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Software Rudy Rucker 9780380701773 Books

Download As PDF : Software Rudy Rucker 9780380701773 Books

Software Rudy Rucker 9780380701773 Books

Rudy, Rudy, Rudy.
What can I say?
This is the genius that gave me Frek and the Elixir.
I am forever in his debt.
This is a toothsome frolic, all the more wonderful when one considers is was penned almost 40 years ago!
Many imitators, only one Rucker, P.K.D.'s apparent grandchild.


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Software Rudy Rucker 9780380701773 Books Reviews

Rudy Rucker's novel, Software, was published in 1982, two years before the novel that would become the flagship of Cyberpunk Science Fiction, Neuromancer, was published. However, Software is considered to be one of the novels that is part of the Cyberpunk canon. Its narrative shows the scientific and philosopical education of the author (Wikipedia informs that Rudy Rucker is the grand-grandson of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel). Briefly put, it is a story about robots that acquire conscience and autonomy, and under the pretext of showing gratitude to their creator they promise to make him inmortal. The said creator, Cobb Anderson, is an aging hippie secluded in a sort of "reservation" the government has set up for aging and non conformist population. He accepts the offer without asking for explanation about how the robots pretend to do that. In the end it turns out that the "mechanic children of men" want to fulfill the evolution dream....! I will not give further details in order not to spoil the pleasure of the potential readers. Well, the novel is well written, with some spots of surrealist writing, and compared to Gibson's Neuromancer, it is a much more softer read than Neuromancer, that for me, in spite of its high literary status within the science fiction genre,turned out to be a very hard to read novel. At times I did not know if I was reading a film script draft, or a William Burroughs non-linear narrative. I certainly did not find that lack of continuity in Software, which flowed easily through its different passages and philosophical ruminations. Software might not have as high an status as Neuromancer, but you will not be dissapointed by it. No wonder it was the first novel granted with the Philip K. Dick Award in 1983, an award Gibson's Neuromancer would get two years later.
Software is the first in a tetralogy by Rudy Rucker - the others are Wetware, Freeware and Realware. All four are available in a one volume edition - the Ware Tetralogy. Like other books by Rucker that I have read, it is a bit strange, but it did hold my interest. Software won the first PKD award.

Cobb Anderson invented robots that appear to have developed sentience. They live on the moon and have continued to "evolve". Now there are little boppers and big boppers - boppers is the name of these sentient robots.

Many years go by and Anderson is old and in bad shape. He is asked to go to the moon and told that the boppers will make him immortal. He goes there with a young drug addict called Sta-Hi and is transformed. The two return and things get really weird - even more so than before. ) You'll never look at Mr. Frostee the same again - trust me.The ending leaves you hanging, but maybe things will be explained somewhere in the three books that follow in the tetralogy - I've just started the second book, so I'm not sure as of yet.

Earth is a real mess in the time of the story, but still recognizable. The characters are very flawed personalities, but I found myself liking them anyway. Plenty food for thought on what makes us who we are. Is it our software?

I'm anxious to find out where the succeeding books will take us.
I'd never heard of Rudy Rucker until I found (tattered, on the sidewalk, by complete chance!) a volume with a short story of his in it. The story blew me away--it was so juvenile and refreshing and irreverent and yet dealt with some pretty serious and interesting higher brow concepts. I immediately ordered a copy of Software and was not disappointed. Software is playful and serious at the same time and a great starting point for anyone interested in reading Rucker's fiction. He reminds of some Stanislaw Lem or Philip Dick (yeah, I know everyone says that). I could not put this book down and devoured the sequels just as quickly. I recommend Rucker to everyone I know that has a smidgeon of good taste.
How do I get my $ back??? sent me Spanish version Way to go ....
While Rucker is not a terrible writer, and is great at expressing interesting ideas, he has done so much to make this novel irritating that I couldn't finish it. The characters are intensely boring, self-absorbed, drugged or drunk losers, some of them off-handedly violent; even the robot characters, which have supposedly attained consciousness, are boring. It reads like a script for a very bad 1960s drug movie, including the slang. That said, it is full of fascinating ideas, such as what makes us (or robots) human, what is consciousness, even robots can become so much like humans that they enslave and demean other robots, how should we view and treat older people, etc. I was entranced by the ideas and put off by the characters and writing. Not sure why this novel got the Dick Award, unless the judges were awed by the ideas.
I blew through this book for two reasons

1. It was short

2. It was addictive

This book is an interesting mix of "modern" cyberpunk type writing and content with older Heinlein style creativity. It has some of the hard edge of cyberpunk but I couldn't help feel that I was reading an updated "boy's adventure" style sci-fi story where we are taken on a ride and shown wondrous things without much background explanation.

I'm looking forward to reading some of the other books by this author but I'm hoping for more content since it definitely needs an increase in density.
Rudy, Rudy, Rudy.
What can I say?
This is the genius that gave me Frek and the Elixir.
I am forever in his debt.
This is a toothsome frolic, all the more wonderful when one considers is was penned almost 40 years ago!
Many imitators, only one Rucker, P.K.D.'s apparent grandchild.