This book is about math, about chess, about cryptography, about a lonely soul. Unfortunately, this book knows very little about math, about chess, or about cryptography. It is painfully obvious to an informed reader when Mai Jia is just - needlessly - making things up, when he is ill-informed about the subject matter.

This might not matter if the book offered psychological insights into the lonely soul. But it doesn't. It merely offers a slightly off-beat character who goes from one task to the next, repeatedly telling us "THIS GUY IS REALLY, REALLY SMART!" occasionally offering up non-sensical (in the context of the story) plot points.

It is unclear how much of this is due to the translation, and how much to the original author; but this version of the book is the one that I read. Quite a disappointment.