In 2054, Phil Gottner finds himself in over his head as he deals with a drug-addicted girlfriend, a father who has been swallowed by a hyperspatial anomaly, a new love interest with a visitor from the Moon, and a mysterious alien species and their godlike, fourth-dimensional deity. Original.
מתוך Publishers Weekly
Philip K. Dick Award-winner Rucker (Software; Wetware; Freeware) concludes his satirical SF "Ware" tetralogy with this homage to Edwin Abbott's Victorian classic Flatland. Phil Gottner's discovery that his father has apparently been swallowed whole by a "wowo," a multidimensional holographic toy, is the first event in a series that will change his life, and Earth, forever. Phil breaks up with his girlfriend to follow exotic Moon-born Yoke Star-Mydol to Tonga, where she meets a group of aliensDMetamartians from MetamarsDliving deep underwater in the Tonga Trench. It turns out that Yoke's mother, Darla, and a woman named Tempest Plenty were also swallowed by a multidimensional creature on the Moon several months ago. The Metamartians explain that the hungry entity is really their god, Om, who reaches into three-dimensional space to capture humans for study. The gift of an "alla" from Om and the aliens allows Yoke to create anything she can visualize using "realware," based on the advanced science of direct matter control. Soon enough, the secret of the alla spreads to others on Earth and predictable problems ensue. Meanwhile, Phil is captured by Om and reunited with his father, as well as with Darla and Tempest Plenty, somewhere in the fourth dimension. Rucker's cheerful ingenuity with biotech gadgetry and applied mathematics is in direct contrast to the book's simplistic plot and resolution. Readers familiar with the previous novels in the series will enjoy the inside jokes, but newcomers may find the lighthearted story lacking in dimension. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
"A genius...a cult hero among discriminating cyberpunkers." -- --San Diego Union-Tribune
"One of science fiction's wittiest writers." -- --San Francisco Chronicle
"Style, irreverence, eccentricity, and cutting-edge scientific speculation. . . . As crazy and as stimulating as ever." -- --Kirkus
על המחבר
Rudy Rucker is a world-class mathematician and two-time winner of the Philip K. Dick Award. He is the author of the cyberpunk classics Software, Wetware and Freeware, as well as numerous other novels, including The Hollow Earth and The Hacker and the Ants. in addition to writing sf and popular mathematics books, he teaches computer science at San Jose State University in California and has co-authored a number of software programs, including an adaptation of James Gleick's Chaos and, more recently, a freeware flicker-cladding simulator known as CAPOW! He lives in Los Gatos, California.
"Wake up, Phil. It's your sister on the uvvy. Something's happened." Kevvie's breath was alkaloidal and bitter in the dawn.
Phil woke slowly. He liked to take the time to think about his dreams before they evanesced. Just now he'd been dreaming about hiking again. For some reason, he always dreamed about the same three or four places, and one of the places was an imaginary range of mountains, an arc of icy little peaks that were somehow very--domesticated. Easy to climb.
"Wake up!" repeated Kevvie. Her voice was, as usual, flat and practical, though now a bit louder than before. As Phil's eyes fluttered open an interesting thought occurred to him: maybe the mountains were his teeth. Sleepily he started to tell Kevvie his idea.
"My teeth are the mountains that--"
But she wasn't listening. Her blue eyes were intent, her foxface was pinched with urgency. "You talk to Jane right now," she said, plopping the little uvvy onto the pillow next to Phil. The uvvy was displaying a tiny holographic image of Phil's sister. Calm, practical Jane. But today Jane wasn't calm. Her eyes were red and wet with tears.
"Da's dead," quavered Jane. "It's horrible. A wowo got him? Willow says they were in bed and all of a sudden their wowo got really big, all bright and swirly, and it jumped inside of Da and the light was shining out of his eyes like searchlights and he was yelling and then his body collapsed and the wowo sucked him inside and crushed him. Da's gone! Willow's covered with his blood. It's so gnarly?" Jane's voice twisted up an octave on the last word and she began sobbing. "I can't believe it. Wowos are just a toy. Da and Tre made them up."
