Rope  -- Answer: FLATLAND -- By Meredith McClurg

The points in this graph lie on a 5x5 grid. Once you make the leap that 5x5 = 25 which is almost 26, you can fill in each grid entry with a letter A-Y in order.

A B C D E
F G H I J
K L M N O
P Q R S T
U V W X Y

Each dot represents one use of a given letter; the "targets" each add the number of rings they contain to the one use denoted by the dot.  Thus we have 2 As, 4 Bs, 6 Os, 3 Ts, and a variety of singleton letters.

Following each set of colored lines in turn, we construct words.  You must make choices along the way as to how many of each letter to use, and for some lines, which dots to skip.  While the lines for each set of words overlap each other from first to last (blue/yellow/orange/black), the simplest word to decode is the orange line, which does not incorporate any duplicate letters and thus does not require that you have interpreted the "targets," nor are there any skipped dots. 

The black line is particularly difficult to traverse, because some of its lines coincide and you must skip some dots and save them for later. However, once you have the first three lines' words, you can plug the leftover letters into an anagram engine if you get stuck.

Blue: Abbott

Yellow: Book

Orange: About

Black: Polygons

The [Edwin] Abbott book about polygons is FLATLAND.

 

Hints

  1. What system do the dots describe?
  2. Focus on the orange line first.