever in my life teach a course in topology. But if I did... it would be interesting to give the students a copy of "Topology Man" at the start of the course. Then at appropriate times within the course refer back to the story to show how it illustrates the theorems. Then in the final assignment it might be fun to say "How could Topology Man use the following theorems to help fight crime?". With the right students you might even give them, as an assignment, the task of writing a new chapter in the life of "Topology Man". And once I am thinking along these lines, perhaps there are other mathematical superheroes writing to be discovered...

"The Adventures of Topology Man" is very interesting. When the definition of Hausdorff is mentioned in this story, the scene is quite funny and made a deep impression on me. Li-Chung

I'd love it if someone illustrated this! As with many of the stories in Reality Conditions this one is great. It takes mathematics we have all seen in the classroom and made jokes about in the office and weaves a story about it. I also liked the way it fit into the superhero genre. I'm a little new to that genre but have been working my way into it. I suppose another reason I'm partial to this story is that I'm studying algebraic topology myself and have always enjoyed the area. Anyways, funny story, great lines and a great way to illustrate how important it is for our space to be Hausdorff.

As a previous commenter observed, "only a functor of evil, Homotopy!" had me laughing out loud. And mind you, I find the shorthand "lol!" to be obnoxious in the extreme as it is untrue 99% of the time it is used. But I truly did laugh out loud.

"What's so funny?" the people on the subway asked.

"Topology."

"What's that?"

"The study of the properties of geometric figures or solids that are not changed by bicontinuous one-to-one transformations," I replied.

They let me return to my reading. Some of them moved to more distant seats.