The Bookian » Rudy Rucker

Wetware

Bookian — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:12:17 +0000

Found this book in an alley. Signed up for a lower body transplant. Melted the top half. Walked around as a birdbath with legs for awhile. Tried to get brain back but the beaurocracy was terrible. What can one do? Wetware is one of the classics of the cyborg life. Just doesnt get any better. Thought it was particularly pertinent for the new millennium as the weapons of choice are now IEDs, which means there are a lotta people walking around part machine anyway. And the book is awesome in its treatment of those tiny aspects of the human that have to deal with the techno-integration aliens. Donna Haraways Cyborg manifesto with cool characters and the theory subsumed into plot of ultra-hip coolness. This book scores ten Zaphod Beeblebrox heads for ultra-coolness. Includes Mechanical Ego ring! – reviewed by blockhead five

Software

Bookian — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:08:17 +0000

The first in Ruckers Ware series, and the first book in which Ruckerbeing tips over the boundary of suspicion that he is not pure Meat, but part Machine bopper meat writing machine intelligence cyborgized into superconducting free will. The tactic of writing from the point of view of your flesh components in an effort to garner empathy is particularly hyperspatially valid. Although I preferred Wetware in terms of plotification, Software has a few more rough edges, which I enjoy more, particularly in the current environment of over formulaic literature. If youve got to use a formula, at least use some recursive computability, please! The endless linearity of the majority of formula driven plottings must have some role in the higher order of overall thermodynamic regulation. But the entire Ware series defys this gravitas, and is well worth starting if youve never encountered it. – reviewed by sta hi

Spaceland: A Novel of the Fourth Dimension

Bookian — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:03:17 +0000

Hey! Git Flat! yeah! another rocking novel from Rudy Rucker. 3-D, 4-D, hell why stop there. N-D-A. Yep, its silicon time again, and from the heat of the startup central comes an inter-dimensional marketing plan. The writing is funny, fast, and the high tech startup back story is awesome. Except if your on one side, its the back story, and the other side, its the back side still! only in the middle is the back story the front story. And its also in the middle where Rucker likes to have his character sitting around without any clothes on trying to figure out what to do. Reminds me of the Early 20th Century Socialist Nudist Cult Utopias in an introduction to some other book I just read. But in Rucker, its a little less socialist and a lot more capitalist. which is cool, thats cool, like, but, hey, wheres the surfing? Gnarly. – reviewed by dfgh

Software Engineering and Computer Games

Bookian — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:58:17 +0000

Not to review textbooks, but this is a good textbook. Its rare that discussions of engineering veer into the conceptual gestalt as much, especially as practices become enmeshed in ratiocination to the nth degree. The window foundation class codebase is highly outdated and inappropriate for the level of design presentation and discussion, but if taken as a mere example of one instantiation of a uml take, sok. – reviewed by proggie

Mad Professor: The Uncollected Short Stories of Rudy Rucker

Bookian — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:53:17 +0000

For those who have read Ruckers novels, many of these storys are familiar, with a few add in tweaks. For those who havent, lord only knows what theyll think. Not a bad collection but I preferred his very early shorts. They had a roughness and less formulaic infectiousness, not that his writing ever lacks infectiousness. A three for homogenity. The novels are better. – reviewed by eigenvector

The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul: What Gnarly Computation Taught Me About Ultimate Reality, the Meaning of Life, and How to Be Happy

Bookian — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:49:17 +0000

Ok. Universal automatism. This is hopeful. However, if you remove four letters, you are left with Universal Autism. Is this where www.omat.com will take us? Rucker has a good discussion here about the integration of meat and machine, but before we reach that physical stage, there are some conceptual machines that might need to be looked at. Hey, nice new hardware! dont forget to upgrade the software! The scary thing is the implications of software development lag behind the hardware. Its like giving a two year old a loaded gun. by the time the kids software figures out the gun is dangerous, teh gun (sic) has killed off the software. Either way, there should be more discussions of these types of implications of whatever before we eventually whatever, whenever. Recommended. – reviewed by cone

Frek and the Elixir

Bookian — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:44:17 +0000

An adventure story of the boy and his dog type, although distorted through the lens of Rucker. Not as exciting as some of his more theoretical based books, but still quite a good read. The ecology angle is good and contemporary. Item: Aside from Treasure Island, not that into the formula. However, my 16 year old son enjoyed it. Youth is master. – reviewed by wetware instead

Mathematicians in Love

Bookian — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:39:17 +0000

An excellent read. Rudy Rucker has got a highly lubricated imagination and can churn this stuff out like rocketfuel. For those of us who have lived through at minimum an undergraduate math degree, awesome vindication! Complete with hyperdimensional faculty soap operas. Like a Russian Kominderhutz, but with a west-coast tang. Its true, some mathematicians do surf. Best line? The Fascist Earth Rapers have stolen another election! (pg 52). Brian Aldiss had this one old book, Barefoot in the Head, which was pretty comparable in certain ways, but its more tempting to reference other modern writers who deal in the density and speed of modern life. If Thomas Pynchon wrote in modern dialog, filtered through the speed of computers, he might have similar density of abstract structures hiding out behind the text as Rucker, although they are built off of the fractal history of human literature rather than conceptual abstract mathematic structures. Though, of course, one may be closer to the other than some would admit. In Mathematicians in Love, Rucker is full speed ahead. Plots change every page. Its like, Jetski, or whatever. Its nice to read his importing of emotional quandry eggs into the abstract mathematical imaginings, as books like this need to communicate some tinge of honesty if they dont want to spin off into the realm of pure textual structure like the Solid Confessor or Joyce Ulysses or Rabelais, tho the Solid Confessor is pretty much science fiction. Or the strangeness of Plantaddict from Otternesses Boerarrium… But the early Rucker shorts like 57th Franz Kafka have a more direct focus which his later novels lack, minus Wetware of course. At the end of the torus, though, his writing gets better and better, and his imagination is on an exponential curve upward. One of those authors that give hope the human race can survive its apocalyptic bent, if only it could gestalt a bit more. – reviewed by 57th Franz Kafka