The book is a Physicist's exploration of two very polar opposites in the spectrum of Mathematics and yet their very similar duality of academic brilliance and worldly ignorance. On the one hand is Goedel who hammered at the very extreme edges of Mathematics and came up with the very definition of its walls, and yet he was plagued by hypochondria and paranoia. On the other is Turing who defended the world against fascism and fathered much of the modern computer's design and theory, and yet was socially inept and homosexual in an era that was hostile to such.
The book was a bit hard for me to read because I sympathize so much with the plights of the great men of the book, both for the giant quests for knowledge and the mortally human weaknesses and diseases.
The book is a work of fiction, but is never far from the little truths that make up history books...