Phil felt a savage torrent of emotions, too fast to nail down. Relief, terror, joy, wonder, sorrow, confusion. His father was dead and he was free. No old man to judge him for not doing anything with his life. His father was dead and he was alone. No stand-up old guy between him and the Reaper.
"Dead? What--When did Willow call you?" Phil's eyes began throbbing.
"Just now. From the car. She's scared the wowo might get her next. She left the house to go to the gimmie. She told me to tell you and for you to call her. I'm flying out. You pick me up. Wait, wait, this is all too--" Phil broke off in confusion. Kevvie, who'd been avidly eavesdropping, smiled and offered him a piece of her chewing gum. Phil shook his head no. Kevvie tended never to have the correct emotional response. In company, she had to look at other people so she'd know when to laugh.
"What are you going to do?" demanded Jane's little face. Her pointy chin was trembling.
"I'll call Willow, then I'll drive Kevvie's car down to Palo Alto, and then I'll call you back. And yeah, I can pick you up. But--are you sure Da's really dead? From a wowo? It's lust a fancy hollow graphic that Da made up a story about! Wowos are math and bullshit!"
"Willow said the wowo pulled Da in like it was-- a garbage disposal. She said that. She's hysterical. She shouldn't be driving."
"I'll call--her. I love you, Jane."
"I love you too, Phil. Be strong. I'll see you tonight. I'm going to the airport right now."
Phil clicked off the uvvy and the room was quiet. His eyes felt so strange--bulging and puffy and aching. They wanted to cry, but for now they were dry. He imagined a wowo in his father's head. Light streaming out of his father's eye-sockets.
"Oh, poor Phil," said Kevvie. "It's terrible to lose your father, I want you to know that I'm here for you. But what was that about a wowo? That hologram thingie? Willow says that's what killed your father? A ball of colored light? The gimmie aren't going to buy it. She should get a top attorney right away."
"That's too--" Phil began, but broke off with a vague gesture. In his mind the full sentence was, "That's too stupid and autistic of you to deserve an answer," but he didn't have the heart to start a fight. Kevvie's inability to visualize other people's feelings was so extreme that Phil had come to think of it as a clinical psychiatric condition. Indeed, Kevvie habitually chewed a popular empathy-enhancement gum in a perhaps unconscious effort to try and correct her deficit. "E-gum makes you part-of," as the chanted commercials had it. But it seemed like the only person that e-gum made Kevvie more sensitive to was Kevvie. All these angry thoughts went racing through Phil's head as he made the little gesture. He reminded himself that he liked Kevvie. His father's death was filling him with irrational rage.
Da dead. Phil groaned and got out of bed, sliding the groan down into a keening moan. This hurt so much that he needed to keep making noise.
He wore only a plain white T-shirt. His butt was small, his legs were short and nimble. Phil's mother Eve was Greek, while his father Kurt had been German. Phil's body hair and chinstubble were dark, but the hair on his head was a floppy shock of blond. His sly, hooded eyes and sardonic lips made him look dissipated, which was misleading: Phil had been clean and sober his whole life. When the mandatory grade-school screening had revealed that Phil carried the genes for alcoholism and drug addiction, Phil had taken it to heart and decided to. . .
This hilarious finale to the award-winning series offers more cutting-edge science, raucous social satire, and deeply informed speculations from one of science fiction's wittiest writers ( San Francisco Chronicle ).
This hilarious finale to the award-winning series offers more cutting-edge science, raucous social satire and deeply informed speculations from "one of science fiction's wittiest writers" (San Francisco Chronicle)
Description:
In 2054, Phil Gottner finds himself in over his head as he deals with a drug-addicted girlfriend, a father who has been swallowed by a hyperspatial anomaly, a new love interest with a visitor from the Moon, and a mysterious alien species and their godlike, fourth-dimensional deity. Original.
