The robot I hired to randomly resequence the events in my book 8x10 proved smarter than I thought, contracting the job to artist Stan Douglas. Last night I received Stan's RANDomized resequence, which I handed over to BookRiff's Julie Morris, who is in charge of 8x10's reassembly.

To clarify a couple things, each event in 8x10 is set off by a gridded box broken up into eight little boxes on the vertical axis, ten little boxes on the horizontal axis. The first event in the Doubleday version of 8x10 has the box in the top left-hand corner blacked out. The second event has the box directly below it blacked out. The third event, the box below that. Once you get to the eighth box, you go to the top of the next row and work your way down, etc.

Rather than work with gridded boxes for the resequencing, I decided to assign them lettered numbers instead. Thus, the first event in the Doubleday version -- the blacked out box in the top left-hand corner -- is referred to as 1A. Followed by 2A, 3A...until the book concludes with 8J.

Below is Stan's report:


Hi Michael

Mathematicians always start with the integer zero so I've renumbered the rows in your grid accordingly:

0 1A(0) X(1)  1C(2)  1D(3) 1E(4) 1F(5) 1G(6) 1H(7) X(8) 1J(9)

1 2A(0) 2B(1)  X(2)  2D(3) 2E(4) 2F(5) 2G(6) X(7) 2I(8) 2J(9)

2 3A(0) 3B(1)  3C(2)  X(3) 3E(4) 3F(5) X(6) 3H(7) 3I(8) 3J(9)

3 4A(0) 4B(1)  4C(2)  4D(3) X(4) X(5) 4G(6) 4H(7) 4I(8) 4J(9)

4 5A(0) 5B(1)  5C(2)  5D(3) X(4) X(5) 5G(6) 5H(7) 5I(8) 5J(9)

5 6A(0) 6B(1)  6C(2)  X(3) 6E(4) 6F(5) X(6) 6H(7) 6I(8) 6J(9)

6 7A(0) 7B(1)  X(2)  7D(3) 7E(4) 7F(5) 7G(6) X(7) 7I(8) 7J(9)

7 8A(0) X(1)  8C(2)  8D(3) 8E(4) 8F(5) 8G(6) 8H(7) X(8) 8J(9)


I then took the first ten sets of random integer rows:

00000 10097 32533 76520 13586 34673 54876 80959 09117 39292 74945

00001 37542 04805 64894 74296 24805 24037 20636 10402 00822 91665

00002 08422 68953 19645 09303 23209 02560 15953 34764 35080 33606

00003 99019 02529 09376 70715 38311 31165 88676 74397 04436 27659

00004 12807 99970 80157 36147 64032 36653 98951 16877 12171 76833

00005 66065 74717 34072 76850 36697 36170 65813 39885 11199 29170

00006 31060 10805 45571 82406 35303 42614 86799 07439 23403 09732

00007 85269 77602 02051 65692 68665 74818 73053 85247 18623 88579

00008 63573 32135 05325 47048 90553 57548 28468 28709 83491 25624

00009 73796 45753 03529 64778 35808 34282 60935 20344 35273 88435


And made selections from your grid using pairs of numbers from adjacent rows -- even numbers select the Y axis (0-7) and odd numbers select from the X axis (0-9). If there is no corresponding "chapter" I invert the pair so even=X and odd=Y, and if there is still no match I go to the next number pair. Which resulted in this:

2A(0) 1H(7) 1F(5) 5J(9) 8C(2) 4A(0) 3E(4) 6I(8) 1D(3) X(5)

8G(6) 7E(4) ----- 3J(9) 1E(4) X(7) X(4) 6C(2) ----- 7G(6)

4C(2) X(4) ----- 8D(3) X(7) 3I(8) 1A(0) 7J(9) X(3) -----

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- X(1) 1J(9) 2E(4) ----- 3H(7)

----- ----- ----- ----- 3C(2) 8J(9) 5B(1) ----- 5G(6) 6F(5)

----- ----- 5A(0) 3B(1) ----- 7A(0) ----- 6J(9) ----- 4J(9)

----- ----- 7D(3) 5H(7) X(6) 8A(0) ----- 4H(7) ----- -----

X(3) ----- 4I(8) ----- ----- ----- X(2) 6B(1) ------ 6A(0)

2I(8) ----- ----- 6H(7) 4G(6) ----- ----- ----- ----- 8E(4)

----- 6E(4) ----- ----- 1G(6) ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

----- X(6) X(8) ----- 8F(5) ----- ----- ----- X(1) -----

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- X(5) ----- -----

----- ----- -----  ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

-----  ----- ----- 2F(5) 4B(1) ----- ----- X(8) ----- -----

2B(1) ----- -----  ----- 2J(9) ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

----- ----- 1C(2) ----- ----- ----- ----- 7I(8) ----- 3F(5)

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- X(2)

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- 5C(2) ----- ----- 5I(8)

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

----- 4D(3) ----- ----- ----- 5D(3) ----- ----- ----- -----

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

----- ----- ----- ----- 2D(3) ----- ----- ----- ----- -----


At this point there were 5 chapters left over: 

1 2G(6)

2 3A(0)

6 7B(1) 7F(5)

7 8H(7)


But this is taking a long time so I cheat by making a new rule to select from the rows according to the appearance of numbers in the first row of integers:

00000 10097 32533 76520 13586 34673 54876 80959 09117 39292 74945


Selecting:

2G(6) 3A(0) 8H(7) 7B(1) 7F(5)


And yielding this sequence:

2A 1H 1F 5J 8C 4A 3E 6I 1D 8G 7E 3J 1E 6C 7G 4C 8D 3I 1A 7J 1J 2E 3H 3C 8J 5B 5G 6F 5A 3B 7A 6J 4J 7D 5H 8A 4H 4I 6B 6A 2I 6H 4G 8E 6E 1G 8F 2F 4B 2B 2J 1C 7I 3F 5C 5I 4D 5D 2D 2G 3A 8H 7B 7F

Random enough for you?

Bests

Stan