Freeware

I've never thought of Rucker as a great writer, but he never wants for interesting ideas. While his characters tend to be fairly broad and cartoonish, the bright colors of his invented slang and weird technology make for a nice pleasant brain buzz. In "Freeware", Rucker continues his little AI saga begun in "Software" and "Wetware". The boppers (the little AI robots featured in the first two novels) are all dead, but their spirit (or at least their core software) lives on in the "moldies", who are basically big pieces of self-aware floppy plastic infected with a stinky fungus. Of course what Rucker immediately wants to investigate is: Can you have sex with a moldie? The answer, of course, is yes. The plot meanders through the backstories of its various characters (which also help shed light on the events which have occurred since "Wetware"), shows off the interesting abilities of the moldies (some of which require some suspension of disbelief), showcases exciting new fictional mind-altering drugs, and eventually comes to the Big Reveal, which I found fairly interesting. Although this sort of thing (I'm not going to say WHAT sort of thing) has certainly been done before, I don't think it's ever been done in quite this fashion. One major complaint I have about the book is its rather abrupt ending. Rucker wraps things up here in about two pages, as if he was in a rush to finish. A bit more denouement would have been nice. Basically, if you've read and enjoyed the first two "Ware" books, you're likely to find this enjoyable as well. Anyone who HASN'T read the first two books is advised to start with the first book, "Software", which is a rather short (150 pages) and breezy read.

..what else can you ask from a science fiction book? Good characterization, plausible sciences & other stuff you can find in any boring science speculation book scribbled by engineers. Rudy Rucker belongs to the GREAT freewheeling tradition of imaginative writers; forget Kim Stanley Robinson and Arthur C. Clarke, think van Vogt, Charles Harness and Barrington Bayley - he invents his science (that's why it's called fiction, eh?) and bounces off to the nomansland like some mutant kangaroo. This is stuff you can barely find on the shelves today as franchise poop is being pushed on all the fronts. Rucker knows his science but isn't limited by it - he writes straight from his subunconscious pool, winging it with gusto and joy. Engineers beware, this works on dream-logic and grabs you by the jellyfish.

I loved this book. It's light in style and narrative structure, and rucker doesn't take himself at all serriously. Rudy Rucker is a brilliant mathmetician and science fiction writer, and his protagonist, Randy Karl Tucker, is an uneducated redneck, whose primary passion is for sex with artificial life forms that smell of cheese. Other characters include a down-to-earth California surfer girl who, along with her stoner mathmatician husband, runs a fleabag sea-side resort in the autonomous nation of California, the head of a corporate empire who made his fortune selling burgers made from the cloned flesh of his half-human wife, and a delighful host of "moldies," artificial life forms with the power of gods, short lifespans, and generally no other ambition than to buy enough of the expensive high-tech goo of which they're made to form a child to perpetuate their own software.This book is an absolute gem.

Comparisons never quite seem to work. The closest I can get, however, is Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and Greg Egan's "Quarantine". Why? Well, the book like a prepubescent Heinleinesque make-love-not-war-on-the-moon jaunt, but has a reminiscent of Greg Egan's heavy physics sci-fi. It seems like a neat synthesis of the two, in fact. On the other hand, it's just a damn good read.

Freeware is NOT Tom Robbins meets William Gibson. Tom Robbins' books suck diseased, pus-filled elephant seal corpses. Rudy Rucker's books do not. The Rude-man is an original. O.K. Book review. I liked Freeware. Better than Wetware, not as good as Software (which is a super-great book), but worth reading if for no other reason than the slang greeting "Yarr there!"