מתוך Publishers Weekly
Philip K. Dick Award-winner Rucker (Software; Wetware; Freeware) concludes his satirical SF "Ware" tetralogy with this homage to Edwin Abbott's Victorian classic Flatland. Phil Gottner's discovery that his father has apparently been swallowed whole by a "wowo," a multidimensional holographic toy, is the first event in a series that will change his life, and Earth, forever. Phil breaks up with his girlfriend to follow exotic Moon-born Yoke Star-Mydol to Tonga, where she meets a group of aliensDMetamartians from MetamarsDliving deep underwater in the Tonga Trench. It turns out that Yoke's mother, Darla, and a woman named Tempest Plenty were also swallowed by a multidimensional creature on the Moon several months ago. The Metamartians explain that the hungry entity is really their god, Om, who reaches into three-dimensional space to capture humans for study. The gift of an "alla" from Om and the aliens allows Yoke to create anything she can visualize using "realware," based on the advanced science of direct matter control. Soon enough, the secret of the alla spreads to others on Earth and predictable problems ensue. Meanwhile, Phil is captured by Om and reunited with his father, as well as with Darla and Tempest Plenty, somewhere in the fourth dimension. Rucker's cheerful ingenuity with biotech gadgetry and applied mathematics is in direct contrast to the book's simplistic plot and resolution. Readers familiar with the previous novels in the series will enjoy the inside jokes, but newcomers may find the lighthearted story lacking in dimension. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
מתוך Kirkus Reviews
Another in Rucker's series--they're related through concepts and in style, irreverence, eccentricity, and cutting-edge scientific speculation--following Freeware (1997). This one unfortunately arrived far too late for a full review. In 2054, Phil Gottner's life is turning strange: among other things, his father been gobbled by a hyperspace anomaly and is presumed dead. At the funeral, he meets the stunning Yoke Starr-Mydol, a visitor from the Moon. Among the further complications: alien visitors--they call themselves Metamartians--bearing a gift, an alla, which confers the power of mind over matter. Are the aliens and the disappearance of Phil's father linked? What of the godlike being that calls herself Om? As crazy and as stimulating as ever. -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
ביקורת
"A genius...a cult hero among discriminating cyberpunkers." -- -- San Diego Union-Tribune
"One of science fiction's wittiest writers." -- -- San Francisco Chronicle
"Style, irreverence, eccentricity, and cutting-edge scientific speculation. . . . As crazy and as stimulating as ever." -- -- Kirkus
על המחבר
Rudy Rucker is a world-class mathematician and two-time winner of the Philip K. Dick Award. He is the author of the cyberpunk classics Software, Wetware and Freeware, as well as numerous other novels, including The Hollow Earth and The Hacker and the Ants. in addition to writing sf and popular mathematics books, he teaches computer science at San Jose State University in California and has co-authored a number of software programs, including an adaptation of James Gleick's Chaos and, more recently, a freeware flicker-cladding simulator known as CAPOW! He lives in Los Gatos, California.
מובאה. © הדפסה מחודשת באישור. כל הזכויות שמורות.
Chapter One
Phil
February 12
"Wake up, Phil. It's your sister on the uvvy. Something's happened." Kevvie's breath was alkaloidal and bitter in the dawn.
Phil woke slowly. He liked to take the time to think about his dreams before they evanesced. Just now he'd been dreaming about hiking again. For some reason, he always dreamed about the same three or four places, and one of the places was an imaginary range of mountains, an arc of icy little peaks that were somehow very--domesticated. Easy to climb.
"Wake up!" repeated Kevvie. Her voice was, as usual, flat and practical, though now a bit louder than before. As Phil's eyes fluttered open an interesting thought occurred to him: maybe the mountains were his teeth. Sleepily he started to tell Kevvie his idea.
"My teeth are the mountains that--"
But she wasn't listening. Her blue eyes were intent, her foxface was pinched with urgency. "You talk to Jane right now," she said, plopping the little uvvy onto the pillow next to Phil. The uvvy was displaying a tiny holographic image of Phil's sister. Calm, practical Jane. But today Jane wasn't calm. Her eyes were red and wet with tears.
"Da's dead," quavered Jane. "It's horrible. A wowo got him? Willow says they were in bed and all of a sudden their wowo got really big, all bright and swirly, and it jumped inside of Da and the light was shining out of his eyes like searchlights and he was yelling and then his body collapsed and the wowo sucked him inside and crushed him. Da's gone! Willow's covered with his blood. It's so gnarly?" Jane's voice twisted up an octave on the last word and she began sobbing. "I can't believe it. Wowos are just a toy. Da and Tre made them up."
Phil felt a savage torrent of emotions, too fast to nail down. Relief, terror, joy, wonder, sorrow, confusion. His father was dead and he was free. No old man to judge him for not doing anything with his life. His father was dead and he was alone. No stand-up old guy between him and the Reaper.
"Dead? What--When did Willow call you?" Phil's eyes began throbbing.
"Just now. From the car. She's scared the wowo might get her next. She left the house to go to the gimmie. She told me to tell you and for you to call her. I'm flying out. You pick me up. Wait, wait, this is all too--" Phil broke off in confusion. Kevvie, who'd been avidly eavesdropping, smiled and offered him a piece of her chewing gum. Phil shook his head no. Kevvie tended never to have the correct emotional response. In company, she had to look at other people so she'd know when to laugh.
"What are you going to do?" demanded Jane's little face. Her pointy chin was trembling.
"I'll call Willow, then I'll drive Kevvie's car down to Palo Alto, and then I'll call you back. And yeah, I can pick you up. But--are you sure Da's really dead? From a wowo? It's lust a fancy hollow graphic that Da made up a story about! Wowos are math and bullshit!"
"Willow said the wowo pulled Da in like it was-- a garbage disposal. She said that. She's hysterical. She shouldn't be driving."
"I'll call--her. I love you, Jane."
"I love you too, Phil. Be strong. I'll see you tonight. I'm going to the airport right now."
Phil clicked off the uvvy and the room was quiet. His eyes felt so strange--bulging and puffy and aching. They wanted to cry, but for now they were dry. He imagined a wowo in his father's head. Light streaming out of his father's eye-sockets.
"Oh, poor Phil," said Kevvie. "It's terrible to lose your father, I want you to know that I'm here for you. But what was that about a wowo? That hologram thingie? Willow says that's what killed your father? A ball of colored light? The gimmie aren't going to buy it. She should get a top attorney right away."
"That's too--" Phil began, but broke off with a vague gesture. In his mind the full sentence was, "That's too stupid and autistic of you to deserve an answer," but he didn't have the heart to start a fight. Kevvie's inability to visualize other people's feelings was so extreme that Phil had come to think of it as a clinical psychiatric condition. Indeed, Kevvie habitually chewed a popular empathy-enhancement gum in a perhaps unconscious effort to try and correct her deficit. "E-gum makes you part-of," as the chanted commercials had it. But it seemed like the only person that e-gum made Kevvie more sensitive to was Kevvie. All these angry thoughts went racing through Phil's head as he made the little gesture. He reminded himself that he liked Kevvie. His father's death was filling him with irrational rage.
Da dead. Phil groaned and got out of bed, sliding the groan down into a keening moan. This hurt so much that he needed to keep making noise.
He wore only a plain white T-shirt. His butt was small, his legs were short and nimble. Phil's mother Eve was Greek, while his father Kurt had been German. Phil's body hair and chinstubble were dark, but the hair on his head was a floppy shock of blond. His sly, hooded eyes and sardonic lips made him look dissipated, which was misleading: Phil had been clean and sober his whole life. When the mandatory grade-school screening had revealed that Phil carried the genes for alcoholism and drug addiction, Phil had taken it to heart and decided to. . .
This hilarious finale to the award-winning series offers more cutting-edge science, raucous social satire, and deeply informed speculations from one of science fiction's wittiest writers ( San Francisco Chronicle ).
This hilarious finale to the award-winning series offers more cutting-edge science, raucous social satire and deeply informed speculations from "one of science fiction's wittiest writers" (San Francisco Chronicle)